Bear with me as I catch y’all up on all that has been happening!
After 4 days of training in Atlanta, GA our squad spent 20 hours on a jet plane to India. We arrived at 2:00 am local time Friday,January 13th. We took a bus to the home we would be staying in for the next several days. Our first bus ride experience was filled with lots of honking & many ignored red lights. (Red lights are more for decoration sake than for safety sake) We also got to jam with the bus driver to some pretty cool Indian tunes. 🙂 After two days of cultural training & jet lag recovery we are heading to our ministry sites today. We are super excited to finally get to do ministry!!
Our team of 7 will take a night bus to our ministry location. We will be building relationships with underprivileged children & young adults through skits, Bible studies, teaching songs, as well as educational & vocational training. We will also get the opportunity to visit rehabilitation centers. Our goal will be to encourage the inmates through prayer & counseling. Finally, they would like us to attend two churches & serve them through teaching, preaching, & personal testimonies.
Although we have only been in India for 4 days, I have already experienced so much!
Yesterday, Sunday, we got to attend a local church service. Our squad of 53 definitely outnumbered the local crowd of 13! Haha However, these people’s joy & exuberance in worship was so awesome to watch. They may be a small congregation but that means absolutely nothing to them. Their time of worship involved everything from jumping, to kneeling in adoration, to choreographing some of the song lyrics.
We have already eaten lots of spicy but delicious food. RICE FOR DAYS!! 🙂
The Indian head bobble:
– It is A VERY REAL THING
– It it the Indian way of letting someone know that they are listening, the stronger it is the more they agree with what you are saying
– It means “yes”, “okay”, “I understand”, or even “no”; therefore it is confusing to the foreigner
– Foreigners struggle with this because a lot of times in response to questions you ask all you will get in response is a head bobble rather than a verbal “yes” or “no” so it is important for us to ask them for a verbal response! 🙂
Shoes are prohibited in the home & sacred worship places.
Traffic rules don’t exist. The horn is used to tell people/cars/autos to move, but if you don’t move they aren’t afraid to hit you & keep going.
Eating with your left hand is extremely offensive as many people use this to wipe their rear.
Showing your ankles, knees & shoulders are a HUGE no no here as well! So we have adopted the local get up for the month. 🙂
The total population in India is 1.25 billion! Of that 1,217,757,000 (94.9 percent) are unreached!! That literally blows my mind. Talk about some affirmation that this is where we needed to be. 🙂
Converting to Christianity from Hinduism is not a casual thing. Indian culture is very family centric. When making decisions the question of whether this would honor or shame one’s family is always at the forefront of one’s mind. If the family does not want to be banished from their community they will disown the new Christian.
Persecution is a real thing here. The broader community sees Christianity as a threat to their culture, way of life, & families. There are several groups that seek to return India to a purely Hindu country. Persecution comes in various forms: churches being burnt down, families being threatened, & public humiliation (ex. Stripping Christian families naked in public).
Please join us in praying salvation over this nation! As well as continued courage for those who are believers. May the people of this land see the joy & hope found in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. May they see the cost is worth the reward!
Thank you for taking time to read this & for continuing to partner with me in this humbling adventure of pursuing God’s heart over my own selfish ambitions.
Until next time! 🙂
Some of our squad in the cultural get-up: Kurtas (women) & Lungis (men)
Side note: Back in late December a couple of my teammates from team Cotton had to switch to a later route. So that left four of us on team Cotton, which wasn’t going to be enough people to use the resources we had been given wisely. We were split up to join two different teams. Hence the fact that I am now a part of Joyful Fortitude rather than team Cotton! 🙂
