July 20, 2012
6:30 am I woke up to my alarm. I used the “bathroom” by squatting outside underneath the stairs of the church we are staying.
6:50 am I and Derek went on the roof to begin our work out. We were slightly set back by the mess we say upstairs. Clothes had been left on the clothesline overnight, and had been rained upon. Few articles were strewn on the ground and would need to be rewashed. We hung up the items that were salvageable and wrung out the soaking wet items.
7:00 am We began our Cardio Plyometric Insanity Work out on a rooftop in a small village in India.
7:20 am A girl from the village comes to see what we are up to on the roof. She stares and smiles as we are doing pushups and powerjacks. She brushes her teeth with a stick while we drip in sweat.
7:45 am Our work out is complete. We go downstairs and greet our team members that have awakened. Emilee takes our breakfast order.
8:15 am Breakfast is delivered. We ordered an “egg thing” as I like to call it. Flour, rice ground up, and an egg in a large circle shape with onions. The correct term is dolse. It tastes similar to a rice pancake and an onion omelate. Mangoes and bananas are distributed throughout the team. Derek has mastered the art of cutting mangoes. I think it is a spiritual gift of us. We also had pomegranate for the second time in our lives. Delicious!
8:45 am We begin Feedback. Feedback is something our team practices every day. We have a chance to say some positive and constructive feedback to each member of our team. The purpose of this is to promote growth, and call each other into greatness. Today we shared ways we wanted to see growth in ourselves, and then team members offered practical steps and examples of how we could grow. They also shared positive examples of seeing Christ in us in the last 24 hours. For example, I said I wanted to grow in the area of trusting in the Lord to be my strength. My team member, Michael, encouraged me to be bold in running to my areas of weakness or discomfort, so God’s strength can be made perfect in my weakness.
11:00 am Feedback is complete. Today’s was extra long, but time well spent. Our team leader, Alison, needed to send in some information to the U.S. Embassy in Nepal to prepare for our next month. She, Michael, and Emilee headed off to the Internet Café.
11:05 am Bekka, Derek, and I shook out mats in our “home” and swept and straightened up our areas.
11:30 am I attempted to “lift weights.” My homemade weight was a 5 gallon water container that was ¾ full. I am needing to be creative with my workouts.
11:50 am I made the decision to wash my hair and gathered my shower items.
12:00 pm I pumped water from the well into my bucket.
12:05 pm I took a glorious bucket shower and washed my hair. I feel like a new woman after my bucket showers. They have become such a blessing!
12:30 pm I head back to the church.
12:35 pm I reach into my backpack to retrieve something, and swiftly come up from a bent position. I bang the back of my head very hard on the wooden window shutter directly above me.
12:36 pm I realize my head is bleeding slightly.
12:37 pm My friend Bekka comes to check out my head and cleans me up with an anticeptic wipe. I am fine, it was a small cut, praise God!
1:00 pm Our lunch is delivered. Since we do not have access to a kitchen in the church we are staying at, most of our food is purchased from local restaurants and vendors at the market. For eight people, we average ten dollars a meal, or less. Incredible! Back home a meal would be about ten dollars a person.
1:05 pm I do my quiet time. I am currently doing a study on the book of Jonah.
1:30 pm I doze off.
1:50 pm Alison, Michael, and Emilee return with presents of Mangoes, almonds, and cashews.
2:00 pm We sit down to eat lunch. Lunch consists of fried rice, chipote, a chicken with yummy spice, and another “egg thing.” This egg dish is scrambled egg , onion, and spice all mixed together. Delicious!
2:30 pm We clean up lunch.
3:00 pm We gather items and use the “bathroom” one last time.
3:20 pm Our Rick-Shaw is loaded up and we head out to our ministry site.
4:00 pm We see a huge rock and the boys want to get out and climb. We make a quick stop and attempt to climb part of the rock. Long skirts and flip flops can be rather constricting. The view is beautiful, and we decide to return on our day off.
4:20 pm We have headed back in the Rick-Shaw and spot monkeys, monkeys, and more monkeys! We get out to take some pictures.
4:45 pm We arrive at a Hindu temple and get out. People begin to stream towards us and crowd around. Michael presents the Gospel message and we do a Zaccheus skit.
5:00 pm We continue on our way to the village.
5:05 pm We arrive at a predominately Hindu village and begin to present the gospel. We are asked to leave.
5:20 pm We arrive at a different village and share multiple skits, songs, testimony, and the Gospel message. Children and people are attentive and engaging. I am recorded by several men on their cell phones as I give my testimony.
We walk around the village and pray for healing for numerous people with back pain, leg pains, blindness, and much more. We are followed by many children who hold our hands and ask us, “How are you? I am fine. What is your name?”
6:10 pm We get asked to pray over a three month old baby boy. This child looked 3 weeks early, due to being premature. He is a miracle to be alive. Typically, in this part of India, the parents wait 6 months to name their baby. We were asked by the mother to name her son. We named him David, in prayer that he would grow to be a man after God’s own heart.
6:30 pm We are shown hospitality by a family and asked to sit on their beds as they serve us chai tea.
We pray for more people.
7:00 pm We are invited into a third family’s home for mango juice and a fruit that looked like a small blueberry that contained a large seed inside.
7:17 pm We are invited into another family’s home for some more chai tea.
We go to many more houses, praying over people with fevers, praying for families to be restored, praying for children’s education. We prayed for a premature baby that was 8 days old.
8:00 pm We are invited into the home of another family for coffee.
8:30 pm We continue to walk through the village and pray for this one family. They asked us to pray for a list of people they had written down on a paper. After leaving their home, we quickly turned around to encourage the oldest son that God had great plans for his life. The second visit, we noticed an idol hanging in the doorway. We shared that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I am thankful to have teammates that are discerning. Going back to clarify Who we worship and pray to was much needed.
9:05 pm Dinner served by a beautiful family in the village. Their hospitality is amazing! We took some Chapottes home in my purse for a breakfast treat.
10:00 pmish We head for “home” in our Rick-Shaw.
11:00 pm We arrive back to the church we are staying out.
11:30 Bed time!
You never know what kind of adventures await you as you wake up each day here in
India!
