I’ve been in India for about a week now. In that short amount of time I have gone from living in the heart of the city to a village on the coast. I have seen great wealth and great poverty. I have eaten rice and curry for every meal, seen a million stray dogs, heard two million car horns honking, and have cringed at the sight of a billion unidentifiable bugs. This, alongside many more things, is India on a surface level. On a cultural and spiritual level, India is SO much more. It is beautiful in all of its brokenness. People are rising up all over the place and experiencing true worth in Jesus. There are villages coming to life, one family at a time.
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For the next three weeks, my team and I are partnering with a local church planter. He has started ten churches in the area within the last seventeen years and we are going alongside him to strengthen and build up the communities he is involved in.
While no day is necessarily the same, we visit a new village each afternoon and pray for people in their homes. We listen to what they need and we pray for guidance and for God to make Himself known in the situation. After praying, we hold a service in the local church.
Last night we did just this. With it being the beginning of ministry, we witnessed things like never before. We experienced healing both spiritually and physically, and found ourselves relying on the Lord in a whole new way. We stood in crowded rooms praying for people who don’t speak the same language, yet there was a sense of unity and love like no other. At one point we prayed for an elderly lady and for her legs to heal. While she wasn’t running laps after we finished praying, she was crying and thanking us with everything in her as we said Amen. You could sense how grateful she was and in that moment, it hit me –
This is why I signed up for the World Race. This is the heart of God.
There is this universal language of love that I yearn for. It transcends languages and cultures, it defies every act of normalcy in my heart. It longs to meet people where they’re at and it rejoices in even the smallest things. This is who God is to me. He is this universal language of love that heals and brings hope.
So that’s where I’m at. I am experiencing freedom in where I am with the Lord. I am learning how to grow into this new season of life and while it is incredibly hard at times, it is so incredibly good. Each night I go to bed completely boggled by the fact that I’m halfway across the world diving into a life I’ve never known. Its the beauty and constant wonder of God that is keeping me here.
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I hope this made sense in one way or another. My brain is all over the place right now but I’m so excited to share everything I am learning. Despite the intense heat and relentless number of bugs, everything is going really well! It’s definitely a transition but I am enjoying it all. Thank y’all so much for keeping up with me and keeping me in your thoughts. Prayers are always needed and deeply appreciated 🙂
Much love!!
xoxo
Emily
