At the many requests of my devoted fans, (thanks Mom) it’s time for a recap of India! Rather than grace you with another blog where I wax eloquent, I’m going to tell you what happened 3 hours south of Hyderabad in December.
My team (Selah Vie at the time) and I arrived in the central city of Hyderabad. Fun things there included hanging out with the squad, drinking Starbucks and getting hit by a car. Yes I’m serious: there were caramel praline lattes. Yes I’m serious: Carly, Makita and Jess were in the backseat of an auto/bajaj/tuktuk and I was upfront with the driver. Right before we reached our hostel, a car t-boned us causing the bajaj to flip. It fell on Carly’s foot, which miraculously didn’t even fracture. The car hit my knee before the actual vehicle so that’s still causing me a little bit of grief. Overall, a car hit me and I’m fine!
After that fun adventure we arrived at our ministry. The church was connected to the pastor’s house so ½ of us tented inside of the church and ½ stayed in a separate room. This month ministry was flip-flopped in that we went out at night; prior countries always wanted us in before sundown. Every night we would pile into the safari type jeep around 4:30 and drive for 1-3 hours to a new village. There we would sing a couple songs, the local people would sing, and then two of us would share a message. After we would pray for everyone present. Something different for my all female team was having our heads covered during the whole service. After that we would eat dinner with the family who had hosted the service. Right hands only! Our team is now comfortable without silverware. The food was ridiculously awesome! This was our basic routine. It was only broken up by “Semi-Christmas” or a Christmas party at a church. That consisted of music, dancing, cake being fed to us awkwardly on stage and sometimes a small Christmas skit!
A Semi-Christmas
The primary religion in India is Hinduism with Islam and Christianity scattered throughout. Often we would drive by a 5-story statue of one of the many Hindu gods. Although India ultimately had a dark presence, light continues to shine. I had a lot of fun with ministry! I was able to wear a traditional sari for Christmas and even got my nose pierced! My experience there spiritually and culturally encourages me to keep pressing forward, allowing the little things inspire me.
More soon, Katie
