Ahhh India. After being here for four weeks I’m starting to get use to my hair getting frizzier and larger by the moment because of the humidity. It’s turning into a wild beast and taking on a life of its own. I’m use to being covered in sweat and never feeling fully clean. I have never sweated so much in my entire life! We have to drink so much water here.
Our ministry here has varied. We have worked with several churches doing VBS, one being a massive church of over 20,000 and we worked with over 200 children. We also helped out at several VBS’s in rural areas where some of the children had never seen white people before. I literally got mobbed by a bunch of 7 year olds and they tore my pants wrote all over me and demanded my autograph like I was a celebrity. There is never a dull moment here.
At first I wasn’t sure how I felt doing ministry alongside other churches. I asked God to reveal to me his purpose in having us do VBS to the children instead of more Evangelism. During my quiet time God led me to the parable of sowing seeds. God reminded me of the seeds that were planted in me as a child when I did VBS. During the darkest moments of my life I was able to recall memory verses that I first learned when I was 5 years old. The seeds that we’re planting in these children will be with them the rest of their lives. Not only that, but my changing their hearts, we’re changing the whole course of a nations future. Strange to think of but its true.
Unlike back home, I wake up with the sun here and enjoy my quiet times on the roof terrace. There is nothing more beautiful than watching the sun rise over the Indian ocean and see it’s orange rays illuminate on white homes lining the beach. One time I was listening to worship songs on my iPod and Tessa my outreach leader heard me singing and snuck up on me. We both had a good laugh.
It’s so foreign here to me, but I love every moment of it. I’m absorbing every moment of India as I can and I love it. One of the Chennai YWAM bases outreach teams stayed at the base with us for awhile. I picked Rajesh’s brain (one of the leaders) about Indian traditions and learned heaps. Information such as the history of bindhis which are the red dots the Hindus wear on their foreheads. Originally when the Muslims and the HIndus warred with each other the Muslims use to pillage Hindi villages and rape the women. Since in Muslim custom if you touch a pig your considered unclean for a week, the HIndus use to slaughter pigs and hang the carcass by the door and the women would take some of the blood and smear it on their foreheads. So they were considered unclean adn the Muslim men would leave them alone.
Another thing I asked about was why Hindus drew flowers and other symbols outside their homes every morning with chalk. He told me that it was so the gods the family worshiped would come into their house and know they were welcome. Indians are extremely hospitable. You always take your shoes off before you enter a home, you should always expect to be overfed and then fed some more, and they’ll serve their guests before themselves so most of the time you have an audience while you’re eating with your hands looking like an idiot. Indian’s are late to everything because they care more about spending time with loved ones. I love that about them. I love their openness. They seem to see beaty in everything and they certainly feel the spiritual world, good and bad.
We have been able to celebrate two birthday’s since we’ve been here. Tessa my outreach leader turned 28 and we grabbed her and two of the other women who live with us in our room, Shynama and Naro, and we all went out for coffee. All 8 of us girls piled into one rickshaw. Definitely one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Another night after VBS we celebrated Carmen’s 18th birthday and all went out for coffee. Definitely one of our favorite things to do as a group. I think all of us desperately miss drinking coffee and it’s such a treat when we get the chance to.
During one of the VBS’s I was helping out with crafts and I was handing out supplies to all the kids and this one little girl didn’t respond when I tapped her on the knee to hand her a paper plate for the project. So her sister started to say “No no leave her alone she doesn’t want to do the craft!” I tried to figure out what was going on and I noticed the little girl was rocking a little bit. Instantly in my heart I knew she was autistic. So I put my finger under her chin and forced her to look at me and made a motion like I was drawing or coloring. She smiled at me and nodded her head.
Her sister was completely in shock because her sister never responded to strangers and people don’t know how to act around her. So I cut the plate into a fish shape and gave it to the little girl to color. The girl kept pointing at the markers and I thought she just wanted them so I handed them to her. Then she kept taking my hand and putting them on the markers. So I asked her what her favorite color was and she pointed to purple. Then she looked expectantly at me and I pointed to myeslf then the blue marker communicating that it was my favorite color. So she grabbed the blue marker and made the entire fish blue because it was my favorite color. Then she leaned up against me and hummed and my heart melted. I honestly don’t think people here know what autism is so I don’t think they know how to handle people with it.
