It’s been a little over two weeks since I returned from a week-long mission trip to India. To be honest, I think that I’m just now starting to fully process everything. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to South Asia or out of the country for that matter but it’s vastly different. In India, religion is engrained into EVERYTHING. If you were raised in the south or live in the south, I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying, “There’s a church on every corner.” Well India puts us to shame. The largest religion in India is Hinduism. That’s the one with 330,000,000 gods. Yeah, I know. You would be hard pressed to drive 10 minutes without seeing a temple dedicated to some Hindu god or pass a taxi driver who didn’t have an idol of some god on the dash.
This is a temple we passed while traveling to a village. This is Kali, the goddess of time, change, and destruction. The god laying down was her husband, who she killed. Not all of the temples are this big but they are everywhere.
Some of the things that I think about now when I think back to that trip have really been pressing on my heart lately and I wanted to share them with you. Although you may never go there (But I pray you will! It will CHANGE YOUR LIFE!), after reading this you’ll be able to pray for specific things for India. And the world for that matter.
3 Take aways from India
1.The Poverty
The poverty in India will literally make you gasp. There were villages that we travelled through that had no sewage system. This means raw sewage collects in the ditches and flows down the side of the road. Pollution is so bad that in some places there is a visible haze that is a mixture of dust and pollution. There are no trash cans or recycling bins. If you have trash in your hand, you throw it down. If you eat in one of these villages in a hotel (what they call restaurants), more than likely there will be rice or crumbs left over from the last person sitting there. A lot of Indians eat with their hands, which I found freeing and manly. The living conditions however, are disheartening.
I remember walking through two different villages and seeing this one picture that will stay with me forever. As we were walking through these villages and praying for relationships to be built to spread the Gospel, I looked over at what appeared to be a house (made of scrap tin) and saw a little girl that couldn’t have been over 3 years old, walk outside with a shirt on and no underwear, squat down and poop right in front of the door. When she was done she stood up and ran back inside. Now that may sound disgusting, and it is, but that broke my heart. That was that little girl’s way of life. It does something to your soul whenever you see another person live so impoverished.
Pray- Pray for this country that not only does the message of Jesus spread rapidly, but an intolerance for pictures like this to continue to be seen and for social justice to reach into these villages.
2. The People
The people in India are some of the friendliest authentic people I’ve ever met. Being Americans, anywhere our team went we drew major attention. I remember we were in a predominantly muslim village and we were meeting one of the Muslim Leaders, Muhammad. Within the first ten minutes of talking with him, we were surrounded by 15 to 20 guys who were curious about who we were and what we were doing. Obviously there was a language barrier but thankfully, our translator told us they wanted to see if we had pictures of famous monuments or buildings in America and also pictures of our families on our phones.
South Asian culture is relationship-oriented. What I mean by that is people aren’t as stressed out about being somewhere at a certain time. I’m not saying they have no concept of being somewhere at a certain time but they aren’t as bad as we are. America would be time-oriented. We are very picky about time. Not India. A lot of the stores in the city that we stayed in didn’t open up at 8:00 am. It was around 9 or 10. There was no press for time. Several times when we were walking through a city or village, we were invited to have tea in someones tea shop. There were a few times they told us it was free. One of the owners wanted us to come have tea with him at his house but we didn’t have time to so we had to decline. The people are genuinely interested in getting to know you and forming relationships. Which is a perfect opportunity to begin talking about the gospel.
Pray- Pray for the missionaries living in India. Pray that God would continue to allow them to build relationships with people. Pray that these people would have receptive hearts to the Gospel.
3. The Need
The goal of this trip wasn’t to “do something.” The purpose of this trip was to see the lostness of India, to help the local missionaries make contacts for building relationships, and to see how the Lord is working there and how we could be apart of God’s global mission.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this but there are about 7 billion people on the planet. 1.2 billion of those people live in India. India is about 1/3 of the size of The United States of America. Let that sink in.
*Of those 1.2 billion people, about 6% of them are Christians.*
There are over 1 billion people in India who would go to Hell if they died today. There are too many Indians trying to attain their salvation by works that have no idea that Jesus already paid their debt. Too many Indians are dying without hearing that Jesus loves them and gave himself up for them just like us. God wants to use us to spread the Gospel of Jesus. We are God’s plan A and there’s no plan B. We can be apart of spreading the Gospel on a global scale through praying, giving, and going.
Pray- Pray that God would burden our heart for the lost and raise up a generation that makes the idea of someone dying without ever hearing the name of Jesus intolerable! Pray that God would show you how you can be apart of what he’s doing globally.
As you pray about how God can use you, prayerfully consider partnering with me financially to help fund my race! If you’re interested in donating, you can go to mattherrington.theworldrace.org and click on the Support me tab and the rest should be pretty easy! I’ll also be sending out my support letter within the next 2 or 3 weeks so if you want a letter you can email me your address at [email protected] and i’ll be sure to send you one!
In Christ,
Matt Herrington
