I am in India! It is so crazy!
The Lord has been doing so much already and we have only been here for 2 weeks.
When I first was looking at routes, I loved every country on my route, but was not at all thrilled about India. My thoughts about India were almost all negative. I heard stories about the smells, how the food makes you sick, and about how there was Christian persecution. India was not the country I was looking forward to, and I was grateful to have it as our first so that we could get it over with month one.
However, the Lord has changed my mind and heart completely about India. This country and the people in it, are things I can’t quite decide how to put into words. But I’m loving it!
Something the Lord has been teaching me lately is about how big His love for me is. As an American in our society we find the need to have to look at things so logically. If something isn’t able to be understood, we become frustrated by it. That is how I have been feeling when I try to understand my Father’s love for me. I don’t understand it. And that has frustrated me.
The first village we did ministry in, I met a little girl named Senea. She was BEAUTIFUL. She wore a beautiful emerald green dress, that was decorated with gold, and her hair was in a french braid going down her back. When I saw her I instantly felt connected to her. So naturally she gravitated toward me and followed me everywhere. She held my hand going door to door to pray over people, and when I needed my hand to place on someone I was praying over, she would run to my other side to hold that hand. Sometimes she would even place her hand on the hand I was praying over someone with, almost as if to be praying with me. My heart loved her more than I can explain in words.
After we prayed over people, we all walked back with the kids to the church for their service. Senea sat on my lap, and we played high five/high low with some of the other little girls. When service started, my team and I went to the front and sat on the stage, while the children sat on the floor. While the service was going on she would make eye contact with me and wave at me, and her smile just melted everything inside of me.
When the pastor began to pray, Senea bowed her head and folded her hands and I could tell she was concentrating her heart and soul on what she was praying. I took a video and picture of her because it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. She loves the Lord. And she didn’t even have to tell me that, I could see it.
In these past couple days the Lord has been revealing His love to me through children. He has been teaching me that I am never going to fully understand how great His love is for me, but like my unexplainable love for Senea and the other little kids in the village, that just burned all the way down to my core, His love is even greater than that. He put it into perspective for me. And it helped me so much to just view it in that way. I don’t have to look at things so logically to feel them and understand them. Just resting in His goodness is enough. He will pour His love into me, and all I have to do is rest in it.
There has been a pattern I have been noticing that the Lord is working in me on. I have always had a heart for the elderly, and I still do. But the Lord has been placing children so heavily on my heart. These children in the villages I am able to connect with and interact with so well. I am being swarmed by children in these villages. I think the Lord is teaching me to embrace the child in me. I have always been a child at heart, but our society makes us believe that when we hit a certain age, we need to grow up and stop being a child. In some ways this is true. We need to develop maturity. But at the same time, I feel like the Lord has been placing on my heart that it is important to keep that child-like faith, love and hope.
My parents are constantly joking with me saying, “Keeley, how old are you???” I’ve never wanted to grow up. On my 18th birthday I literally cried because I didn’t want to be another year older. “I just want to be 5 years old again!” I think it is important for us to grow in maturity in our walk with the Lord. But I think it’s also important to make sure that we look back to when we were little children. Where we didn’t have any discriminations against people. Where things were simple. Where we didn’t allow our emotions to take over our thoughts and our actions. When we allowed ourselves to dream BIG. I think sometimes we make life more complicated than it needs to be. We lose those qualities that children have, that we should be holding onto.
There’s a song by one of my favorite worship bands that says “So take me back/ back to the beginning/ When I was young/ running through the fields with you.” I really had to reflect on this song because like I said, the Lord is placing patterns of children in my life. These children in the villages, and also bringing up children in several worship songs I have been listening to. This line in particular has been on my heart for a couple of weeks. This morning I really meditated on it, and visualized running through the fields as a child with Jesus. And the picture I got in my head was one of the most beautiful images I have ever seen. Let me paint the picture for you:
When I was young, in the summer time, all the kids in our neighborhood would be out past sunset running around and playing. In this vision of me with Jesus, the sun was setting, and we were in the field in my back yard. He was chasing me playfully, and we’re laughing. There was a moment where we were filled with so much JOY, that we threw our arms back and began spinning in circles in complete freedom. This freedom was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Just writing this now makes my heart beat out of my chest, and tears well up in my eyes. The visual of being a child and dancing and running, and spinning with Jesus is one of the most beautiful and freeing visuals He could give me.
God is SO GOOD you guys. Like, this blog has been so hard to write because I feel like I truly cannot put into words what the Lord has been teaching me, and showing me. I am overwhelmed with gratitude, and thanks, and insane amounts of love. Love so big that I feel like I’m going to explode. I’ve always felt like I have so much love in my heart, and I never really knew what to do with it all. And the Lord is using the love I have stored up to pour out on the children and people of India. I’m so blessed.
I’m sorry this is so long and all over the place. We haven’t had wifi, and a lot has been happening. So I’ve had to put so much in one blog.
Prayer requests:
-Please be praying for protection. Spiritual warfare has been all around us lately. It’s been really difficult and thick in these villages that are heavily populated with Hindus.
-Please pray for sickness. Some of our other squadmates have been sick and dehydrated. Please pray for good health and for nothing to keep us from doing our ministry.
-Please pray for the Lord’s continued provision. And that we continue to seek Him in all that we do.
Thank you again to all of my supporters for your love and prayers. I love you guys so much.
Love and peace,
Keeley
“‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Mark 10:14-16