Later snacks were passed out to the kids. When they had to leave the craft area the little girl ran up to me and gave me her juice box. It was precious and made me want to cry. It seems like every part of our lives has a part to play in the story God has for us. I wouldn’t know how to act around her if it wasn’t for people like John Barboletos or other autistic people I’ve known. God uses everything we have to show his love. Reminds me that everything seemingly simple, God breathes power into.
A few weeks ago we did an amazing ministry but it was emotionally draining. We were at a home for the sick and dying and what was interesting is it was mostly younger people that were just abandoned there. Most of them were mentally retarded or slow. Some of them seemed normal, just devestated and abused. Only a couple of them could speak a few words in English. But for the most part we couldn't communicate with them since we only had one translator and he couldn't be in eleven places at once.
At first it was shocking to see how they lived. Some of them were locked up in rooms and it reminded me of a prison. I know it was to also protect them. There were flies everywhere and urine on the floor along with smeared feces. Most of the rooms were very clean but I could tell that had recently happened with the people who were mentally handicapped. Some people had missing limbs and some had oozing sores.
It seemed like each of us represented a different characteristic of God. I don't know how else to describe it. But women flocked to Beebs and Mark and would automatically burst out laughing. Like they didn't even have to do anything to make them start laughing they just did. Ashley and Kyle had a crowd of women around them that just tried to talk with them. So Kyle and Ashley told them stories even though they couldn't understand. And with me, women literally came up to me and threw their arms around my neck. They grabbed my cheek and after touching my face would kiss their fingers. When I sat down on the floor I had women just lay down on me. Each leg had a head resting on it as well as each shoulder. It's like they could sense God's peace and love radiating out of me. So i just held them. I'm not saying that out of arrogance, it's that I wanted to share that God was using each and every one of us to display a different characteristic of his. We didn't need words, we didn't need to speak the same language, we just needed to be there. It was incredible.
At one point Ashley and I felt like we should both sing so we sang a worship song. Silence immediately filled the room and everyone just stared at us. I think some of them recognized the word hosanna because they kept repeating it over and over again quietly.
One younger woman came up to me and I looked into her eyes and saw the pain of abuse and the look of being told she was worthless and nothing all her life. I grabbed her hand and made her come sit by me. She was a serious little thing and extremely shy and at first wouldn't even smile at me. I held her hand for a while and smiled at her staring at her straight in her eyes. Finally after some time she smiled back and her eyes started to tear. Then she reached forward and touched my face. She touched every part of it and memorized my face with her fingertips. She kept saying something in Tamil and then Anbu was closeby so I asked him what she was saying to me. He said she was saying that I was very bright. I laughed and told him to tell her that God made me that way. When he told her what I said she smiled again. So then I touched her skin and her face and called her beautiful. And she was. I could see all of God's children exactly how he saw them and I felt overwhelming in love with them.
Do we always see whether our ministry is effective? I don't think so. Sometimes we are just the one to plant the seeds and someone else gets the opportunity to see them grow. Sometimes I get discouraged by not seeing immediate salvations, but today I was at peace. Because the holy spirit was resting on me and I saw others drawn to him.
Our team was lucky enough to be working at the home for the sick and dying all this last week. We've been sanding walls, painting, organizing library books for the school next door thats run by the same people, and we're loved every minute of it. I feel like God has really been speaking to me about planting seeds into the youth, and we're even doing that by our acts of service for the community. The school that we were helping out at has a lot of Hindu and Muslim students that attend to learn english. What an amazing witness to those children!
We've also gone on a prayer walk in the neighborhood by Pastor Sam Paul's church (friend of our translator Anbu). It's interesting because right across the street from his church is a temple. Pretty conflicting if you ask me. Before we started the prayer walk the rest of the team was in the church and I stayed outside just staring at the temple. I talked to Anbu and he told me that at the temple they worshiped the elephant god. I told him I could already feel a lot of greed in this place, so I asked him what god it was the god of. He said it was the god who gives blessings. It made sense with what I felt.
