Disclaimer: Internet in India is scarce. We have also not been able to work the international calling yet, so sorry if I haven't called. I haven't even called my family yet. Please email me though, the few I got meant a lot to me so I would love for you to email me about what's going on with you! I wrote this blog back at the church (house) so I just copied and pasted here. Thanks for reading! More to come when I get a chance to get back online.
July 14, 2012
So This is What India is Like
Our team made it to our ministry site last Tuesday, and we are living in a church building which consists of one big room with a pulpit and a small stage. We all put our tents up so we wouldn’t get eaten by bugs when we sleep. This month we are doing ministry with only our team of 7 people. We also have a translator, Isaac, who is 16 years old, full of energy, and so fun to be around. I ask him questions constantly to better understand the culture and what we should or should not be doing.
For example:
“Hey Isaac, what exactly are we eating?” He’s usually either not sure, or it’s hard for him to explain in English.
“Hey Isaac, can we buy toilet paper or are we out of luck when we run out?” Turns out it’s pretty hard to find. Don’t read this if you get grossed out easily – but I actually tried the Indian method a couple of times and it’s really not so bad.
“Hey Isaac, am I offending people if I have a tank top on and I walk to the outhouse from the church and someone sees me?” Shoulders and legs are pretty scandalous. His answer wasn’t completely clear, but he said it wouldn’t hurt to change clothes.
Electricity – Almost everywhere we’ve been so far has the electricity cutting in and out throughout the day. I’m still not sure if there is some method to the madness or if the generator just cuts it on and off. It’s usually on for a couple of hours and then off for a few. When it’s on, we can charge electronics and the best thing is that there are a bunch of fans on the church ceiling.
Water –We are actually blessed to have a pump to get water when we need it, but we were warned that it’s not an unlimited supply so to use it sparingly. And this is not our drinking water. Isaac and the Pastor of the church (who we call G-1 because that’s what his name sounds like) go to get us “bubbles,” which are the same as the typical American looking jug of filtered water that some Americans use in their homes. We pour these into smaller jugs and use a cup to pour the water into our water bottles. Last night, we ran out of water. Crazy thought right? But Isaac and Pastor got us more this morning.
Bathroom – The bathroom is a small room separated from the church that looks more like a small storage room. There are a couple of bicycles in there, there’s a chicken that loves to hang out in there and scare us when we go in, and in the back is a squatty potty and a big jug of water to take a bucket shower. Bucket showers are actually amazing after sweating all day.
These conditions are surprisingly not near as bad as I thought they would be or as they probably sound. We are being well fed and taken care of, and sharing living quarters with my team is a fun way to get to know them all better.
Language – People spoke Hindi in the first area of Andhra Pradesh and people speak mostly Telugu in the area we’re now in. It is rare to find anyone who speaks English here. We’ve had a couple of children or young adults who can say a few sentences and ask us where we’re from, but usually we can’t understand each other at all except through body language and our translator. The language barrier was one thing I was really nervous about, but it’s actually kind of fun to use hand signals and just smile when you’re confused. We’d be totally lost without Isaac translating for us. He is our safety net and when we get really confused we just call him over to help us with the conversation.
Ministry – We have only had 3 ½ days of ministry so far, but it is amazing but also really challenging and tiring. A typical day so far has been:
Wake up between 6am and 8am without an alarm (depends mostly on the heat)
Have breakfast, which Isaac has been picking up for us from one of the many small “shops” on the main road. The shops consist of a very small room with no front where they sell snacks, shampoo tester packets, bangles (bracelets), and fresh cooked food.
Have “Feedback” where we talk out things that happened the day before and positive and constructive things we saw in our teammates.
Have Bible study as a team, quiet time, play a game, or just hanging out for a little bit since our nights are jam packed.
Have lunch and head out to a village for the rest of the day and night. Isaac takes us there on an “auto” (mini taxi that’s round and has no doors) or a bus or any other transportation we find.
Once we get to the village, we typically play with the kids for a while first. Probably about fifty kids have come and found us in each village so far. We have come up with games to play with them like Duck-Duck-Goose, Simon Says, Heads Up Seven Up…we did the wave with them yesterday…and we play any other game we make up on the spot. I had them doing random motions and dancing yesterday and they would just copy me.
The kids are all so precious. I’ve always said I’m not a kid person, but my team totally disagrees. I told them maybe I’m better with kids that don’t speak my language or something. Or it may be because I have a huge permanent grin on when I’m around all of them. The kids just flock to me and I smile at them and then they all want to hold my hands and ask me my name. They are precious and I love when we put our hands on their heads and pray blessings over them all at the end of the night.
After playing with the kids, we go to people’s homes and they often offer us a bottle of soda (Sprite or Limca) or a very small cup of Chai tea, which is so good. We actually had a little cappuccino tasting drink last night which was better than any Starbucks I’ve ever had. Supposedly it may have had Buffalo milk in it.
Oh, and if you know me you know I absolutely love that there are farm animals everywhere. Okay, the chickens have been getting on my nerves, but the buffalo and cows and dogs and the occasional goat are so adorable and I always want to pet them. I actually pet a horse and a cow yesterday! The villagers probably think I’m crazy. I won’t pet the dogs though because a bite could kill you if they have rabies.
We also do a “meeting” at night or a service as we would call it. We sing worship songs in English and the kids have been singing us songs also. We then share a Bible story and one of us shares a brief testimony from our lives. I actually shared the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet last night. I was pretty nervous, even though the audience was mostly kids, but it went well and I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable in front of people.
We are hoping to draw more adults in the future to these meetings. Some of the people in the meetings have been Christian and some have been Hindu. I talked to a little girl who stopped by the church this morning and she said she’s Hindu but that her family will come to church sometimes, like at Christmas. They dynamic of sharing Jesus is interesting when the Hindus believe in many Gods and will sometimes happily accept Jesus, but we want to make sure they understand that we believe in only one true God, not many. Our team is still learning how to approach ministry and we have a lot to learn.
I know this has been long, but I really wanted to share some things about our location and ministry this month, and I hope to share more stories soon. We have actually seen God do some radical things including miraculous healings, so stay tuned!
Also, 5 of the 7 members of our team had a stomach bug last night and we’re still getting over it, and I also have a funky rash on my back, so please pray for healing over our team. I plan to go to the doctor tomorrow if my back doesn’t clear up, but I’m hoping God heals me before then.
I would say thank you for reading and for your support and prayers, but in this culture you actually don’t say thank you to friends. You have a mutual respect for each other and thank you is implied when someone does something for you. So I’m not saying thank you, but I will say I love you all!! And please keep praying!
I wrote that the other day and today our team could use prayers for health. Almost all of us have had stomach problems and many got some sort of food poisoning the other day. I felt pretty bad for two days but yesterday started feeling a lot better. Just pray that we could stomach the food because we feel bad when we are in the villages and have a hard time eating what's in front of us. Most of it is really spicy.
Also, God has done amazing things in ministry so far and I'm excited to share some stories. One quick one is that yesterday I was able to share Jesus with a Hindu family in the village we visited. The man of the house had said he believes in many Gods, but after sharing Jesus with him, he said he was forsaking all other gods for the one true God. His entire family then decided to accept Jesus and we prayed with them. There have been many stories like that and we feel like God is going to keep doing more and more through us. It's amazing, so thank you for your support and prayers and love.
Love,
Ali
