...That was the Beginning....

What up Buttercup?

Its a little painful to type…just a little, because i have little baby calluses forming on my left hand finger tips from practicing the Guitar! So fun! I crack myself up a lot. The quality of sound is a little iffy…but me and Katie just belt out the songs and since I only know 4 chords the worship songs are pretty abundant and so yea! I've discovered though that whenever I start belting it along with strumming the guitar that its hard to keep the tune and get the rythmn right…and my accent comes out and I get all twangy. HILARIOUS! And I'm completely satisfied with that because Jesus said make a JOYFUL sound to the Lord. Super joyful tonight, I was laughing so hard I cried:) PTL!

Anyway, more about India:

I think I'll go in chronological order here.

It all started in Mumbai… 

As we were about 7 hours away from landing one of the guys on the team got bad food poisoning and was puking his guts out. Having sat beside him, 6 hours later I felt it coming on for me and I was mortified. All I could think about at that time was how we were about the get off a plane in a country none of us had ever been too, and is rather dangerous, poverty striken, and dirty. I was solo leading with lots of responsibility resting on my shoulders and 5 young adults looking to me for positivity, security, and peace. Good thing Jesus was the one doing everything!

I was half sick to my stomach because of the immense amount of unknown ahead and I was trying to surpress stress and fear and be the strong woman everyone needed me to be. At that moment though I was also physically sick and didn't know what was going to happen if I was going to be MIA puking my guts out as we landed and tried to find our contact at 11pm at night. 

Then, a beautiful thing happened. Kevin turned around in his seat and put his big hand on the back of my neck and prayed a simple prayer, half mumbled, and asked God to heal me.

 God did. His hand felt so cool, yet so warm, and so comforting and so amazingly strong, yet gentle and of course it was Jesus' supernatural power flowing to me to rid me of sickness. Within a minute i felt new. 

THen I knew. I knew it wasn't a trip about me calling all the shots and looking after 5 adults..it was God's power. And God was rejoicing at the great adventure ahead, and nothing was overwhelming or terrifying to Him. I sat up with a powerful peace that seeped into my soul. 

Within the first hour of landing in Mumbai, I had already gotten haggled for using a airport attendants cell phone to call our contact, since he was late. The attendant demanded 400 rupees and in response I grinned and said HECK NO! Are you kidding? Thats ridiculous….and searching for the 20 rupees that would have been more than enough, i only had a 100 so HA joke was on me still! But BAM, right outta the gate the team watched intently to see every move I'd make, every reaction to the con men vying for our attention and money..and then little Daniel pops up out of the blue with his YWAM friend Samuel and we were welcomed in. 

I could stop there, but I want to just mention the massive miscommunication that often occurs in India:

 Daniel thought our team had very little money, even though what I actually said to him was I did not have little bills. So they took us to train stations, and we had to run to catch the last train at midnight into a sketchy neighborhood to them try to catch the next cheap trian…and at that point, as we huddled in an alley with our giant backpacks, I pulled out a nice big 1000 rupee bill and their jaws dropped. They promptly hailed two cabs and explained that we would've gone directly to Daniels home if they had known we could afford it…. silly language barriers!

We arrived at Daniels house, at 1am. where we would live for the next 5 days, through New Years. We stayed in their only other room aside from the living room and kitchen. The family of 6 slept in the living room together on mats and we all squeezed into the other room, 5 across, and me at everyones feet. Cozy! More like hot, and buggy. 

Needless to say, that was the grandest way to start an outreach to India. Welcome to India: everything Indian will now be thrown upon you and you will love it, or break!!

So we learned to love it and love each other through the squatty potties and bucket showers and the long evenings at slum churches preaching and singing loudly and being completely stuffed to the MAX with rice and dal and curry. 

I can't think of a more uncomfortable, joyful, colorful, spicy, challenging, frustrating, and full of Holy Spirit power, New Years holiday. :) Yea 2013 was gonna be legit! 

So there. That was the beginning….

God's colorful land

Dear Blog

I liked who I was in India. I like who i am…but lots of things were different for me in India. India made me hold my tounge more, take my woes to Jesus or the journal, and made me realize God's supernatural energy that He bestows on first time rookies. :) I was consistently assertive. I was bold, and secure to the core about who I belonged to. Coming back to the Western culture threw me back some unfortunate old habits. It's time to not  shrink back any more...

Also, India brought out many things that aren't required for thriving in a Western Nation. Asia culture is just crazy. It's dangerous, disrespectful to women, and unorganized. It's colorful in more than the physical aspect!

For me I learned to be self sacrificial… but I didn't do it in a healthy, sustainable way. I laid down my rights, comforts, and desires to put the safety and well being of the team first…but I neglected to give myself the proper time to sit a receive God's goodness and love for me. The same way I was covering the team spiritually, and poured forth encouragments and love over them…which slowly dwindled as time went on and I didn't take care of myself well enough… God has since shared with me that He wants to pour out over me doubly what I poured out…but it's all about the time, people. Time with God Himself. Vital.

I learnt that if He told me to worship and pray before going to bed even though everyone else was asleep that I should do it, otherwise I'd get woken up later and in the dark darkness of the dead of night it would be scarier than it had to be. I was always protected, but when God prompts you, do it then because it will always be easier the first time.

I had to be direct, short, firm, and aggressive at times. Gods angels where definitely backing me up though, because some of those Indian men would never have seen a 5'5'' white woman and listened as well and retreated so promptly, under normal circumstances. I know it was the two fighter angels at both my shoulders that reinforced the words I spoke with authority:) THank you Jesus!

Now i'm processing. SO the posts for a while will be stories, memories, feelings, and photos of India, God's colorful land.