For our prayer walk we broke up into two teams and walked around the whole neighborhood. It was soo hot! Luckily we all brought sunscreen and water. Even with that, people were getting burned and heat exhaustion. But it was still amazing. I love going on prayer walks. Something interesting always happens. We had tracks that shared the gospel on it that we handed to people or put in their mailboxes. As our group was praying other people sense the spirit of greed, the spirit of poverty, the spirit of confusion, the spirit of territorialism, and a spirit of fear. I loved seeing how we prayed and would sense the same evil. I think our gift of discernment is only getting stronger. On most peoples homes I saw plaques with the elephant god on it. On one of then I saw a blue god straddling a tiger holding a trident. Later I asked Anbu who it was and he said it was Kali the death goddess.
While we were walking we still had our gospel tracks in our hands and we took a turn down this one road. We walked down the end of it and suddenly saw that there was a dead end. Suddenly from around a car a police officer started walking towards us. In my head God spoke to me and said hide the tracks, and turn the other way and leave RIGHT NOW. The moment I spoke it out Ashley did too, we literally said it at the same time and talked over each other. Then we looked each other in the eye and realized God warned both of us. We hid the tracks and turned the other way and left. A couple of people in our group asked what that was all about and I told them that we were about to be thrown in jail because we were handing out religious tracks and it would have violated our visa because we are only there on a tourist visa. Ashley said she got the same thing, and could also sense hatred and anger from him. Phew that was a close call! Yay holy spirit for speaking to us.
After our prayer walk we all took a nap at the church and had to wait there for several hours. Later on we were suppose to go over to Anbu's house to celebrate his son david's birthday. It was quite the honor because Anbu normally keeps his family seperate from his ministry, understandably to protect them. So for him to invite us into his home it was quite the honor. He and his wife live with Anbu's parents along with their children Princess (3) and David (7). Princess looks like a little princess too. She is so stinking cute. For her brothers party they dressed her in a gold and black dress and she had anklets with bells on so she jingled when she walked. So cute. At first his kids were really shy of all the white people. They speak very little English so we were extremely intimidating to them. But by the end of the night princess was laying on my lap and playing games with me giggling. Anbu's mother didn't speak English so when we had dinner and she'd try to offer us more and we'd say no thank you and shake our heads she'd ignore us and load our plates up again. I ate so much food I was terrified of throwning up. But it was delicious! She was an amazing cook. After eating they brought the cake out and sang a Tamil worship song and then had us sing an English worship song. Then we all laid hands on David and prayed over him and blessed him. Then we sang happy birthday and ate cake and ice cream on top of already having stuffed stomachs.
We went on another prayer walk previously which is a cool story. Our translator Anbu rented a bus for us and we drove 35 kilometers to a fishermans village to pray and intercede. We all broke up into groups of three and we were asked to go into different parts of the city and pray.
I went in a group with Svein and Beebs. Her real name is Bethany but her nickname is Beebs. Svein is from Norway and has blonde hair, blue eyes, and is shy and softspoken. He has an incredibly kind heart and he's been growing in boldness.
Beebs is crazy. She is just one crazy goofball and it's what I love about her. She has so much joy and brings so much joy. She laughs at everything and contorts her face into the strangest and most hilarious expressions. She got a tongue cramp once from sticking her tongue out at someone and then she couldn't talk normally for a few hours. She is just crazy. Her joy is just what I need. She is good medicine.
So that explains a little about who I went to go pray with. Each group had to have a guy in it and when I saw Svein I just wanted to be with him. He is incredibly patient and he makes me feel safe. Beebs makes me feel joy in chaos so I wanted to be with her. We looked around us and Svein asked where we wanted to go so I looked around and felt a huge tug in my spirit. I pointed and said "we're suppose to take on that right there". And I pointed to a massive Hindu temple. Svein and Beebs looked at me like I was crazy and they hesitated at first but they trust me.
