Training camp.
Home for a month saying goodbye, getting things in order, resting.
Launch in Atlanta, GA.
Say bye to Mom & Dad
Training with AIM
Leave GA (Flight to Chicago)
Flight Chicago to Delhi, India
Flight Delhi to Hyderabad
After 36 Hours of travel stay in Hotel in Hyderabad
Cultural training by Indian Christian Ministries
Learn about Ministry assignments Month 1
7.5 Hour bus ride to Ongole (South India)
Debrief on Ministry
Adjust to India Weather/Culture/Food
Ministry Day 1…2…3…4….
Free Day
So much has happened since I first signed up for The World Race. Even more has happened just since July 1st when we left for India. This month I am glad that there are 3 teams together in the same place. We are in a city in southern India working with the Covenant Church and 3 area’s of their ministry. One team is working with special needs orphans, another team is doing outreach ministry with church plants, and my team is working with The CCDC or Covenant Children Development Centers. Essentially we are helping with an after school Program.
A typical day working for CCDC… we have mornings off. I usually use this time to have my devotional, laundry, getting to know my team and other friends better, taking a bucket shower, and sorting through pictures and journaling to somehow process the changes around me. At 3:00pm (indian time… which means we might not leave until 4 or 4:30) we get in a Tuk Tuk, the indian version of a cab, and head to a different village each day. Once at the village, so far they are anywhere from 5-60 kilometers away, we pray with families while we wait for children to arrive at the center and ready to begin.
A little back story:
CCDC centers are located in some of the poorest villages in India. India has a caste system for classes of people. Basically there is a high class and the low class that they call the “untouchables.” We are going to the untouchables. In the Hindi religion the untouchables are not clean enough to enter the temples and they are afraid that if they would they would make their gods unclean. So they are outcast from their own societies. They are often secluded on the outskirts of the villages they are a part of. Good news is they are not untouchable to Jesus Christ. So CCDC is a program that within the churches planted in the untouchables villages parents can apply for their children to have a better education. CCDC’s mission is to sponsor 25 children, send them to a private christian school where they learn English, and then after school they come to the CCDC center where they are fed a hardboiled egg and some milk, tutored, and told the story of Jesus. Through this program there is hope for this new generation.
The children are always excited to see the white people. It is rare in these villages, so we get to feel a little like celebrities. Around 5ish…. remember “Indian time” we start our hour-long program with the children. We play games, teach them songs and sign-language, perform a skit with headlamps about how Jesus is the light of the world, and teach them to pray with one another. I feel so honored to speak into their precious lives. Of course, as you could suspect, I learn far more than I am teaching.
Story time……………
Once upon a time on our free day our friends Johnson, Thomas, and Babou took us to a magical place in India. We arrived at an outdoor amphitheater. Johnson began telling us a story about how the first Christian missionaries arrived in India. There are many details to the story that I would surely butcher based on my translation of the story Johnson told in broken English, but as we stood there and listened to the story of when Christianity was first brought to India only 240 years ago I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit fall on us. THIS was the place it began, the ground under my feet where people prayed for the deliverance of India. That is a surreal feeling when you come from a culture in the US where it seems the presence of christianity has always been there. This was so encouraging.
A scripture that I keep praying:
Colossians 1:15-18
Christ Holds It All Together
15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
God is really in control here. He has created all of India for his purpose, they just need to hear about it. There is a lot of work to be done. Sometimes I say this scripture because the environment here is hard, but God knows the hearts and desires of his people. He is calling them to himself. Please pray for India, pray against the spiritual warfare that is present here. Pray for the children that CCDC are raising up to be the leaders for tomorrow. Sometimes when you are building an army for Chist you have to start with the little people. Pray for the lost and broken, pray for the untouchables.
And please pray for my funds. I am only $2351 away from being fully funded. I am trusting the Lord for this, as I am trusting that we are here in India according to his purpose.
