Alright, I guess I can stomach one more heaping plate of rice…??!!!

This month, we stayed in a village in India and did evening ministry. We would travel out at night (all packed in a car or rickshaw) and ride 30 minutes to 1.25 hours away to various villages. We would stall for a bit to give time to draw a crowd by singing songs and listening to the locals sing their songs. We’d be served chai tea without fail by our hosts and ushered to sit down. Sometimes we’d do “Sunday school” songs and stories. Then after an hour or so, we’d have a large enough group that our host would say to start. We’d share 1-3 testimonies/ messages in front of the crowd and then our host would give a short message. Then we’d divide and conquer and pray over everyone who requested it. There were lots of children who tried to double dip til our hosts would get them to disperse so the adults could receive prayer. Prayers for “studies,” family, relatives to accept Christ, healing and the like. Us females have to wear scarves over our heads when praying or preaching as this is a rule in Indian culture.

Then we’d be taken inside by our body guards aka hosts (crowd control is a thing and people demand “selfies”). We’d be served a large portion of dinner by the family hosting that night with heaps of rice, soup, lentils, potatoes, bananas, etc. If we were lucky, we’d get Thumbs up (their version of coke) as a treat! We loved it since our access to soda/ snacks was very limited in the village. They’d try to give us seconds but we would politely refuse because the original portion was too much! They’d give us water that you’d have to “waterfall” in because they don’t use cups (or silverware for that matter). All of the meals are seated on the ground on a mat, eating with your hands. They let you rinse your hands with water over a bowl afterwards. Then we’d do “family prayer” for the family and whoever else wandered in. Then we’d do the obligatory photo (“selfie”) with the family and leave. We’d arrive Home between 10pm-12 am usually.

It was exhausting for me and hard on our stomachs when we were all sick to be semi- force fed at ministry, but the people were so hospitable and gracious that served us dinner and we had some neat bonding experiences as a team due to the nature of the ministry. Some nights, we had one teammate on the guitar and one on the drums and we’d lead worship with microphones. Were we necessarily qualified to be a worship team? Nah, but we did it and had a blast! The Lord just asks us to be available and use what we have and that was a good way to practice doing that. Sometimes, we’d use our speaker and have jam out praise worship as the locals stared at us like the fools we were. Two teammates did a mashup of different choruses on the spot one night and then preached on a “random” passage of scripture they’d opened up to. So, we had fun with it. You get more freedom when they don’t understand your language 😉

We’d also go on prayer walks and take turns praying over 10-14 houses and then get served dinner at the end. One night, we got 3 servings of chai, 2 of mango juice and ate dinner sitting at a TABLE (only time all month we had a table!). It was glorious! So, all month, we went to minister to Christians. They have to be very careful here with foreign missionaries so we didn’t preach the gospel to the lost. But, there were definite moments when we could sense spiritual darkness and interference so we’re hoping that attendants and people who didn’t come but could hear the message over the loudspeaker, heard the truth of the gospel and that seeds were planted in unbelievers’ hearts.

This month, it was kinda frustrating, because we weren’t allowed to go outside during the day since we attracted too much attention so we were confined to our one room church. It was annoying at times when kids or locals would barge in but cool how the Lord brought the people to us since we couldn’t go out. Women would come to pray at church and lay down in the church for hours. Kids would bang on the doors and want to inspect our living domains (get in our tents or ask for candy or just hang out). Neighbors would come over to visit our hosts or to request prayer. Grandmas would paint local (BRIGHT orange) henna on us or help us do our laundry. We got to invest in our team more and hang out since we literally couldn’t go anywhere.

Our hosts had 2 biological daughters and then 11 boys that they housed in their hostel. The hostel was similar to an orphanage but some boys had families (extended relatives) but their families couldn’t care for them so they sent them there for financial provision and schooling. The children were our other “ministry” and were fun to get to know and my teammate Heather even memorized all the boys’ names- a true feat indeed!! One 11 month old baby girl Carmony (from down the street) stole my heart and they let me hold her the most because I was Indian and they said I should take her to America with me. She was so easygoing and the kids all loved her and tossed her around and the host’s daughter would go get “my baby” for me so I could hold her <3   

Our host Mom cooked for all 23 of us and treated us like her kids and would count us at each meal and get upset if some of us weren’t eating and would make us take chai up to them or try to get us to eat a little rice. She cared for us so well, making bread for us, with the extra labor that entailed, when we all were sick and needed basic foods. She even made Indian donuts for us on our last day (look like hush puppies with peanut sauce)! Our host, her husband, was so good, too. He’d joke around with us and named us silly names (WhatWhat, Howhowyou, Yesyes, etc) and would drive crazily on the road and call himself Mr. Perfect jokingly. We just loved their family and it made it hard to leave them. I even escaped the last day down the street while playing tag with his daughter and got to see my baby girl bathing at her house and meet my other sweet neighbor girl’s mother at her house. We petted water buffaloes and massaged grandmas and got massaged by a grandma. It was cool how we really bonded with the village people without even being able to leave of our own accord.

This month was hard for me. Worst living conditions yet on the Race for me personally. And having ministry at night plus being sick for a week was physically and emotionally taxing. But, I’m so grateful for our hosts and all the Indian people who loved us so incredibly well. I’m proud of my heritage and glad I got to see how life is really lived in the villages of India. So, thank you India for showing me what it means to love by actions and for increasing my thankfulness for all the comforts I have at home. I think my Indian father would be proud.