So we walked down a street paralleling the temple and started to pray. Svein asked that God would speak to us and that us being there would make a difference in the community. Beebs started to pray and ask for healing in the area. I started to pray and when I did I immediately felt nauseous and scared out of my mind. Then I became angry because I knew I was being spiritually attacked. So I prayed outloud against it and I prayed out everything I could feel and discern in that place. I could sense a spirit of despair so I prayed against that. I could sense a stronghold of hatred and violence so I prayed against that. I felt the spirit of poverty in that place so I prayed against that. I felt the spirit of confusion so I prayed against that. As I did I felt the fear and nausea lift. It was as if with each prayer I was literally throwing a punch at my attacker.
Beebs said she could sense the strongholds too. She said she struggled with discerning what they were until I named each one of them and then she said she knew I was naming the right ones.
We walked around the temple and there were idols and gods with weapons, snakes, and lions. I saw them after I discerned there was a stronghold of violence and hatred. But after seeing those gods it confirmed it even more.
We walked around the temple and the temple wall was right along the beach facing the ocean. We walked past the entrance and I could see an alter decorated in idols and covered in ashes. I don't want to know what they sacrifice and burn on that alter.
Then the three of us walked along the beach. I saw a bunch of green light glitering in the sand, it was breath taking and beautiful and suddenly I felt filled with peace and joy. I giggled and breathed in the sea air and ran down the beach toward the green sparkles that looked light emeralds in the sunlight. Turned out there were the most beautiful shells. Emerald green on one side, and looked like abolone on the other side. I started to gather a bunch knowing I wanted to make jewelry out of them.
But in that moment on that beach next to a Hindu temple, next to a Canadian girl and a Norwegian man standing on a beach surrounded by millions of gem stones from the depths of the ocean, I was reminded of Gods beauty, of Gods love, and the fact that he literally brought me across the world and put me right into a story book fairytale.
After gathering the emerald shells I walked to where the water was breaking on the sand and asked Svein and Beebs what they felt in that moment. They said they felt Gods presence, his peace, and his love. So we all thanked God. Then I took a shell and used it like a pen on paper and wrote in the sand "Jehovah shama". It means the God who hears me. I knew God was listening to us pray and he brought us to that village to pray and change something in the spiritual realm. And believe me something changed.
When I wrote Jehovah shama in the sand, a wave crashed over the words and something crazy happened. The water poured into the lines and it illuminated in the sunlight like the words were branded with fire. It was crazy and it was beautiful.
Then we heard something that sounded like gunshots. Our heads snapped to the direction of the noise and there was a massive mob of men headed our direction. They were lighting off fireworks and they had an idol lifted up on a stand that they were walking with. I grabbed Sveins hand and he grabbed Beebs and we all left as fast as we could. I didn't turn and look back but I could hear men shouting at my turned back and taunting me. Three against a couple hundred aren't good odds, and God didn't make me stupid so I got the hell out of there. Later we found out it was a funeral and they were going to burn the body at the altar at the temple. That explained where the ashes came from.
Later when we met as a group we prayed together and sang worship songs. I shared with the group that I felt that there was going to be a Pastor who was going to build a church in the neighborhood and that we should pray for him. So we prayed for protection for him and his family, that God would give him a boldness and he'd step out in obedience. Anbu told us that the last two Pastors that tried to start a church in the area were murdered by an angry mob. It's no wonder we felt such a strong hatred and violence in the area.
Whats even more amazing is that day at the beach and our prayer walk was a few weeks ago. It was only just yesterday that Anbu talked to me and told me some of his story. He shared that God has been speaking to him and his wife about planting a church at the fisherman's village. I looked at him in shock and said "So Anbu, the pastor and the family we were praying for is possibly you?" He just giggled and nodded his head. WOW. All I have to say is WOW. God has been doing so much! And even though this is a long update, I feel like this is only a tiny bit of what's been happening.
I'll update more later! Running out of time at the Internet Cafe and India awaits! I miss and love you all.
Current needs/prayer requests:
I still need $450 towards my outreach fees. I'm SOOO close so please help me out and pray that I'll get this last little bit of money. It's due next week. I have the faith that God will provide.
Please pray for the health and protection of my team. Also pray for wisdom for me and that God would continue to use my prophetic gift to discern and intercede. Thank you all for eveything. You helped make this possible!
