I’ve spent this month thinking about everything that happened in India and have been dreading blogging about it as I really don’t know how to adequately express the emotions and feelings I felt. It was a very full month with over 40 different ministries…alongside the most amazing Indian family ever!
It was by far the best month I’ve had yet. Going into the month I was a little skeptical as it was going to be the first month with my new all girls team… I was also stripped of my cell phone and leadership duties as it was going to be a month of resting before I stepped into the squad leader role. Needless to say…skeptical!
The first night was spent at the center where half of the squad would be staying for the whole month and then we were off to our contacts house in the “village”. This was all we knew about our month, that we were supposed to be in a village somewhere. You can imagine the thoughts that were swirling…village life with a bunch of girls whom I JUST got placed with…?! Perfect! After a day of shopping and preparing to not be around civilization for the month our ride came. We all piled in with our bags overflowing the top rack into the cab with all of us. …here we go…
About 20 minutes of driving through the streets of the city we stopped in front of a two-story house. Were we picking up more people?! Where were they going to fit?! We waited patiently for the new passengers to come out and join us however when they came out they started getting our packs off the top rack and opening our doors for us. To our delight, we were at our home for the month, our “village” home ended up being right in town. Relief! We unloaded and entered the house, being greeted by a beautiful family! We situated ourselves in the rooms only to find out that the family had moved out of the rooms so we had a place to sleep and a western bathroom to use. We also found out that they had just moved in a couple days before we got there. They wanted to be able to host teams like ours but the last place they were at (where the kids grew up) was too small to fit us so they moved. So, needless to say this family already blew us away. They fed us an amazing meal and we called it a night, as the morning would start bright and early with breakfast at 7.
Our first day of ministry started at our host mother’s mom’s house, they call her Amama. Amama has a heart for the women in the area and hosts prayer meetings at her house on the weekends. As she started sharing her heart for the women and ministry each member of my team’s eyes and hearts were glued to her. The words that were coming out of her mouth were so encouraging and exactly what we needed to hear at the moment. She didn’t know that we were a new team or that we were all a little hesitant/skeptical about the month… She was speaking into our team and calling us “warriors for Christ” which we learned, in the reference she was referring too the word warriors is translated to a host of women. What?! Hours into day one and God was already tugging on the heart strings of each member of re-bound. After spending the morning being filled with God’s truth and direction for the month we went out into the neighborhood to start our ministry. We would be going door to door praying for the ladies in the community. Something I was not super excited about but…at the same time knew we were there for a reason and that God was going to use us regardless of what we wanted. House one…prayers, encouragement, verses shared and tears shed. What was happening?! It wasn’t even lunchtime yet and God was completely consuming and wrecking us for the women of India! The day went on and my prayers got bolder and more fierce; God was giving me verses to share, verses I’d never really read before. I couldn’t put my Bible down. He just kept flooding my mind and heart with truth to be shared in so many situations.
We entered house after house being honored by seats and either tea or Thumbs Up to drink. Each house was filled with ladies and children with the occasional husband. When asked about prayer requests 90% of them answered that they wanted prayer for their husband’s salvation. Most of these women were Christians and were just waiting for the moment their husbands joined them in their faith walk. The faith they had was incredible!
At the end of the day we all sat exhausted on the roof of our home, trying to comprehend what had happened with our first day. We were all blown away by the beauty, strength and love that was shown by every woman we encountered. God was weaving team re-bound together one house, one woman at a time and as we sat on that rooftop we felt more bonded together than we could ever have imagined. As day one came to an end, all of the skepticism I felt the day before, and even that morning had dissipated to nothing. We were a God-breathed team in a God-ordained month of ministry and I was excited to see what He had for us on day two!
