NAMASTE!
(how cliche am I? haha)
My apologies, friends and family!
My intentions were NOT to wait this long until I updated you all on what life has been like in India, and yet it has been SO incredibly busy and tiring and exciting all at the same time.
First off, I want to express my thankfulness for everyone’s donations and prayers!! I would not have flown out of the states to India with my squad to begin this journey had it not been for your generosity and amazing support in my desires to do this. As of right now, I am funded 86%!! And that is nothing short of incredible! So THANK YOU!!!
Before leaving the states, our squad, and the 3 other squads that left in January, all gathered in Atlanta for a few days of training and preparation. These were AWESOME days. We had such great time of digging into Scripture on what it means to follow Jesus day to day and what that could potentially look like as we work with ministries on the Race. We were given details on all the logistics, got to bond some more as an entire squad, and were able to establish what “norms” our teams (we have 8 teams and a total of 55 racers) wanted to commit to doing together before we split up to go to our respective ministry sites.
After that, travel was a blur. We took a 12 hour flight to Qatar where we had a 2 hour layover and then flew 4 more hours to India. In India we had some additional cultural and ministry training so that we could grow in our understanding of the culture and how to respect these people best. It was a LOT of information, but we go to do wonderfully fun things!
(my teammate Jordan with her selfie stick in a tuktuk!)
Chai was an instant addiction for me and many others on the squad (one of the days so far in India I had a formal “chai time” 5 times in one day! I wasn’t mad about it. Ha!)… we got to buy some more culturally appropriate clothes: leggings, jeans, or flowy pants with what are called kurtas or kurtis over our pants and some cool scarves, since Christian women keep their heads covered during prayer and wear them during times of public ministry. We got to ride in autos (sort of like a van taxi) and tuktuks. Riding in both, you fear for your life a little in the Indian chaos that is driving, but you just go with it and have to trust the drivers. It’s no big deal.. haha.
My team got to our ministry’s base building about 3 days after arriving in India. Our ministry this month has been working with such beautiful and sweet children! It is a ministry that works on the preventative side to keep children from being victims of sex trafficking, child slavery and labor, and keeps them from receiving a lower quality education, which increases the chance that they could become victims of these tragic things. From the ministry base in a bigger city, pastors agree to move to villages that have had little exposure to the Gospel and establish a church there. Each of these churches also become established “child development centers.” Through a sponsorship program with partners in the organization itself and with outside sponsors, a group of the most impoverished children in that village get the opportunity to have a private school education, to learn about Jesus and the Gospel, to learn English, and to receive a meal each day after school. They raise up teachers and tutors in these centers that help the kids with English, their studies, and to learn Bible stories and about Jesus. We have been traveling to surrounding villages to get photos, videos, and interviews with children, families, the private school teachers, and with the village development center staff.
As a team we have been able to play with these sweet children and to love on them so sweetly! They start out shy, but after about 30 minutes, they are trying out their English in conversation with you as 30 of them crowd around asking you your name!! They stare (most of these villages have never had Americans or non-Indians come visit them!) and giggle and will even pet your skin. haha. I have learned Indian games, handshakes, and so many little words in the local language!
My experience thus far in India has been so humbling. These people are embracing us when we are strangers and are allowing us to get a glimpse of what their lives and the lives of their children are like. Each house we have visited has offered a cup of chai and a traditional snack or a soda. They have allowed us to pray with and for them, even parents of Muslim and Hindu faiths. An instance that stuck out to me was in one of the villages, we visited a child who is part of the development program and his family at their home. They were very strong in their Hindu faith, clearly seen by pictures of their gods and small altars set up inside their homes. And yet, they asked us to pray for healing for the boy’s mother. They may not have fully understood who Jesus was right then, but they realize something significant about Him and about us as His followers. They had some sort of faith that compelled them to ask us to pray to our God and not any of their own. After leaving this house and praying with the mother, they sent some oil a few houses down to us to pray over and to anoint for her to apply and use later. And pray we did, that her own faith in Jesus would bring her healing from His willing hands; that her faith would cause her to seek and find that Jesus Himself, and Jesus alone, is the truth. I trust that she will be healed physically and that Jesus will perform the miracle of making her blinded heart see Him and make it come alive in trusting in Jesus for hope and true life. The Lord will count her faith as righteousness just as He did with Abraham.
What has been most amazing to me is that making home-visits to see each child involved in the center, we visit these families and see their pride in their children. India has been an incredibly hospitable place, and every house we visit offers food, chai, and chairs to occupy while we do an interview and then pray for families. In these interviews we have seen the impact of this organization here in establishing these development centers. Almost all of the families we spoke with have said they had never heard the name of Jesus before the center was established in their village. This blows my mind, and then I realize how sheltered I have been in America where there are at least 10 churches in any 5 mile radius where I have grown up.
I’ve been considering this crazy fact. That I could have been born here in India to a Hindu family working hard to provide for me and help me receive an education. I probably would not hear of Jesus or receive any opportunities to truly pursue dreams and become what I am passionate about. And yet, through this organization, these things are becoming a reality! I am so thankful in my own life to have been blessed so remarkably by the Lord. All good things come from His hands. Somehow I myself have come to hear of this man Jesus who is God-with-us, complete hope and love, who establishes purpose and relationship with us. I have truly wanted for nothing growing up and have been able to receive the education I desired to pursue whatever dreams I have had. And in this state of blessing I am realizing that I was born in the culture and time that I was born into to make much of what I have been given. My life’s purpose is not to amass material things and live a comfortable life seeking only my own pleasure and desires. My life’s purpose is to freely give what I have been given: hope in Christ and news of the Gospel— the eternal relationship I have entered into with Him. I pray as I am here serving and being SO blessed by these gracious people that I learn what it is to love out of the overflow I have received. To live with open eyes and willing hands that serve and seek the betterment of the physical and spiritual states of all people. I pray the natural selfishness and self-obsession that rises up in me is further pushed out by the increasing presence of the Spirit of Jesus taking over more ground in my heart, rooting deeper in those spaces that have been occupied with concern for only myself. His Spirit is one of action and love and compassion. He is making me more like Him, and I have to trust that process.
Though so many families in the villages we have visited this month may not understand who Jesus is just yet, they have had a chance to hear His Name. They seem to understand that there is something different about this man named Jesus who we proclaim to follow and serve. I am seeing the amazing impact of this children’s ministry here in India. These child development centers are in so many villages in this province alone, and people ARE hearing of Jesus who would have never had that chance. Light is rushing into these villages and these hearts of Indian people.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” -Acts 17:24-28.
Thank you, Lord, for your work here! Please join me in praying that seeds of the Gospel that have been sown will take root and be so fruitful. That people will see the power and goodness and love of Jesus and accept the life and rescue He offers so freely. And as they receive Jesus as their Lord, the only One worth serving and following and worshiping, that they would give freely to others the same love and hope that has been revealed to them. Jesus is doing beautiful work here to love the people He has created so intentionally. I am simply blessed to be a witness of Him and am privileged to take part in this work.
Thank you, readers, for your care for me and for your prayers for this people. I will actually soon be going to Nepal, but I hope to share some more before I arrive there with my team. I will do better about blogging after I get into a better rhythm. It is only month 1 after all! I am thankful for your grace with me 🙂
Until next blog,
Abby 🙂
