India is a lot of things, and depending on who you ask that has visited it you’ll get different answers. For me, India was where I learned that I love spicy food and that I am capable of eating food that looked like it came out of the other end of someone WITH MY HANDS all while loving it!
India started with a flight that I was actually rather anxious to get on to. I had asked my squadmate Christy to pray over me before getting onto the plane because I was uneasy about it. Why? Because I had known that in India you couldn’t preach the gospel freely, it’s actually illegal and people take it the wrong way. Also, in other countries in Asia prior to India I had experienced a handful of uncomfortable encounters with Indian men. The way they would look at me and smirk and even some of the words they would say towards me. In the Chinese market in Malaysia I had one Indian man specifically say that he would like to take me into a dark room and when I refused he said that he would feed me first. Crazy, I thought so too.
However, it was definitely wrong of me to associate all Indian men as this way. It’s also a fact that there is division between men and women in India and I’m all about social equality plus I would ALWAYS say hi to everyone while walking and felt restricted because of this culture. Culturally, men are valued higher than the women in India, thus putting me in an even higher bracket of isolation from their community; a white Christian woman… yay.
When getting into India I still didn’t find rest. Aside from my very undesirable taxi ride and lots of shouting to get to my first hostel with my team, I still found it near impossible to find rest and comfort in the city I was in.
Then God reminded me – last summer my mother told me that her friend’s daughter (whom I had grown up playing with) had married and moved to India. I remember thinking wow, what a culture shock and major life change. Not only is she brave enough to marry a man quickly out of college and change that part of her life, she’s moving to a different country on the other side of the world, this woman is BRAVE! So I reached out and messaged her on Facebook asking for any and all advice she could give me about being in her new home country.
-Side note- going into India my team had many members that had connections in this country and we prayed about all of them and reached out to very few. I reached out to my long lost friend just for some encouragement and tips to feel better acclimated to this new and challenging environment. It was for my personal processing that I needed this friend in this time… however God made it go even further!
My friend responded! She responded with enthusiasm and great concern for the safety of me and my group and recommended that we connect with someone that could help us in person that was closer to us. I brought the two referred connections that were in our city to my team and we prayed. Then boom, the first connection was made. We met with my friend’s referral who happened to be an American woman who moved to India and married an Indian man. I got the opportunity to share my heart, worries, struggles with her and she totally understood me! She prayed over me and related to me and instantly I finally felt at home and at peace. Praise God!
We ended up deciding as a group to stay with her and her family to encourage her in her faith and where she was at sometimes feeling the stress of being a foreigner in a foreign country full of culture. We also got to dive into ministry opportunities within the area and were greatly blessed!
Then, it was time to move and the Lord told us New Delhi. We knew that as a team we were called to go where the tourists are and then from there would hone into what else the Lord had for us. Sometimes this included tourist, other times it’s people who deal with tourists daily, and other times we’re meant to be with people who just live in these areas that tourists choose to visit often.
The husband of the first connection connected us to a family in New Delhi that would house us, for FREE! And they insisted on feeding us… FOR FREE. Something we had prayed for. Why? Because in choosing train tickets from Kolkata to New Delhi, we were advised many times that the two cheaper options were not safe, especially for a group of foreign ladies. We over paid for our transportation dramatically and knew that the Lord would take care of us once we got into N.D. but had no idea He would bless us in the way that He did! We not only got a free place to stay and free food, but we all now have even MORE family in India from brothers and sisters to a new Nani (grandma).
I haven’t written much about India because a LOT happened while we were there, but the biggest God thing that happened was how He showed up in providing exactly what my team and I needed. I wasn’t the only one that was uneasy at the beginning and I wasn’t the only one praying for help in finances as well.
When we ask God for things we need to not be surprised that He answers them, but quick to praise Him for His blessings and His glory and His grace. Friends, I know life at home is different than the life I’m living now, but are you boldly praying for things and when things happen are you calling them a miracle/luck or are you giving God the glory that He deserves?
