I apologize for the lack of blogs and updates and allowing you to all be part of this journey. I’d like to use this blog to share what ministry has looked like in India, Nepal and Romania. For safety, I’m not able to share names of cities and names of people I’ve met.
INDIA
Of the 28 million people living in India, less than 3% are Christian. Openly evangelizing in India is illegal. For the safety of the ministry we served with, our host and their family, we weren’t allowed to share pictures with locals or too specific details about our ministry. We lived and stayed in a church, surrounded by a wall. The only time we were allowed outside the wall was for ministry. We would leave around 5:30pm and would all pile into a “XL tuk-tuk”. We would drive anywhere from one-three hours to a small village. By the time we’d arrive it’d be dark out. We’d show up at a house where we’d have church for the night. We’d share testimonies and messages, sing worship, both India songs and American songs (we got really good at singing King of My Heart). At the end, we’d start praying over every person there, a lot of prayers for education, prayers for their families, jobs, houses. After church, they’d serve us authentic Indian food and try to see our reaction to how spicy the food was for us (it was VERY spicy, but also some of the best food I’ve ever had!). They loved taking pictures with us and serving us chai! We did this every night, but each night looked so different from the last. It was always unpredictable. You never knew when someone was going to hand you a chicken to hold, or when you’d randomly stop at a house to drink Thumbs Up (cola), when someone would offer you their cow or when they wanted to dress you in their cultural clothes (sari’s for the women and lungi’s for the men) and put flowers in your hair. Each night we left our house, feeling like secret ninjas spreading the Gospel throughout India.
NEPAL
Our ministry in Nepal was different from any other month. We had scheduled ministry on and off throughout the week for a few hours a day. Apart from that, ministry found me. We had a lot of free time, and I used this freedom to intentionally seek out ministry. Starting each day saying YES to whatever God had for me. Intentionally seeking to be interrupted by whoever God wanted me to talk to each day. One evening, after ministry, a teammate and I went to a convenience store to grab a coke. My teammate felt God telling her to pray for him. So we did, and discovered he is Hindu. We arranged to meet with him the following day to learn more about the Hindu beliefs and to share our Christian beliefs. My next story of being interruptible is from the following day. We went and met with our Hindu friend, and after a long day, we were headed home when we were stopped by the sunset in front of us. It was the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen, and all I could do was stop in my steps and admire Gods masterpiece. We’ve always walked the same road home, but for some reason we decided to go a different way. We walked down through the grassy fields. We stopped in the middle of the open field to finish watching the sunset and listen to some worship songs. As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, a women approached behind us to wash dishes in the small creek. My teammate and I looked at each other just long enough to know we had the same idea, and walked to the women and asked to help wash her dishes. She didn’t speak much English, and we didn’t know any Nepali, but somehow we were able to laugh with each other and enjoy one another. She invited us back to her house to have coffee and meet her family. We ended up becoming great friends with this Buddhist family. They invited us to their house multiple times to cook us dinner and talk as best we could through Google translate. We ended up having the opportunity to share the gospel with them before we left Nepal. Even though they don’t yet believe in God, I saw His love in each of them through the ways they invited us into their home, cooked us food, openness to want to know us strangers. They desire to know a deeper love for themselves and for each other. God guided us that evening to meet that family. He used us and allowed us to share His love with them.
ROMANIA
A new continent. Our last continent. Romania welcomed us with a fresh layer of snow, hot water and other comforts of home. On Monday’s we welcome the homeless into the church, play very competitive ping-pong, sip coffee and tea, share a small devotional and eat a meal together. Tuesday’s we serve someone through a small project. The first week we split and moved wood for almost seven hours. Last week we cleaned out the basement of the church. Thursday’s we go the the ghetto community and play foot tennis, also super competitive, and hangout with children in the parking lot behind a big apartment building. Sometimes we go up in the apartments and pray with families. Other times we walk to the park to play futbol. Friday’s we have a different ghetto neighborhood come to the church for a youth group type program. We dance and sing worship songs. Share testimonies, help make crafts and eat a meal. It’s so neat to see how our host has poured into this community. He has created a place full of love and has given these people meaning. He has taken the love our Father has for each of us and has let it reach people that most of us would rather turn away from. God has used him, his family and this church to give the abandoned a family, to the hungry food, provided showers for the homeless. God has used this place to make people feel welcomed. To feel like they belong. And the feel the love God has to offer each of us.
