I get to spend Christmas in India. Let me say that one more time… I GET TO SPEND CHRISTMAS IN INDIA!!! If I’m going to be away from my family over Christmas there’s only one country I’d want to be in… and I got it. What a gift this will be.
INDIA
Geography: India borders Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, and China. It’s large peninsula is an enormous trade advantage, providing access to the rest of Asia, Australia, Europe, and Africa.
Size and Climate: India is the 7th largest country in the world. It’s pretty darn big. However, that place about 1/3 the size of the United States is the second most populated country in the world. There are almost 1.3 BILLION people living there. You think traffic is bad in the U.S.? We only have about 315 million and two times the space. Not even close.
The country is divided into pretty distinct regions: the mountains in the North, (think Everest) predominantly agricultural in the center, and tropical and loaded with monsoons in the South. Fortunately we will be there during the dry season, but where we will be we won’t find out until we get there.
Language and People: Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, but the country also has 14 other official languages! (How can you have more than one official language… this is beginning to sound like an NFL sponsorship.) English, fortunately, is the “subsidiary official language” as the World Factbook puts it, but is not spoken by everyone, especially in the more rural areas.
Because I know how much you love variety, check this population pyramid out!
See? Much better than the ones we are used to in Africa. India is a developing country. When you have a country investing in infrastructure and healthcare beyond subsistence living, you have a stronger base of people that are able to take advantage of those opportunities. Infrastructure creates jobs, jobs create stronger families, families can create new jobs and educate their kids who add to this virtuous cycle. The converse is true too in the case of several African countries. Lack of infrastructure, jobs, and government stability remove opportunities for people to have jobs and contribute to society. If you don’t have a job you can’t eat, you get sick, you can’t send your children to school, and their lives are limited which perpetuates this vicious cycle of poverty and lack of opportunity.
Take note of this though: see how lopsided the pyramid is? How much further out to the left the blue side sticks as opposed to the red side? That’s the number of boys (in millions) more than the number of girls. Just for context, check out China’s population pyramid.
Pretty neck and neck, hu? Not what you’d expect? Turns out both the number of years in school as well as the unemployment rate are higher in males than they re in females. The literacy rate is drastically higher for men than women. Granted, this is an average. India is a developing country – and is developing pretty rapidly. The more rural places are the outlying numbers affecting these statistics, yet they are still telling. (That was my undergrad talking… forgive me for nerding out too much.)
India has the 4th largest gross domestic product in the world. For context, the United States is 3rd. Pretty impressive. GDP per capita is nearly $6,000 per person, per year. Astronomically better than what we saw in Western Africa. However 30% of the population lives under $1.25 a day. 30% of 1.2 billion is a LOT of people. How many you ask?
More than the entire population of the United States.
That tells you there is an incredible disparity between the rich and the poor. There are a lot of wealthy people driving those numbers up and there are a lot of poor people driving them back down. GDP per capita is not the best context for understanding a country’s economic status, but it’s a pretty general idea of where they are. It’s like an IQ test or SAT score. It doesn’t define you and it’s not always accurate, but you have to start somewhere.
HIV/AIDS seems much less prevalent – only 2% of the population lives with the disease. However that’s 2% of 1.2 billion people. More than the entire population of New York. Yeah. India has the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS on the planet.
In other info, the average age of a mother is 20 and women have 2-3 children on average. 80% of the population is Hindu, 13% are Muslim, and only 2% Christian, but 2% is still 24 million people. The Lord is moving in India.
Why I’m Excited: I’m thrilled for India. Going to India was THE deciding factor when I went to choose the route I wanted to go on. One of my sweet friends spent several months there a few years ago and it absolutely tore my heart open. I want to go love on these girls so badly. The country is beautiful, the culture is fascinating, the history and the fast paced atmosphere and the chaos and the colors and the food all entice me. But seeing Morgan love on those girls rescued from sex trafficking in India wrecked me. I knew I wanted to go there one day – and not as a tourist.
If you were to ask me if I could do one thing on the entire race what would it be, my answer would be to work in an orphanage. Of all the blogs I’ve read about India the default ministry the squads tend to work with is called Covenant Children’s Homes. They are a collection of family-style orphanages around the Capitol that serve orphans and children in crisis. This includes abused, disabled, and abandoned children and they provide them with love, education, nurturing, and skills for the future. My heart jumps thinking about serving here. Some squads stay the whole month, some are in a different home each week, some don’t work with CCH at all and do VBS, home visits, construction, etc. I want to be placed where I will be most effective, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t whisper a prayer that it would be with this ministry.
India is going to be hard. This is a blog from Racer Kayla Park:
We were told that India would be the country most drastically different from everything we knew. Women can’t smile at the men because that’s flirting. Women had to remain quiet and not speak or laugh too loudly in public. Women couldn’t talk one-on-one with a man unless that man was her husband. Women needed to keep their heads covered when praying or preaching. Women needed to keep their legs covered and their tops needed to cover the butt. Essentially, a lot of rules that have to do with women. As one girl put it, “Welcome to India. You are a walking sin.” In fact, all of the women on our squad needed to go buy new clothes to wear for the entire month (the cool clothes we’re wearing in all of the pictures above). (Read the rest of her blog here)
I’m so looking forward to India. Being there will be one of the highlights of the trip for me. I feel like my giftings will be best used in this country and my excitement for it make it that much better. This won’t be a glamorous trip. It will be hard. There will be sweat and tears and maybe a lot of waiting around or frustration or unmet expectations, but I’m excited to see what God has in store for me.
I am down to 8 days to reach my first fundraising goal of $3500. An incredibly generous donor agreed to MATCH the donations received through June 12th which is my deadline. The Lord is so good… $25 makes a huge difference, that’s basically the cost of a whole day on the Race with what I have pledged, but with this match $25 becomes $50! Your gifts and partnering with me have never meant more than they mean right now. Please prayerfully consider what the Lord is asking you to give. You can give tax-deductibly by clicking the SUPPORT ME button in the bar at the top of this page. Thank you so much for your support.
