Eighteen days ago, I stepped off a plane into Bangalore, India and officially began my World Race. Every day that we are here, I fall a little more in love with the culture and the people of this country. I can already feel myself leaving a little piece of my heart here in India. This first month, my team and I have been working at a children’s home and it has been an incredible blessing to be here. I love, love, love waking up everyday to 15 precious voices saying, “Good morning, Auntie Michelle”. Gosh, I live for those moments.
But for as much as I love being on the Race and being in Asia, I also miss America. Well, maybe not so much America as a whole, but the friendships and the family I left in the States. I have been battling some homesickness and loneliness since being here. On some days, it’s worse than others, and sometimes I can see how my attitude affected my ministry here with the kids.
Ironically, one of the biggest things this month that we have been trying to teach the kids at the home is that they are never alone and that God is their friend. On one day in particular, I asked one of the boys, “How do you know that God is your friend?” He responded with confidence, “I know that He is my friend because I can tell Him all my feelings, even the not good ones. And He loves me a lot and I am never lonely because He is with me all the time. I know because He told me so in the Bible”.
It’s such a simple concept. God is our friend. We are never alone. So simple in fact, that I have either overcomplicated it or completely forgotten it.
I think part of the reason that Jesus stresses the importance of having faith like a child is because it’s basic and uncomplicated. As adults, we try to make faith into something that logically makes sense to us. We want to know all the answers and for everything to make perfect sense all the time. The fact of the matter is: faith is unhindered, unadulterated trust. It’s much harder for adults to trust God; we question, fight, argue, and complain to Him, rather than simply trust. Kids get it. They know they can simply trust God, because He is their friend and wants what is best for them. They know He isn’t going to leave them alone. They know. Simply because He told them so.
So as for me, I still have moments where I miss my family and friends so much and I still have days where I am lonely, but as a little boy in India once told me, I have a Friend who I can tell all my feelings, even the not good ones and He’s with me all the time. So though my best friends and my family are on the other side of the world, I still have a Friend who loves me and that I can always trust right here in India. My Friend will always be with me, for the next 10 months and for the rest of eternity. He’s the best Friend a girl could ever ask for.
