India Blog: Don’t Worry Be Hampi!
After 3 days of traveling to India and with only getting 3 hours of sleep in two of the travel days, we made it to India at last :)! Our host brought us to a restaurant as we made our way to Balleri from Dheli after our flights. This was the first time I had tears stream down my face from eating spicey food! Instead, I resorted to eating bread for the rest of that dinner. Hey, at least I attempted!
On the 15 hour plane ride, I had talked to a very intelligent Indian lady who grew up in India and the USA (I got to share some of the gospel with her – yay!) and she informed me not to feel too creeped out when Indian men stare. Wow, was she right that they stare…and continue to stare…and more staring, ahah! It’s like their eyes are magnets to white people! We are just that fascinating apparently, haha. Hopefully we will get use to if. I love it when little kids give us attention though. When we went to an ice cream shop, I saw an Indian dad lift up his little boy over the crowd and peek behind the wall just so he could see us. I waved at him and he excitedly waved back with a big grin on his face. The other children there kept shyly looking and smiling at us every 2 minutes.
Once we arrived to our host’s house in Hyderbad, we all passed out on cots for 10 hours. Then it became a game of trying to get rid of jet lag. We went shopping for tunics and saris. I’m so stoked to wear my two saris. Oh, and the airport lost my big pack, so I bought a few more tunics than everyone else did. God completely filled me with peace about losing my big pack; I didn’t fret at all! They found it two days ago and I just opened it today. Talk about living in abandonment and emerging myself in India’s fashion! I like not having a lot of things, as If I did already.
It was was such a beautiful culture shock to have experienced and celebrated Easter in India! As we walked into the church, we saw the genders separated that were of ALL ages. All of the girls and women were dressed in the most colorful saris and both genders were singing to a slow Indian Christian song with all of their hearts and souls. Soon after we joined them in the crowd, we danced and sang for an hour straight to fast and upbeat Indian Christian worship songs! That was the best part of India thus far. God was definitely joyful!
Our first day of ministry was on Tuesday. It is official that we will be baristas at this lovely, Indian hipster coffee shop to evangelize in Hampi, India. Apparently Hampi is the number one desired place for tourist before the Taj Mahal. We are blessed to be here to enjoy the beauty and to have the opportunity to evangelize to the many tourist here. I’m quite stoked to learn how to make many different Indian style chai and coffee! During our ministry days, we have 3 people stay at the cafe and 3 of us go walk around Hampi to pray and invite people to come to the cafe. It is pretty sweet!
India has been a blast thus far, but yesterday we received some news that is currently hurting our team; one of our team mates is going home. We support her because she believes this is God’s will for her, but we will miss her!
To conclude, here are some bullet point facts (I love bullet points!) about my experiences in India so far:
• At night our “pet” rat (we call him, RAToulli) almost ran across my feet when I went into the kitchen because apparently that thing couldn’t see due to the power outage.
• I had a near death experience; the monkeys in the coconut tree above me decided to drop a coconut literally right by my head as I was looking at jewelry.
• We almost got robbed in Balleri, India while at an ATM, but God protected us.
• It is almost certain that one of my team mates currently has Typhoid. Prayers needed.
• I fell to the ground laughing hysterically because I watched some of my team mates freak out as they ganged up on a spider the size of my palm to kill it. Our scared screeches and laugher woke up pastor Christopher, but he so kindly killed the spider by capturing it and slowly tearing it’s legs off one by one. What a brave Indian warrior he is – ahahah!
• There are many frogs and lizards that live among us inside the cafe and shower; I named every frog, Lima and every lizard, Bean.
• I got an Indian henna. Apparently it’s a bridal design.
• I learned how to make only the best Indian chai!
• So far I’ve met people from Australia, Ireland, Poland, China, and England here in India.
• Our host took us to a Christian orphanage called, Bethlehem. The children performed dances and sang for us, then we taught them a song about Jesus.
• Jenn and I chased an elephant down the dirt road today to catch up to it to take pictures. Dumbo!!
• Two of our neighbors who are locals call me, Mavina, which means mango in the Kannada language. Why? Because it’s my favorite kind of fruit :).
• “Crashed” a double Indian wedding and became the guest of honor.
• I had my first tuk-tuk ride. They are bouncy, breezy, and fun!
• Today was our first legitimate day to officially evangelize in our All Tribes coffee shop!
• Before we leave India, I have to write and preach a 40 minute sermon at one of the few churches is Hampi. Let’s just say I’m terrified to do this so I will need a lot of your prayers please. God will have me grow a lot just from doing this and I get to teach others about God :).
I hope you enjoyed this update and got a glimpse of this month so far. I am grateful for the enjoyable times as well as the challenging times. Please pray for this dark place of Hinduism to be filled with Jesus.. May it be filled with His light, His truth! Thank you for reading :).
