India Trip 2008

Streets of Mumbai

2008-06-28T16:45:00.001-07:00

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It's Been Awhile

2008-06-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a couple of months since the trip and I've tried to sit and write another entry several times, but for some reason nothing has come out. Sometimes I'm at a loss for words and other times I don't know where to start.
After coming home from the trip I felt so overwhelmed and confused about some things that it took a good couple of weeks just to figure out what I experienced and what God was doing in me. A lot of what I came to terms with was that God was showing me that I was striving. Striving to do what I thought He wanted me to do, what I thought I should do. Which are all things that He has put in my heart, like missions and going to those who are lost, living for Him and not the things of this world. But, what I'm learning is that I have more of the "I can do it, because I have to" mentality than I thought. I felt like He was really telling me to let go of my own strength, see it as a weakness, and let Him carry me. Then I will do what He has for me, through His strength, and achieve far more and receive far more reward than I could ever attain apart from it.
I'm learning to rest in Him more, wait on Him more and not feel guilty because I have fallen short of an ideal or standard I've placed on myself. Although, I want to add, that I also know God has made me stubborn, strong willed and persistent! Sadly, but I know He has a purpose in it, so although I'm learning to rest I will never be asleep! And if He's given me a personality that says "I can't let up, I have to do it, nothing will stop me" than I need to find the line of allowing Him to lead me in His strength. Because no matter how badly I want to be strong, I'm not. I can't accomplish what I may ideally want to in my own strength. Thank God!! I need the strength of Jesus to endure what He endured, to walk as He walked, to love what He loved, and to hate what He hated. I need Him alive and powerful and reigning in my life to accomplish His purpose for me and my family. And I need to know and believe, wholeheartedly, that the work on the cross is finished and nothing can be added to it!
So I am slowly trying to understand and live out my freedom and my responsibility in and to Christ. To know that the "work is finished". That "you can't add one thing to what's been done" and that "we are slaves bought with a price". Even though it may sound contradictory, this is one of the beautiful mysteries that make me stand in awe of our awesome God and praise Him in His righteousness and sovereignty. And so thankful that He is in control!
Apart from that stuff, I also feel like I have been kind of supressing the things I saw and experienced in India because I don't know how to deal with it. I've been praying about things but I get so worked up when I fully let my mind go that it's just been easier not to. But, I know I can't and I don't want to just get comfortable in my own life again and not remember what so much of the world is going through. There was so much poverty and pain and you can't help but feel guilty when you see it. Like a little boy walking by on a busy sidewalk in Mumbai, only about 2 yrs. old, if that, crying and alone. I hate that I didn't do anything, but you have this mindset there that you just have to keep going because there's need everywhere and you can't do everything. But, I hate that! When I think of what I saw and experienced in only 6 days and 3 towns of India it breaks my heart and makes my stomach turn of how much need there is in this world and how little of the world knows Jesus, the Restorer, Redeemer, Savior, Healer & our hope.
How hard it is knowing that we, as a family of four, making $12 an hour, can live comfortably. That's poverty for our nation, yet we have all we need and more! While we saw in Tanali a very pregnant woman doing hard labor, carrying blocks of cement on her head back and forth all day, made less than 80 rupees a day. That's less than 2 american dollars. Who am I to complain? And oh how often we grovel, worry, compare and think of what we don't have or how easy we don't have it. What a shame! Still, the Lord is faithful and blesses us beyond compare!
There are so many things I struggle to understand and am wrestling with God through, yet I know and trust that He has a plan and purpose for it all. What weighs so heavy on my heart is that though there is grace, love and mercy, He has given us a responsibility to this world and the people whom He loves. With that responsibility comes an accountability, a judgement. When all we have said and done will be thrown into a fire and burned up. All the hay and stumble will burn away. Will there be anything left? Will there be gold and silver? Enough to see? If He asks us "What did you do with My Son?" will we answer and say "I loved Him, I served Him, I chose Him over all the pleasures and things of this world." Will He say, "Well done good and faithful servant?" or will He say "Depart from me, I never knew you."
Are we willing to let go of a few things here in this life? A new car, new house, things, possessions, a title, esteem .... sin? All of which will one day burn and no longer be. Are we willing to have an open hand to gain the eternal reward of a soul? I pray that when given the opportunity or making the opportunity we will be willing to let go and when we stand before the Creator and King of heaven and earth we'll stand firm gazing in His face with confidence that "we have run the good race" and He is pleased!

