India has been the hardest month for me thus far on the race. Y’all spiritual warfare is a real thing… before the race I never experienced it or so I thought, but India hit me hard. For the first week and a half in India I didn’t sleep through the night and I had headaches almost every day; it was hard to get out of bed some days. The culture in India is so different and women have no value. We had to dress completely covered. Honestly some days I was just mad that I had to wear pants down to my ankles and a scarf over my chest. I know that some of that was not spiritual warfare, but some of it was and it shook me to the core. I am a feeler and the heaviness I felt broke me. I did what I could and what I knew to do… my teammates would help me pray it away, but I finally quit accepting it and focused more on Jesus than on the ish that was not of Him. Romans 8:11 says “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies but the same Spirit living within you.” This verse clicked for the first time and I realized that I don’t have to take spiritual warfare because I have the Holy Spirit in me and that is powerful and with that in me nothing can touch me.
Ministry:
This month my team worked at Covenant School of Worship in Hyderabad, India. However, the students were not in class because of the holidays so our days of ministry looked a little different. The guys on my team worked with about 15-20 guys that lived at the worship school. They worshipped together, did slum ministry, spoke at home fellowship meetings, and they lived in community with them. While myself and the other girls on my team worked with the woman’s ministry at the school. The woman’s ministry is new so we spent a lot of time in prayer. We went on prayer walks, we talked to women in the park, we had a women’s service one night and on Tuesdays we went to a girl’s house and ate and just spent time with her and her roommates. So a prayer walk is basically just walking all around the city praying over it and asking the Holy Spirit to move. I also taught some English classes to the guys at the worship school. As a team we also helped with Christmas and New Year’s services. My team and I lived in the worship school as well so our host was the director of the school along with two other people that are over the men and women’s ministries.
I like to see progress and growth so for me this month was difficult. We prayed a lot and sometimes it felt like nothing was happening. The Lord taught me so much about the power of prayer in India. Almost everyday my female teammates and one of our hosts Bekka began our day with prayer and worship for about an hour. It was one of my favorite times of the day. I got to spend so much time just sitting with the Lord and talking to Him.
We got to have movie and games nights with the guys at the worship school and this was during an intense game of spoons.
One of our last nights at the worship school the girls got to go to the slums with all of the guys. I got to play with this little cutie and pray over many other families.
This is the girls on my team with some of the girls we spent time with on Tuesday nights.
Christmas Eve:
This was our Christmas Eve service that included games, a bonfire, cake, tea, fireworks, a skit of the story of baby Jesus, a message, and worship… the Indian people connect so powerfully with the Lord through worship. What a beautiful thing it is to have new traditions to be a part of.
Christmas Eve family picture… this is my last month with this team as team changes are coming next month. I am so thankful to have gotten to experience Africa with these people. I can’t think of Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, or even India without thinking of these beauties and how they grew me and loved me.
Christmas Morning:
This is our Christmas morning meal… bananas, biscuits, apple juice and orange juice.
This is our Christmas tree this year and all of our presents.
We did a white elephant gift exchange this year… this is all of us with our presents before the madness of opening them began.
The best present I got this Christmas was getting to talk to these sisters and mama. So thankful for Facetime and getting to talk to people that just get me.
I got a little crazy and I bought a saree…Self-confidence for the win.
Dressed in our Sunday best for Christmas morning service.
New Years: For New Years we had a worship service and some squadmates from other teams joined us… We got to ring in the New Year by worshipping God and thanking Him for another year. 
Look mom I got to eat with my hands all month.
One awesome thing this month was that my team was about a 30 minute walk from two other teams on our squad so we got to have an oreo party together and it was good. Seeing these faces was a regular thing and I kinda loved it.
I also got to spend the day with this beautiful squad leader, Megan. We ate McDonalds, drank coffee, went shopping and tried on clothes we couldn’t buy, I got a pedicure and she got her hair washed, we dreamed about the future, and we saw Star Wars. It was one of my favorite days on the race because I got to spend it with this friend. Megan, thank you for being a place of comfort and home for me on the race…sometimes that is hard to find in this crazy life we live.
What i learned this month…
I learned I have power through the Holy Spirit.
I also learned to begin to see my character through the eyes of Jesus. I have the same characteristics and personality I did at home, but now I see what I bring as gifts from the Lord and those are not by my own doing, but His.
I have learned that sometimes your soul needs seasons of prayer.
I also learned to dream big… twice this month I was asked what my God dreams were. Since I was 12 years old my dream was to love people around the world and live in places around the world and I am currently doing that… I am living my God dream. So I am learning to dream beyond this and reach for more.
There were many times this month where I had the choice to pray…”Father save me” or “Father, glorify your name.” I honestly prayed both. I grew more in India than any other month… unless the Lord asks/drags me I will not come back to India and I think that’s okay. Father may your name be glorified in this place.
We’re doing the thing!
Much love, Carson
