With our first ministry running a Christian coffee shop in Hampi, India, we weren’t exactly sure what our roles were going to be. Did God really send us here to simply make coffee and tea and pray with backpackers?
The selfish side in me couldn’t help but be a little bummed. “But Lord, I wanted more. I wanted it to be harder”, I continued to say. I wanted my first month to be more of the nitty-gritty stuff. I wanted to jump right in and council sex trafficking victims. I wanted to work with orphans. I wanted to struggle in India!
SIDE NOTE: Before we get into my message, let me just take a minute to say this… this place was no walk in the park. As soon as we arrived to the coffee shop, we were put to work. It was filled with more bugs, mosquitos, spiders, lizards, snakes, scorpions, wasps, and frogs than you can imagine. We were scrubbing, mopping, and soaking down everything in our path. ANDDDD typing up this blog post I may or may not have just pooped my pants from food poisoning of all the Indian Butter Chicken and rice I’ve been eating. Yea…. So there’s that.
As an overview of the month, we have been running a donation based coffee shop. All money we receive we give back to the community, so they are able to buy school supplies for the local students. Where we are located in Hampi, India, it is actually known to be a giant backpacking area! During the month we had people from all over the world stop by, including Indian locals and others from Germany, Israel, Norway, Australia, France, Malaysia, England, and the even United States!
For the past two weeks we have been getting to know everyone in the community and advertising for our music jam session that we had last Thursday. It was so awesome to see the local restaurant workers, shop keepers, the internet man, grocery hut owners, the music man, and so many more of our new friends come to support the event. In our small town of Hampi, we had close to 50 people show up! Gali, the music shop owner down the street brought all different types of instruments for everyone to play. The room was filled with singing and the sounds of guitars, djembes, didgeridoos, drums, rattlers, and hapis. It was amazing that we were able to pull all of this together to merely show the locals love. All while serving them free coffee, tea, and cookies.
The Lord made me realize the impact we had unknowingly created through showing love. Simply put, God is love, so by showing that love to others we are glorifying Him. He knew we also needed this time to build our team, Jesus Jewels, as well. Over these past few weeks, we have really grown to become a close-knit group. We have become such a body in Christ that when there is someone missing, it affects our whole unit. Each person is such a vital part of the team that having this month to work on that has been very beneficial. We needed this time to bond, so that the following months when times do get tough, we will be able to lean on each other for support.
Proverbs 27:17: As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
As we prepared to leave, my heart was extremely heavy to leave. We’ve made close friends here with the locals and backpackers, and it was hard to say goodbye. It was incredible that we could scream in the night, and a pack of the neighborhood boys would jump over and pull a snake out of our hut or the day one of the guys came over and taught me how to make a fishing pole out of string, a piece of plastic, a peacock feather and a hook. The generosity and love that my team and I have been shown this month is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The people here in India are beyond amazing. They will definitely always have a place in my heart.