A Slice of India

2008-05-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally made it to India! What an amazing journey! I left April 27th and arrived home on May 6th. It took 24 hours of traveling to get there and about 30 hours to get home! Exhausting!
How do I even begin to explain India and what I saw and experienced on my short 10 day trip? I wish I could put into words everything I felt and share with you my heart, but there's no way to do that unless you've experienced it yourself. That's why I wanted to create a blog to share with everyone some thoughts, experiences and what God is doing in me through this trip.
I can't begin to describe how overwhelmed, heart broken and grieved I felt while I was there over the extreme poverty, filth, overpopulation and lack of concern and regard for quality of human life. Seeing a picture or video just doesn't do it. All of the media I've seen or could of ever seen had no comparison or could of prepared me for what I felt standing in the midst of such anguish. Everywhere I looked I was surrounded by such depth of need. I must of felt every possible feeling during the short 6 days we were actually on the ground. I experienced great joy at seeing God's amazing hand redeeming the one's He loves. As well as overwhelming pain and grief, almost too much to bare, at the circumstances in which people live and the evil and dark things that are taking place.
I traveled with 5 other American woman from all different backgrounds which was such an amazing experience in and of itself. They are all beautiful and amazing woman who hunger to live for God and make an impact for His kingdom! This also made for an interesting experience in India as 6 white girls draw a lot of attention! In a culture that's already not shy about staring, we were quite the spectacle!
The main points of the trip, which many of you know, was to further and encourage the work of International Princess Project with the partners and new partners of the organization. So we spent 3 days in Bombay with Bombay Teen Challenge and 3 days in Tanali, a more rural area, with Harvest India. We got to see some of the amazing work these organizations are doing there and what a privilege this was! Amazing and beautiful people who so love the Lord and are truly self sacrificing and carrying their cross with Christ. What an encouragement and example it was to meet these people!
We spent a day and night at the girls aftercare center which was one of the most beautiful, peaceful places I've been at in my life! So amazing! And, in India, a miracle! This was a home to at least 60 girls who have been rescued from forced prostitution, as well as a sewing center and training for other hand trades and a home for boys who have been rescued from the streets. This was defiantly the highlight of the trip for most of us, if not all of us! The girls were absolutely amazing! So much fun and full of life. We had to remind ourselves what they came out of and what they must of been dealing with. So many of them now know the Lord and are being educated and have plans of going to college, being pastors and some going to bible college. They have dreams that they can now hope to achieve and a life in Christ filled with true love and joy. There were defiantly some girls who stood back and watched who I rarely saw smiling, so I was often reminded that these woman are hurting and have come out of a horrid past, more than I could imagine! But, to see God's saving grace and His redeeming power was so powerful and encompassed this place. We also saw 2 homes for children who's mother's have died from aids, a children's home in the middle of the red light area in Bombay, a clinic for woman in the red light area as well as an aids clinic. These were just some of the ministries in Bombay that we got to see a little bit of and they were all amazing! A light on a hill in the midst of darkness.
In Tanali we saw so many ministries! A church in a much smaller red light area for the woman there. A home for some woman coming out of prostitution which will also be starting a sewing center. We went and fed the children and elderly woman at the mercy ministry where they get a banana, bread and 1 egg. This was heart breaking. You give them this food knowing that this is most likely all they get for the day. Some children would hide their egg as soon as you gave it to them and want another one and there was a small baby crying, most likely because it was hungry. Thank God for this ministry, because there is no government assistance or food banks in India! There was also a little clinic at this spot which gave medicine and vitamins to those who needed it. Again there is no governmental aid for health care either. We also saw where there is an orphanage and they are also building a school for the dalit children (the untouchables) which are the lowest in the social aspect of the caste system (Hindu belief). This organization plants churches, has bible colleges, orphanages and mercy ministries all over the state of Andre Pradesh so we only saw a small part, though amazing, of the work God is doing through Harvest India.
This is a rough idea of what this trip was like, at least for this first post. I have so much more to say and share. More about what God did and is doing in me through this experience and more detail about some of the things I experienced and saw there. I had and still have so much racing through my mind that I thought sharing this blog may be a good outlet. I will tell you that while I was there, and still, my heart was split in half. I was grieved so much by the state of India and the darkness, it is inexpressible. But, I also was heart broken and disappointed with the state of Christianity in the West! Half of me wants to reach out to love and help these people who are suffering and who are desperately in need of a loving Savior who can redeem them and give them a hope and a purpose, while the other half of me wants to plead and shout "Wake up you sleeping church! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" Let us not allow the devil to deceive us any longer and fill ourselves with gain. Let us not continue to trade our Christianity for comfort. Let us not first lose all of our resources and freedoms before we choose to give them. Let us not be found lulled to sleep by the false doctrines and the lack of power and prayer in our lives when Christ comes back! "Woe to those who ease in Zion!" Let Him not find us unrepentant and immersed in our sin!
I pray that we would repent and turn from our sin and hate it. Never go back and never miss it! And not to be idle, thinking we're fine because we love God and have no major sin in our life. But to ask God, am I living for you? What do you have for me? I am willing to go anywhere, do anything, give anything for Your sake! "The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. Pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers" Luke 10:2. Pray that He would send laborers, but pray that He may send you. We all have a part in reaching this world for Christ and when you see how in need the rest of this world is and how in need of Christ they are, how can we not want to go to them or help them? We all need to be going, sending or praying for the salvation of those Christ loves and died for! "Does He not deserve the reward of His suffering?"