I have been putting off this blog forever, but I am finally going to attempt to describe what I experienced in India. This was the first month that I can honestly say I experienced culture shock. The first week and a half was hard, partially just because of the heat. I don’t think I ever stopped sweating, even at night. We lived in a church sleeping inside our tents. Our ministry contact and his family (the pastor of the church) lived in a tiny one room home that was connected to the church. Then we also had a married couple who helped translate that stayed in the back of the church. To say that there was no personal space or alone time would be a complete understatement!! We would wait around the house all day (remember it is to hot outside to do ministry during the day) until about 5 or 6 then we would travel to a different village and literally pray for the entire village.
Riding in a jam packed van (usually 10 to 15 people) to go pray for people for hours was my favorite part of the day-every day. It was what kept me sane and feeling like I was actually doing something meaningful and for the Kingdom of God. Even though the country side was completely different than my home, if I didn’t pay attention to hard I felt like I was on a road trip in Alaska. (Yes I do have a very active imagination). The wind would cool you down from boiling hot to just a simmer and I would get to see a different side of India. I would see the mothers walking with their children to get water. I would see the fathers and brothers riding their motorcycles home to have dinner. I would see a ton of live stock just roaming the streets (I am still not sure how people could tell their animals apart). And every village we drove through looked different from the next.
But the best part was every night God gave me a sense of expectation. As if He was saying to me “Just wait and see how I will show up tonight” and He always did. Sometimes He wouldn’t show up the way I wanted Him to but that was all a part of the process of stripping me of my “control”, as if I have control over anything on the Race. Something I learned pretty early that month was that God will only move on a person that wants Him to. He is such a gentlemen and won’t push himself on anyone. Some nights I would be praying for people left and right and not see anything happen in their hearts. I would question God and wonder why He wasn’t moving. But it wasn’t God that wasn’t moving-it was the people. In India people can worship a ton of idols all at once. The most common ones I saw where the blue devil, the elephant God, the monkey/coconut god, and the snake god (rough naming, I didn’t care to find out to much info on them because my God is the greatest God and the rest are the enemy). People are open to being prayed for but they are not open to forsaking their idols. This meant that many people had unwilling hearts that would not yield to the Holy Spirit. Or people would ask for prayer but would only be seeking healing. They would come and act like they loved Jesus and wanted more of Him in their life but they were just abusing Him to get a means to an end-healing. And God would still heal.
I was so frustrated by the lack of commitment I saw. Especially when they would see God move in their life with healing. It revealed God’s love, glory, and power. But at the same time I couldn’t help but see the similarity to the American church. If I have learned anything so far it is that the church has the same problems, they are just hidden in different ways. We often just run to Him in order to get something from Him. It can be a solution to a problem, a spiritual experience that is like a quick fix, a shoulder to cry on. Once we get what we want we turn our backs and continue to live our lives the way we want. We don’t just seek Him because he is worthy, because we want to just sit in His presence, or because He first loved us so we respond in kind. If the Race is teaching me anything, it is teaching me that all I have to do is rest in His presence. He is worthy of being praised and that is the end of it.
India was challenging in many ways. But it taught me so much and for that I will always be grateful.
