We made it to India! If you’ve been keeping up with Q Squad, you know that it was a huge struggle for us to get visas to be able to come, so it’s very exciting to be here.
My team is working in Hyderabad, India with ICM (India Christian Missions) this month at the Covenant Worship Center, which is a place to come and be trained as worship leaders for the community. It is an incredible place that is filled with God’s presence and songs of praise day and night. The majority of the staff and students here are male, and by majority I mean ALL except for the two women that cook and clean and our contact who is out of town until the 15th.
Normally, I would be undaunted by the overwhelming number of men, and after being on the race for 7 months with 36 of our 42 squad members being women, I would be excited. But in India it is a completely different situation. Men and women here interact as little as possible. We were informed that even smiling and saying hello to the men in the house could be construed as flirting and endanger their hearts. We also have a strict dress code that includes having our shoulders covered and wearing floor-length skirts everyday. And I am in no way a ‘wear a skirt all the time because it’s so cute’ kind of girl. I quit ballet when I was little because they made me wear pink. Wearing a skirt everyday is getting serious.
So really, the application of all this was that there would be no interactions between my team and the men in the house. I was heart broken. And angry. How could God take away my favorite part of how He used me in each country- loving and building relationships with new people? I didn’t understand. Not only was I struggling with the pain of this loss, there was also another very big part of me that wanted to stand up for my and the women of India’s rights and change the way men view us. If you know me at all, you know that I struggle just to let a man open the door for me. Being thrown into a culture where men are all important and powerful, and women are expected to stand quietly in the back of the room completely covered is a little hard for me to swallow. The realization that my assigned role this month was to be the quiet, invisible support system behind these men started to hit me. My pride and huge desire to build relationships with people needed to be recognized before I could even begin asking God what He had planned for this month. Thankfully, we have 2 hours of mandatory prayer and worship every day so I was forced to be still and actually talk to Him.
Once He let me rant about how upset I was for the better part of an hour, He came back with this response-
“These men will be my leaders for the community. They are going to be my vessels to change India. You are here to help, to enable, to push them up towards me and greater things.
You are in the background, not the foreground.
They are the leaders. You are here for a short time and leave. They are here for a lifetime and I will continue my work in their future generations.
So Step Back.
Allow them to lead- when they lead worship, don’t overpower them with the way you know the song to go. They need to learn to stand firm in the confidence of their worship of Me, not be undermined by what you think is ‘right’.
Pray for them as Godly men. Treat them as Godly men.”
Since receiving this revelation from God, it has not been a ‘one time fixes all’ situation. My heart is being reshaped slowly to let go of my independence and stubbornness. I have been praying for them as men of God with authority and boldness. I’m trying to let them wear the pants in the house and lead us forward, but I still make lots of mistakes. When I pass by them in the house I sometimes forget and start to smile but then catch myself and quickly drop my eyes and try to fix my face. It’s pretty embarrassing. I’m sure they think there’s something medically wrong with me with all the strange faces I end up making at them in an attempt not to smile.
But God has also redeemed what I thought was a hopeless situation. At church, we worked in collaboration with them- a few of the men led worship and my team headed sharing a testimony, preaching and the closing prayer. Even though we were sitting on opposite sides of the room, we were a true community. We were encouraging one another and sharpening each other for the glory of our Father. I may not know all of their names or ever be able to talk to them the way I want to, but I do know that we are a family; they are my brothers and God is changing my heart to love them the way He needs them to be loved, not the way I think is best.
So far India is teaching me to give up my pants- both literally and figuratively. It has it’s moments of discomfort and hilarity as I stumble through what it looks like to be a humble woman of God and the thought of being submissive still makes me squirm in my chair. But I know God does all things for my good, even if I really really don’t like it in the moment, or the whole month.
“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Ephesians 4:15-16
