Hello everyone!
I haven’t been able to reply to all of your comments on my last blog post, but I want you to know that I have read them all and hold them very close to my heart. I got to see them at a time when I was needing some encouragement, so thank you all so much. Soon I will be at Debrief, where our squad will take time to process the past month of ministry, and I may also get some free time to reply to those then.
* also, some fun news: I have a short video to share in my next post
* I still would like to do a Q&A, so if you have any questions, please feel free ask away! You can leave them in the comment section
(This was written Thursday night) Tonight was our last night of ministry here in India. Tomorrow will be a celebratory day with the church staff, and then we will jump to travel preparations for Nepal, & start the sequence of flights and layovers and bus rides to our next home.
My heart feels raw right now. I’ll be fine, but I’m just processing all the goodbyes I’m walking through.
I have loved India, and will miss it more than I thought I would.
Tonight, we took an hour and a half ride out through the Indian countryside. We’ve had some storms lately and crossed a few sketchy flooding places on the way. It made me think about how serious thunderstorms are here; when you live in houses of palm fronds or metal sheeting or blanket tents, bad weather comes with casualties. We Racers will be able to leave totally unscathed in a few days, and we’ve been living in a more urban area with housing made of concrete anyway. But things like these shift my perspective for sure.
I wrote to a friend earlier this week, “One of my favorite things (in the world, maybe) is driving through India on our way to ministry each day. I sit at the trunk of the auto in a way where I get this beautiful back view of everything. It’s amazing to just soak in the country and how rapidly it changes. It’s full of water buffalo and rice fields and goat herds and trash choking rivers. It’s full of gorgeous clouds and thin veins of lightning and salt flats and cluttered villages. Apartments and concrete houses and metal shacks and blanketed tents. Giant white cows with funny neck rolls and humped backs chillin in the middle of the road. There are so many motor cycles and tuktuks (tiny little automobile cart thingies) and rickety tractors and cars and autos. Everything is moving so fast and yet so much is taking its time- vehicles move at breakneck speed but people just kinda sit around outside shops and in alleyways and under trees”
Another one of my favorite things to do rolls around at the end of service, after we’ve prayed over people. I’ll bring out my little notebook and sketch a few faces until the host pastor ushers us downstairs for dinner. But I can usually draw two or three villagers, take a picture of the doodle, and then gift it to them. The way their faces light up after they receive their portraits is so beautiful. It’s a quick way to bridge the language gap and reach out to make someone feel seen. I love making people feel beautiful through my portraits of them. I like to think that I can share God’s love this way, because they all have such wondrous, surprised reactions when they receive little reflections of themselves on paper. I notice them, and how much more does their Heavenly Father recognize & love them!
I was talking with this woman for a little while and playing with her baby girl. They’re such a sweet duo. She was so excited for me to draw her, and when it came time to say goodbye, we were calling each other sisters and hugging. Where we are, Indian women only hug those they are close to, so it touched my heart.
Some moments when I saw God this past few weeks:
* Getting to meet this lovely 28-yr-old woman, L, who was a friend of the pastor’s family. Her abusive husband threatened to kill her if she didn’t move back in with her parents, and then he took their three children and drove hours away. L also hasn’t been able to talk to her children since. This happened five months ago, and she’d cried every night since- until we met her. That night we spent hanging out with her was so beautiful. We prayed for her and when my team was teary eyed at the end, she wiped our tears away, insisting that she didn’t want her sisters to be sad tonight. I drew a portrait of her, and throughout the night she would pull it out every so often to smile at it. She had Elisabeth and Sydney R try on her saris, and even invited us to stay the night. Even though we weren’t able to sleep over, it was amazing to share that time with her. I know the peace and happiness provided came from God. Our hearts were all so full.
* There was one day we went to the beach with our host, his family, our translator, and our driver. A Team (my team’s name) pitched in to buy a cake to celebrate our driver and our ministry host’s birthdays. They are close friends and we joked that they got to be twins that day. Both of their parents were illiterate, so their birthdays weren’t properly recorded, and so they don’t know their real birthdays. It was so special to be able to show our appreciation for them. Both have been so kind and generous to us.
i will miss them all so much. I saw so many instances of God in the joy and the kindness of the people we met, as well as the moments where things got rough and we had to trust in a plan outside of our understanding. More on that later.
