India
Culturally, India has been the country to be the most sensitively aware as a missionary and a women, not in the fact that it’s illegal to evangelize but in the small traditional rules to follow, examples being:
•As a women one cannot show ankles or shoulders unless you are in the confines of your room, if you show ankles and shoulders you are either rich and western or a loose women. This gives us a chance to spice up our normal boring multi purpose world race clothes for the Indian kurta and sarees , both beautiful, colorful and hot. I didn’t think I’d be wearing leggings on the World Race but here I am.
•I was told I couldn’t smile. Yup. At our orientation with our host we were told justly that smiling and looking into a mans eyes you will be thought of as loose or flirty, even to a cashier or walking by a stranger. This one is hard for me, I love looking into everyone’s eyes and smiling, but I understand their culture and want to do my best to represent Jesus in a way that’s respectful.
•Right hand is always right. Use it for everything and don’t use your left hand because it’s considered dirty. Eat with your right hand, give and receive with your right hand, and if you really wanted to try to do everything culturally, use your left hand to wipe your bum. Toilet paper isn’t a thing in a traditional home…. don’t worry we have a stock of our own tp.
•The accent and head bobble is my favorite. My brother can testify that I’m terrible at accents or imitating voices, totally agree. But since being here I’m better understood if I put on an Indian accent with speaking English. I enjoy it:) Many languages are spoken in India but English is well known.
•18% of the world live in India. That’s a lot of people. The main city we are working in has around 7 million, the village we worked in that is considered “small” has about 200,000 people. At our orientation with our Christian hosts they let us know the facts and state of life a large number of Indians are in. India is the most unreached country in the world, about 79% of India is Hindu, among other religions like Buddhism and Muslim, and 2% of India is Christian. You can do the math, India needs Jesus.
This month my team (wild pursuit) are working with a special needs orphanage, babies and young children who have some type of disorder are left or abandoned by their families because they do not want a “broken” child. Volunteers come and help foster these children and care for there needs until and only till adoptions are made. It’s a beautiful act of compassion that these volunteers make to help these children in everyday life.
The first few days in India our squad had orientation about the cultural and walked us through what we would be doing, then for the past 5 days my team of six very strong and handy women helped move 17 girls from the orphanage home to another home 8 hours away. It was perfect timing for our hosts when we arrived to help with the move. You name it we moved it. 17 bed frames, including bunk bed we had to take apart and put back together, mattresses, heavy random shelves, clothes bags, a fridge, couches, tables, loading and unloading a trailer truck etc… if you’ve moved at least once in your life you will understand. Then when we got to the “village” of 200,000 where the girls would be moving we unloaded the truck and then we were told to paint one of the rooms the girls would be staying in. We all got excited about painting. We walked into a normal living room sized room, imagine a bunch of young kids living in a room, the walls are bound to get dirty. Paint and plaster coming off the walls, tape everywhere that’s holding colored papers to the walls. We had to sand the walls, plaster the walls and paint the walls with pretty much no instructions.
Personally I don’t particularly enjoy moving from life experience, but it taught me a lot, how I could help my team in maneuvering bed frames around doors or plastering a wall, who knew that would come in handy on the race? The Lord has been using even the littlest things I’ve learned to help others. God’s pretty funny.
For the rest of the month we will be back at our base house in the “city” of 7 million working with the kids and helping with whatever potential projects they need help with. The other teams on my squad are partnering with church planters across India helping local pastors and preaching the gospel, or helping with worship schools and abandon babies homes.
Prayers!!
•Jesus be the Center! When your team is physically exhausted day to day and doing different things it can be easy to put Jesus on the back burner to get sleep or rest or zone out into your own space but we want to show that Jesus is always in our midst even when we are grumbling over a bed frame stuck in the staircase. He’s still there and it’s a choice to see him there.
•Please please pray for health for me and my team in Jesus name. I could expand but I’ll save you the details. please pray:)
• My DaD is coming to InDiA!!!!! It’s called Parent Vision Trip, where parents of racers can come out to the field and be along side, help, and experience what we have experienced the last 7 and a half months, please be praying for safe travels as he will be carrying precious cargo from the US, if you are curious it’s American marshmallows and I’m not kidding. And that he will get to experience what God has in store while here in India. I can’t wait to see him!:)
Thank you with all of my heart for all the prayers and support! I love you all!
~Gabby
