Over a year ago I decided to do this whole thing called the world race gap year. I was home alone, sat at my kitchen table, and watched the live video announcing the six routes for this year. I decided if any of the routes had countries I had previously been to I would choose that route or at least think about it a little more. Well. None of the routes included any countries I had been to. Th only route that stuck out to me was route 5, Swaziland, India, and Guatemala (Nepal was added later). I had recently become interested in India from friends visiting it and the movie Lion which completely stole my heart.
I chose this route for this country. I loved Swaziland and Nepal and hope to love Guatemala just was much but none of those countries stuck out to me. My heart was set on India. I had expectations from peoples stories and media like the movie Lion of what I thought it would be like coming here.
Hot. Dirty. Sweaty. Crowded. Smelly. Polluted. Spicy. I thought we were going to be around a major, well known city like Kolkata or Hyderabad or Delhi. Nope! On Christmas Day we found out we would be living in Northeast India (the part no one knows about).
My expectations were shattered. This part of India, some say, isn’t the “real India”. It’s mountainous, still crowded but not as much, fall type weather, and mostly Christian. Who knew there was such a large section of Christians in India? On arriving to India we were told the history of the village we are staying at—over 100 years ago, a single missionary ventured to this tribe to Brin ghat good news. At this time the tribe was very dangerous and violent. They only had a spoken language and none could read our write. The missionaries goal was to one day translate the Bible for them. He was only in India for five days without getting kicked out. That mans courage changed this tribe forever. Our ministry hosts dad started going to school as a young boy to learn English and greek and Hebrew. He later studied in Ireland and the Chicago, only by Gods hadn’t did this all happen. He created a written language for his tribal people and then translated the enitre Bible for his people.
We are staying at a Bible College and it is so encouraging seeing these Indians grow in the Lord.
It is not the India any of us expected. On one of the first days God put this on my heart—imagine a foreigner coming to Ohio, imagining it was suppose to be California, and telling you how this isn’t the real America. I think a lot of us had that mindset coming to this part of the country. What a cool ministry to be able to encourage the Indians that will be missionaries to the other more persecuted parts of the country.
So far ministry here has looked like;
manual labor
helping at a kids retreat
helping at a day VBS
playing volleyball after ministry with locals
kitchen duty
I can’t believe I am over half way done with this crazy journey and can’t wait to see what these next two months have in store!
Comment below with questions or comments, would love to hear your thoughts!
