I already wrote a blog on India, but here’s another one. PLUS pictures!
From the food, vibrant colors, terrifying traffic, and questionable smells to the head wobbles, monkeys and the shocking amount of frogs, India stole my heart.
My favorite part though was the special needs orphanage we served at. The children absolutely stole my heart and seeing how the long term volunteers loved and fought for the most precious members of the Kingdom lit me on fire.
I’ve known for a while, and talked about it quite a bit in my blogs, but the Lord has called me and my future spouse to foster and adopt. It became so much more real in India. It felt like the Lord took my face in His hands and told me with passion and certainty, “These are my children. If you love me, love them. You won’t be able to sit and do nothing after this.”
The Lord inspired me to start praying about empowering the American church to adopt and foster, with the big, scary, impossible without God goal of having all adoptable children in the U.S. foster care system in loving, forever homes by 2025. What does that look like? How would that happen? I have no clue. But God’s got it, and I’m praying for it.
At the orphanage, from the teens and young adults, to the lil babes, I had a BLAST. Oh man, the toddlers and littles were so sweet and the teens were SO FUN. (PROTIP: download the Frozen soundtrack. It makes for great dance parties and chances are, they will know every word and think you’re really cool if you know them too.)
I had some lessons to learn though. The Lord had to show me how to love each kiddo without possession, to love them because Jesus loves them, not because they are so freaking cute and I want to figure out how to fit them in my backpack to take with me forever. Loving like Jesus looks a lot different than I thought, turns out. The best way to love on the kids was to spend time with them right where they were without entertaining the thought of how they would fit into the vision I have for my future family.
It was kind of a weird balance between not thinking about adopting specific children, but the Lord still affirming that it will be something He has for me in the future.
The Lord also called me the heck out on spending too much time planning for my future, and barely praying into it at all. He called me to take a break from planning and instead spend time praying intentionally about His will and the things He has planned. I asked Him how long this has to last, expecting a week or maybe a month if I was really messed up, and He said 3 months. So until August, all my plans are on hold as I pray and sit still long enough to actually listen and have Him align my heart with His.
India, man. What a place.
