The first couple of weeks here in India have been rough.
1. The spice overwhelmed me. I started to sweat at every meal. Tiffin, lunch, and dinner.
2. We were cooped up all day. Our ministry is at night. We go to different churches each night to give testimonies, sermons, and prayer.
3. My stomach is constantly battling the food we eat.
4. I have to create sermons and dig deeper in my life to find more testimonies to talk about.
5. Living in a small space with 11 other people. Community.
Most of these hardships are a good thing. It will definitely make me grow in my faith and myself as a person. Most of my team was definitely getting stir crazy because we couldn’t go outside the perimeter.
This much time on our hands forced us to read books and communicate with others. It forced us to become more knowledgeable about God and His word.
The part of India that we are in is more catholic than I originally thought.
Women come up to us after church wanting us to pray for them and the oil that they hold.
We are occasionally invited to visit some catholic church’s.
The second half of the month has been much better. I am getting use to the spice. After all, the women who cook our food knows that we are Americans and can’t take spice like they can. We do eat with our right hand and always sit on the floor. We almost always eat rice and some vegetables with delicious bananas.
Note: the smaller the bananas, the sweeter they are.
About twice a week, our team is invited to birthday parties. These are very small parties but with an enormous amount of food. The amusement happens when we cut very small pieces of the cake and stuff them into the birthday boy/girl mouth.
We moved to a different location. At this location, we live with 11 foster kids. Which is a challenge in itself because there is no privacy but it’s definitely worth sacrificing for them.
Our team is living alone and our team has more freedom. I typically play cricket on the street with the kids in the neighborhood. I mostly play with the college guys because the kids are at school. We often do a lot exercising up and down the street. We are also able to create good relationships with the community.
All in all it’s been a month to grow by spending time off my phone and computer and living in the moment.
Month 1 of India I was given feedback that I’ve gone into my shell. Being the introvert that I am, I was crawling back in my shell. I wasn’t speaking up or being involved in many conversations. I usually listen and observe.
So this 2nd month of India, my challenge is to be more vocal. I need to be Involved in conversations and to speak my mind. By doing this, I will create a better relationship with my team individually and as a whole.
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.” ~Psalm? ?147:3-4?~
I preached a testimony on this verse and so I wanted to share. I’ve notice that there is an overwhelming amount of people hurting in India. Women need physically and emotional healing because they are beaten by their husband and sons daily. Men are always suffering with some kind of injury or illness. So I shared the part of my life where I lost my mom. How my family and I suffered but we endured through the pain. God healed our hearts and binded our wounds. He gave us another family to do life together. God is so sovereign that he determines the numbers of stars and calls them each by name. I said to the crowd that one of those stars up in the sky is my mom. She shines above me to tell me to keep my head up and never look down. Look up, God created me and named me just like he created and named you.
An update regarding the accident that happened (read “An Unbearable Tragic Story”). The first 72 hours was really hard to come to an understanding of what happened and why it did. I am doing much better now. What I learned is that what happened wasn’t good. It’s terrible. What happened afterwards was a miracle. 19 teenage missionaries were the first responders to this accident and helped 6 adults live and to fight to live. Even before this ever happened, I always said to myself “Let His will be done”. You could look at this situation and say that those 8 people who were killed are in Heaven with Jesus. I pray and hope that’s true. I always felt that the people of Mokhotlong, Lesotho wanted more, like they are longing for more. In searching for something greater than themselves. That’s what the atmosphere felt like for me. Some of these people might not have been from Mokhotlong but I have no doubt that each and every one of them have had that thought or feeling of a glorious almighty being living upstairs.
