Let’s rewind back to month 8. The setting is India. More specifically, a tribal village in India.
A few of us had been having trouble sleeping and we decided it would be a good idea to take melatonin. So, we took melatonin and the next morning we COULD NOT wake up. Like I’m talking eating with my eyes closed because my eyelids felt like sandbags. This went on for the entire day.
Around 6:00 p.m. we get in the car and start heading towards the village we will be preaching in for the night. Our normal pastor/translator was at a conference so he sent a friend with us instead who doesn’t speak English quite as well.
We pull up to the village and there is a wedding going on. And not just a normal wedding. This wedding was in the middle of the road and was a full out rave. We couldn’t fully make it to our destination because of said wedding, so we parked the car and started walking.
Once we arrive at the house we are immediately asked to start praying for people. Which is SO GREAT! But as we are praying a women standing right next to me starts having a conversation with someone about 50 feet from her and she is yelling. Right. In. My. Ear. And I start having trouble concentrating on what I’m praying.
After we are done praying, we are instructed to sit down. I lean over to my teammate Taylor and tell her that I’m a bit overwhelmed so she proceeds to talk it through with me and pray for me.
Moments later, an older woman approaches us with with a BUNCH of tribal clothes for both the women and men. Traditional tribal clothes for women look like a wrap around shirt, a backless crop top, a headscarf, and industrial type metal jewelry with no clothes underneath. Fortunately, they let us keep our clothes on. They start dressing us in their clothes which are around 3x too small for all of us, but they are trying with all of their might to make them fit us. Like forcefully yanking our arms and safety-pinning the head scarf in our hair.
The men are dressed in head wraps and wrap skirts.
My anxiety strengthened.
Once we are all ready to go they start singing. They are singing in a language we do not understand and they are asking us to dance. Our translator is no where to be found to ask if this is okay to do so we just begin to shout the name of Jesus. We’re flailing our arms and moving our feet and they just don’t seem to be happy with us. My head scarf kept falling and what felt like every 30 seconds was someone putting it back on my head and moving my arms for me because I wasn’t moving them fast enough or big enough. Within minutes, I’m weeping. I’m trying to keep my head scarf on, trying to dance big enough, and trying to keep a smile on my face, but I am weeping.
I am having a full on anxiety attack.
Finally the singing and dancing ends and they tell us we can sit down. I was supposed to be one of the people to share a message that night, but I can’t seem to speak, let alone gather my thoughts.
As my other teammates began to share, I began to process.
And I realized that it reminded me of who I used to be. It reminded me off a person who had no control over their actions. A person who would do anything to please and anything to make someone potentially (but usually didn’t work) like them better.
And I was scared.
I never want to be that person again. A person with no boundaries. A person with no individual personality because truthfully, I didn’t care at all about myself.
A few days later my team and I debriefed that night.
One teammate was in her element. She love dancing, loves wearing fun clothes, and was having a blast.
Another teammate was trying to momma bear me and protect me from people making me dance, but was having her own battle because of the family that had boys with muscular dystrophy who had no idea that their boys had muscular dystrophy.
Another teammate was trying to decide if it was okay for her to be happy and enjoy herself when all of her other teammates were struggling so much.
Another teammate wandered off a few feet and was covering the whole situation in prayer because he was so overwhelmed with what was going on and was so, so out of his comfort zone.
And my last teammate was suffering from a migraine as well as being triggered by something that happened in his childhood.
Needless to say, we were a mess. We all look back on this night now and laugh, but I can tell you that I will for sure never forget it.
It made me realize who I so strongly desire to be and who God knows I can be. And as I think back on this night, I am again scared. I’m scared because I come home in 45 days and home is where I was the person that I no longer want to be…
But I also look back on this night with amazement. This community was literally taking their clothes and their jewelry off of their backs to give to us to wear and to be apart of their village. They wanted us to dance with them because they wanted to include us in their community. They cooked their food for us because they valued so much being able to hear the message that we had to share with them. This community had so little, but they gave everything they had to make us feel welcome.
And I also want to be a person who is so willing to take the clothes off of my own back if that means someone will feel like they belong.
Love,
Banana
