I seriously can’t explain what all God has been doing in and through me these past couple of weeks. I am completely speechless, or in this case blogless, at God’s beauty, mercy, glory, power, love, faith, trust, kindness…He is just so infinite that I don’t know what to say. Thomas Aquanis, who is considered the greatest Roman Catholic theologian, stopped writing his master work, Summa Theologica, because he felt so overwhelmed by the glory of God. He ended it with one sentence, “I can write no more for everything I have written is straw.” I feel like this is where I am with my relationship with God right now, and it is the BEST THING EVER! The more I learn the less I know. No worries though, I will continue to blog about the craziness of God and what all He is doing overseas and in me, but for right now I am processing so much and a blog “just to blog” would not do justice. So instead, I am going to attempt a fun blog about some of the weird/funny things that have happened.
Day 3: One of the first times I had legit curry in a remote village about 4 hours away from our current living area, and it was wonderful! On our way back to our house I felt a terrible pain in my stomach about 1 hour away from home. All I thought was, “Oh no…no, no, no! I have only been here for three days, this cannot already be happening!” As we arrived home I ran straight for the squatty potty. (You see, it’s called the “squatty potty” because…well…yeah… you know why.) Also, next to the squatty potty there is a huge container of water so when you finish your business you tilt the jug of water to flush everything down. Anyways, as the forces of good and evil where battling it out in my stomach I just so happened to lose my footing and slip. Everything around me started moving in slow motion as I was falling and looking for something to grab. At a heroic attempt to keep my balance I grabbed the only thing in the bathroom, you guessed it, the huge container of water. As I went down with a splash (literally) all I could do was close my eyes and mouth in order to keep any unwanted debris from entering my mouth and eyes. It was bad….just bad :/ Let’s just end the story there and move to the next one.
Day 5: Our ministry contact’s name is Raja and his wife’s name is Mena. Both of them are absolutely wonderful and their marriage is such a testimony to the love Christ has for the church. However, one day Raja, Andrew (the other man on my team), and I were in the car waiting for Mena and all the women on our team to get out of the house and come meet us at the car. About 5 minutes go by, then 15, then 20, and now 30 minutes have gone by. All three of us are waiting patiently in the car, soaking up the hot sun, and enjoying the lack of AC. Then Raja let out a DEEP sigh and said in a thick Indian accent, “I don’t know about women in America, but in India women take FOREVER to get ready.” Hahahaha, at this point Andrew and I are just cracking up as we jokingly agree with him! All three of us are crying due to how hard we are laughing as we all point out that this trait of women is in fact universal. Ever since then Andrew, Raja, and I have been best friends.
Day 10: Once again, food has messed me up. However, this time it gave me a fever, body aches, a pain in the stomach, and just made me feel sick. So, my team took me to a hospital and as we pulled up to the hospital we all realized it was a Christian hospital. Awesome!! So, long story short I explained to the nurse and doctor what was wrong with me and they sent me up to a room. They hooked me up to an IV which wasn’t too bad, but then the male nurse proceeded to pull out 2 shots. He just looked at me and said, “Pull them down” as he pointed at my pants. My eyes must have gotten huge or something because all the other female nurses in the room just burst out laughing at my reaction as I realized I was about to get 2 shots in my butt. As I tried to get out of the shots the nurse realized how much I don’t enjoy receiving shots, and so as I turned over he said this, “Sing a Jesus song as I give them to you.” “What!” I yelled out as he just laughed at me.” “Oh yeah, it won’t hurt nearly as much if you sing to Jesus”, he replied with a chuckle. And that is the story of how I ended up singing Set a Fire by Will Reagan and United Pursuit for the entire hospital to hear as an Indian man stuck me in the butt with 2 needles. Later on this same nurse ended up serving me cookies and tea at the doctors’ house (The doctor invited us over to his house for food because we were white Christians), I couldn’t help but wink at the nurse as he gave me food. Don’t worry, he laughed out loud.
I feel like this blog is long enough and I am not that good at telling stories, I’m better at contemplative thoughts. Needless to say, MUCH more has happened and I will be sure to keep all of you updated. I love all of you, thank you for reading, thank you for prayers, and thank you for your financial support. Until next time, Cheers!
P.S. Fun Fact: In India you can get a doctors visit, spend 3 hours in a hospital, get 2 IV's, 2 shots, Antibiotics, 3 prescribed drugs, an X-ray, and an ECG for a total of 15 DOLLARS!!!
