I had a conversation with two teammates the other day about how hard it’s been this month to find something to blog about.
India: our last country on the World Race
I’d been looking forward to this country and month all year and it was finally here! India…I expected fireworks, healings, miracles, an EPIC Blockbuster ending to this crazy year.
Contrary to my grandiose expectations, we found ourselves at a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) base with no contact and nothing to do for the first week. We sat around twirling our thumbs wondering where reality and our expectations had missed each other.
Thankfully, Anil, a YWAM staffer, took us under his wing and found random ministry for us to do in our last weeks. We did everything from…
Leading programs at a primary school, orphanage, and Bible College
To the left is our team after a program for Life Challenge, a branch of Teen Challenge, and to the right is the group of students at the local Bible College where we spoke one night.
To praying over widows, and evangelizing in the slums & near-by University
To holding bible studies with university students and building relationship with the DTS (Discipleship Training School) students also staying at the YWAM base.
Though all of this though, nothing stood out to me to blog about. My thought was,
All we are doing is ridding 4-5 people in a rickshaw meant for 2…going to crowded underground church-like prayer meetings in the slums…traveling on sketchy trains for 36 hours…holding orphans…eating white rice covered with spicy curry for every meal…sleeping in a room with 11 other girls on mattresses on the floor….what’s so special about that?
A few months ago these would have sparked funny blogs about translation mishaps, and heart riveting blogs about the stories of the people we’ve met…but now, sharing the gospel to people I’ve never met, building relationships with kids abandoned by their parents, sleeping on the floor and showering from a bucket…
this is my new normal.
It’s scary to think that if this lifestyle is my new normal, what in the world am I going to do when I land in America in three days and meet a lifestyle that has become foreign to me.
It’s funny; 11 months ago my prayer for this year was that I would be wrecked for ordinary life.
This year has absolutely wrecked me…but for ordinary life? What is ordinary & normal? Ordinary for me now is crowded public transportation, rice, 24/7 community, and loving those overlooked by most of the world.
God, I pray with all my heart that this continues to be my ordinary. I pray I never stop fighting for your Kingdom and that you forever are the most important thing in my life.
The reality that I will be hugging my family in the airport in less than 65 hours is surreal.
In a way though, this year will never be over. These relationships, the way the Lord has grown me and called my heart to more…that will never change. My location geographically and the fact that I can go places alone is the only difference.
To everyone who has followed my journey this year, thank you for loving me and supporting me thought this crazy adventure!! See you state-side SOON!!!
