It’s August 29th 2014. Yesterday was my birthday. The term “indescribable” is a cop-out in general, because the people that use it are in fact too lazy to sit down and describe whatever it is they’re speaking of. So yesterday was DEscribable in many words, so here’s my attempt to recount it in efforts to assuage any impending negative thoughts that try to creep in the years to come.
Before yesterday, when people in my life would say “go to your happy place in your mind” I didn’t have one. I imagined what a “happy place” was: the typical answer of a misty waterfall, a babbling brook (of which I truly appreciate the personification, but whoever came up with this term needs to get off their high-poetic horse), a breakfast nook in a log cabin. I never had an answer though. I tried to think up the coolest place so if someone asked me what mine was I’d have an answer, but yesterday I finally discovered what it was that makes up a happy place. It doesn’t have to be serene. It doesn’t have to be sanitary. It doesn’t have to be pictured somewhere in a landscape portrait on someone’s wall. And it most certainly doesn’t have to be quiet. It’s simply the place where you feel most loved.
Yesterday was the first time I woke up on my own accord in this bedlam-esque compound of over 50 people. Normally, I wake up to roosters, people getting out of bed (Kevin getting down from his bunk), an Indian who decides to cough up a storm right in front of our bedroom at 6:30am, or a myriad of other insane noises particular to India. We sweat all night and the incessant mosquitos can’t stop won’t stop. But this day I woke up on my own. And I knew it’d be a great day. Commence 14 different versions of Taylor Swift’s hit song “22” which is still stuck in my head.
The next part will be a list of the day’s occurrences:
– various versions of “happy birthday”, some in tune, some not
– a giant poster full of chocolate and snacks with paragraphs written on the poster using the wording from the wrappers
– snickers for breakfast
– more variations of Taylor Swift’s “22”
– hammock time in my Eno which was a birthday gift from my parents.
– 40 encouraging birthday notes from each member of my squad
– awesome laughs
– All squad pictures where the girls put their saris on
– nap time
– weird Indian lunch (typical but I wouldn’t have it any other way)
– 2pm my team piles into the car for ministry
– stop off at our translators house. I got surprise birthday cake and “thums up” (the Indian version of Coca Cola, yes thums is spelled wrong)
– my team treats me to ice cream at the most American ice cream store in Ongole. This place even has Air Conditioning! Shout out to team Aperture. Shout out to A.I.M.
– we arrive in the village we will be in for the day.
– more “thums up” from the congregation.
– we meet the pastor there, an amazing man of God who was actually a murderer for hire until 1992 when he had a miraculous story of God delivering him and setting him on a path towards becoming a pastor.
– we walk into every home in the village (50 homes) and meet every person there, shake their hands, hear their stories, feel their joys and their sorrows, and pray for them
– after dark we head back to the church and are served dinner (chapati and chicken and naan and white rice and daal) to the songs of Indian worship songs, which if you’ve ever heard, are ridiculously difficult to think over let alone talk over, but all in the same, our team laughed the whole meal
– after dinner, I had the privilege of sharing my testimony to the entire congregation, raw and unscripted
– church ended and all 60 of the church members came up once again asking for prayer for healing and prayer for blessings. I got to lay my hands on so many people and love on each and every one of them.
– at 11:15pm we left the village. the auto ride back was peaceful, with the exception of three unwarranted stops where people ran up to ask for our team to get out of the car and come into their home for prayer. We were so tired but somehow mustered up the energy to continue visiting homes in the village.
– 11:20pm I got to meet Surrendra Kumar, a 7 year old who lost both of his parents in a tragic car accident. But the brightness of his smile and the kindness in his eyes was penetratingly infectious.
– 12am midnight we arrive back home. My team has one more surprise for me, they created a video with all the guys in the squad talking about their favorite memory of me.
– 12:20am I got to call my mom on skype and she sung me happy birthday as it was still my birthday for another 9 hours in America.
I will never forget my 22nd birthday. This day is my happy place.
