We drove about 9 hrs to our ministry site. The roads on the way to our contact turned into dirt roads with huge pot holes. It was a long day of sweating and riding, and my back was really hurting. We finally made it with this beautiful sweet family to greet us! They let us set up our tents in the church and showed us their home- 1 room and a bathroom. They are maybe the most hospitable people I’ve ever met! The pastor has an amazing testimony of how he came to Christ (through a vision of Jesus coming to him Himself) and they are just wonderful people to serve beside. (They also are very interesting, because they will just come in all the time and just stare at us and watch us like we are entertainment! Seems to be normal here in India to do that) haha.
The first night was a rude awakening. Drew and I literally slept like 3 hrs, and mostly just tossed and turned in our sweat. I haven’t sweated that much since Columbia. I just had pools of sweat in my neck, etc… oh..too much? Ok, I’ll stop, lol. I also got about 20 mosquito bites and there were just hundreds of mosqitoes around our tent. Because our tent keeps in the heat, I tried getting up and walking around, but then I would get eaten up. Oh boy, I thought! This is going to be a long month.
And truthfully, in a lot of ways it has been a long month. We have had bugs galore. Termites have eaten through a bag and clothes of mine and smeared their dirt stuff all over my stuff. There are so many mosquitoes. Probably comparable to camping in the swampy area in Louisiana. Some on our squad have gotten lice. There are random other plagues of bugs that
who knows what you call them. And to top it off, Drew and I have scabies! Mine is only on my right leg, praise God, but that means I still have to do treatments, should bathe everyday, disinfect all my clothes, and never wear the same thing twice. Only problem with that is… there has been a strike going on.
Sounds like part of the government want to make our state we are in, into 2 states and they are striking against that because they think there will be a lot of consequences. Due to the strike, there is a water shortage! So in that way it is the worst country/month for us to have scabies(insert sad face). The strike also had jacked up all the prices and made the electricity turned off, and the buses have stopped.
It has been painfully hot all month, we have only had electricity less than half the time, we have no privacy-we live with our team and there are also random people in our room all the time and kids here constantly from the village yelling for us. Casew, Meyaggie, Liindsey, Judy, Howawd, and Duhdew. (So cute!) We have people treat us like celebrities everywhere we go and take pictures of us and try to follow us home. (Which is probably because there are NO white people here. I’ve only seen 2 and both were albino Indian.) And it’s also very very very spiritually dark. There is so much Idol worship and worship of evil spirits. We have seen people with the sadest diseases, people with bones broken that never got set right and have healed like that, blind, barren, deaf, mute, possessed, lame, etc. So, it has
been hard.
(So many worship Idols here, and as you can see in the first picture also you will see a lot who worship Idols and add Jesus in there. I think we as American sort of do this by giving Jesus a part of our lives and not giving Him our whole lives!)
However, in many ways also for me I have loved it! I love our village ministry. I love telling people about my Jesus and also just being able to pray for them and love on them. I love the beautiful babies I’ve held. I’ve gotten to play and love on the sweet children who are in lower caste and cant go to school that live in our village feel good about themselves and see Jesus’ love. I’ve got to see my husband have Christ’s compassion and even cry on behalf of others (and the dude isn’t a crier!) We have preached together, done worship together, prayed together, and everytime it blesses me! I love my husband and the gift he is to me! I’ve gotten to see Jesus physically heal countless people right before our eyes. I’ve gotten to watch and learn from our contacts family, how they love each other, others, and Jesus so well. I have gotten to eat soooo much amazing Indian food, because our “Mami” is the best cook! I’ve grown closer to my team than ever before! And I know Jesus better than before!
(Some Beautiful babies we get to love on!)-and a green chick?
(Ministry in action! Praying for people, preaching/telling testimonies, Drew teaching what the significance of baptism is and the baptism, Drew praying for one man who realizes it’s a holy moment and takes his shoes off, and some of my favorite people/memories that I will tell you more about soon! Stay tuned!)
