Expectations: A strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.
India. The country i’ve been waiting for. The place I believe the Lord called me to from the beginning of my walk in Christianity. The country that came up in countless conversations and dreams and so many random pieces of my life over 3 years. When I signed up for the world race I put expectations in my head of what this country would be like. I expected to be in a busy city full of people worshipping the Hindu gods all around me. I imagined myself sharing the Gospel with someone who never heard it. My heart was prepared to be broken by the darkness around me. Even the smallest of expectations– insanely spicy curry, wearing kurtas every day, humid hot weather– all these things I prepared myself for..
The first step I took into India, God took these expectations and shattered them.
The India I live in is a small, quiet town that has been 100% evangelized. This town is filled with churches on every corner, even bible colleges– one which my team is living at. The curry is not spicy (unless you coat it with curry powder). Nobody wears a kurta here, mainly just regular clothes or there traditional wrap skirts. In the community we’re surrounded by, almost everyone you come in contact with speaks or understands English very well. The weather is not humid, but it’s almost exactly like California’s weather. Every single big and small detail of this country that I had organized in my mind was completely turned upside down.
In the beginning weeks of being here this completely broke me down. I questioned why I was here and started to shut down and fall into an extremely negative mindset. I went through my days with a bad attitude and zero passion for the ministry I was doing, completely unlike myself. In these first two weeks I was not only struggling with adjustment, but I was still not pursuing the Lord and my relationship with Him daily. I was not choosing to turn to the Word or prayer, rather I turned to social media and sleeping as often as I could. One night I was completely convicted of not turning to the Lord in my frustration, and it hit me how far off I was. The next day I chose to stay back from ministry and spent so much time in prayer, asking the Lord for a joy that only He could bring me. I found that after this day of founding myself in the Lord and obeying His call of me to serve regardless of circumstance, I began to feel a joy and comfort that only the Lord could bring me. I started to understand that there was great purpose in the Lord placing me here, whether I fully understood it or not.
In my next blog, I’ll be sharing about the Lord’s expectation for my time in India and how he revealed this to me!
