It’s hard to say that ministry in Manipur was different than the rest of the countries I will be going because this is all I know. This month my entire squad stayed with the same contact; there are almost 60 of us. Each day we split off into our teams of 6-7 to do ministry. The first day we went to a children’s retreat at an orphanage where there were over 1700 children being taught the story of Daniel. We helped with crowd control and just laughed and held and hugged the children. The next day we went to the ministry’s head office to load supplies to send to children living in villages in the hills; manual labor. The next day we worked at “home” helping the kitchen staff cook meals for the rest of our squad. We had a day off, then on Sunday we went to church with our team and got to speak to the congregation about who we were and why were there. On Monday we went to a hospital to do construction, they were adding onto their original building. We mixed cement and had to pass buckets of it down an assembly line to get the job done. Tuesday we planned a Vacation Bible School for children in a near by village. We taught them the story of Gideon, did crafts, and games, and worshipped with them. Wednesday we went to the hospital again but this time we helped with physicals for some children. We took their height and weight and checked for color blindness. There wasn’t a ton for us to do so we had 3 people walk around the hospital and pray for people in their rooms and in the beds. I was one of those people and I will say that was the most challenging and rewarding thing I have done thus far. God is stretching me to trust Him. I don’t like to pray out loud but it is a little weird if you ask to pray for someone and then pray silently in your head. So, stepping out in boldness and faith and the knowledge that He is God and He can guide your words is so freeing.
I feel so grateful that He has provided month one as a month of growth in many different areas of ministry. The months to come I assume will bring more depth and growth in one specific ministry, So, I am so thankful I got to experience so many different kinds in month one. 🙂
