Hey y’all!!
Usually my blogs are more weighted toward what I have been learning on the race, it has been a while since I have given an informational blog. I realized the other day that many of you may not even know what I’ve ACTUALLY been doing overseas lately.
Here it goes…
My team spent our February in India. We were in a southern city named Bangalore. Bangalore is a city of about 10 million people, but it is not built up as most big cities are, so it doesn’t feel like 10 million. It’s spread out far and wide, frequent long bus rides.
Our mission there was working with Rise India along with a guy named Ravi. Ravi took us all around Bangalore to meet with different pastors, to do house visits and prayer time with many of the believing families. We also were able to visit orphanages and rehabilitation homes for the hurting and sick. Most of our days were spent doing house prayer visits, we also had one week In which we worked for an AIDS rehabilitation center. We chopped grass with hoes for the week, a tough, long, hot but a great experience.
The great things about India were our contacts – Ravi Inc., they treated us like kings. The obvious work that God is doing amount the people. Great food – curry and chipoti with all the chai tea you can drink, it’s great for those who’s stomachs can handle it. There are tons of smiles in India, aaannnddd all the men have huge mustaches. The culture is very rich, traditional hellos and outfits are widespread.
Some of the challenges we faced in India as a team were extreme fatigue. I don’t believe that it actually has to do with the missions we were apart of, as much as the spiritual warfare of India, along with it being a grind-it-out month 8 of our race. We had to take care of our own health by taking some extra rest with time off of ministry. It became challenging to travel everyday. On the race, we have become used to many forms of transportation, but Indian roads are the toughest. Hot, bumpy, speed bump ridden roads made the daily 2-4 hour drives grow old quickly, needless to say bus-sleep was an impossibility. We decided to turn that time into prayer time, and come up with as many positive, fun things to do.
With a challenging month like India for our team it becomes hard to stay present. To give your all, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s hard not to overlook the country you’re in and hope for the next one. Please keep us on your prayers as we finish out the race, to finish stronger than we started.
Even in this hard month, it was definitely the one in which God rocked me spiritually in the most. 🙂 (Check previous blogs for details) It’s a beautiful thing looking back on it.
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Our Parent’s week in Hyderabad, India glued my month in India and Nepal together. Even though my mom’s plane was delayed it was some of the most wonderful moments I have ever spent with her in my entire life. I cried when she got off the plane. 8 months is 7 and a half months too long.
We spent our week doing different ministries. In each one though it was awesome to see my mom go off and gain confidence in ministering to others. She constantly asked me if we could pray for people, if I would take a picture of her and the family at hand so she could remember to pray for them. It was wonderful. We had lots of fun, and I really believe she got to learn more about the father’s love.
I will be posting a blog later by her, about her experiences during parents week. 🙂
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After our month in India we flew to Kathmandu, Nepal. Kathmandu is a valley in the foothills of the Himalayan mountain Range. It is BEAUTIFUL. We worked with a man named Deepak, partnered with High Adventure ministries. Two weeks in we moved to a small village named Danabazzar high in the foothill mountains.
Kathmandu is a very cool backpacker town. It’s cold. Not in the sense of snow like North America, but colder than anywhere else we’ve been this year. We spent our time hiking. Lots of sweet hikes up mountains, to temples, to monasteries. I loved it. Each time we’d hike to a place, we would pray over the place or the people there. We were also able to meet many backpackers at the stores, coffee shops and bars. We had many fun nights talking to people at open mike nights and bars. Celebrating life, singing great classic tunes and talking about the good news of Jesus.
We moved to the village and worked with Pastor UB. We hiked a lot again. More than before. The exercise was a breath of relief, in many counties we do not get to walk very often, nonetheless hike. God’a beauty is all over the mountains in Nepal. It’s HARD to ignore his magnificence. We hiked up and down the mountains doing house visits and preaching the gospel.
This made for long days. Our motto quickly became “Is the good news of the message you are carrying today worth the hike to get there?” (Credited to Mike Bergey) It is a great question, for centuries Christians have walked far and long to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ. Before the race I was barely willing to go next door or write an email spontaneously to tell some one about this good news. We got a taste of this evangelism, sometimes walking up and down mountains for hours to tell one family about Jesus. You know what? The family was worth it 🙂 One person is worth it. Jesus thought so, so do I.
Through these long days we learned how to love and encourage each other better. How to be MORE flexible with miscommunication, delivering messages on the spot and accepting that a 1 hour hike may very well be 4 or 5. We are continuing to learn, even in month 9 and 10, that the rest of the world is not America. It is a beautiful thing. Things are not like we are use to, or how we expect. We don’t have schedules or the easiest food to eat. And that’s ok, more than ok, it’s great.
My favorite thing about Nepal is that God really used us to put his name on display. Multiple times people came (in a dominant Hindu/Buddhist culture mind you) asking about Jesus simply because the joy and love that we carried with us as we talked about Jesus was obvious. It was a prayer come true. I pray often for people to come to Jesus JUST because we live out who we are in Christ. Not because of us being better, or special words, just who Jesus is. He’s attractive, I prayed that people would see that. They did in Nepal. It happened 3 specific times. With Sudan in the Hindu monkey temple, Raul in the park and with the school headmaster along with his son in the Danibazar village. It was awesome each time. 100% God’s doing and directing. They talked about how we described Jesus as “electric”. I’ve never heard about Jesus being electric before, but I’ll take it :).
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God showed us huge favor on our trip from Nepal to Africa. We got stranded in Delhi, India. I use the term stranded lightly. Ethiopian Airlines put us up in this SAWEET 4-star hotel or two days. We ended up being able to drive to see the Taj Mahal and lay in the most comfortable beds for two days… May not seem that unusual. But when you haven’t laid in a comfy bed all by yourself for 10 months, it feels AWESOME. Praise God. 🙂
Hopefully this served to catch you up on my last few months!
Love you all!
Jake
