Even Better and Even Worse

Since I have gotten back from India one of the questions that always seems to come up in conversations is "Was it what you were expecting?" And the only response I can possibly give is "not at all - even better and even worse"

Some explanation -

Even better -- I can't even put into words how amazing the people of India are...we were told ahead of time of what to expect but it still flabbergasts me how loving and giving EVERYONE was. The people there truly know how to love and love well. A part of me was sad knowing what kind of culture I was coming home to. It was a refreshing, rejuvenating time for me in that aspect.

Many of the christians in India I met have been through and are going through harder times in their lives than most of us here can even imagine - and yet their faith is beyond belief. I saw so many examples of "faith like a child" - examples of who I want to become.



Even worse -- The villages we visited were nothing like I had envisioned. I knew that I would see and hear things that would not be easy, but I never realized how attached I would feel to some of the people or how deeply I would continue to feel their pain. My heart aches for the people there who are suffering - who live so close to the drug companies but yet have little or no access to medications. One little boy hit home the hardest...


His name is David, he's seven months old and he has a kidney problem. His older brother died of a kidney problem at seven months old and he has an older sister who cannot walk and is three years old. My heart hurts for this baby and his family. He is such a happy child and yet life has been so rough for him. I pray for him often and sometimes I catch myself wondering if how long he has to live. Given the chance I would have snatched him up and brought him home with me.





My time in India was filled with stories like these - and I truly believe God blessed me by keeping my tears away. I tend to be a crier and I had prayed I would not break down in front of these people - I wanted to be strong for them, not a sobbing mess. And He answered my prayer. He helped me keep emotionally separate in order to do His will. Otherwise I never would have had the strength to continue.


















If asked before I left for India, I never could have guessed how strong of a hold India would have on my heart. I honestly can not imagine my future without India in it.

Hello and welcome to my new blog specifically designed for posting thoughts, pictures and stories from my time in India!

Lets start from the beginning...God truly getting our attention at the airport....

GCC sends many teams to India, we were definitely not the first nor the last, so when we went to the ticket counter to sign in we were surprised to hear that Orbitz had sent us paper tickets. We never use paper tickets at GCC and so, guess what, we had no paper tickets. Luckily enough we had gotten to the airport many hours early! We got our fearless leader Jack on the phone - who quickly located the tickets and hopped in the car with his wife to hopefully get us the tickets in enough time to make the plane.

This is Lanette and Julie patiently waiting to hear something from Jack...

Here we see Shelley on the phone with Jack, with the rest of us watching, waiting, hoping for some good news on his driving progress....

Yes that is Lindsey sitting amongst all our luggage (sadly, that was not all of it...what can I say, we had 7 women traveling together!)

Yes that is a plane you see!! Here is Lanette and Kim waiting for takeoff!!

A very happy Jennifer and Shelley!

We were blessed with an amazing woman who worked for American Airlines who tagged our luggage, ran our boarding passes and did everything she could without having our tickets in hand. It got to the point where she said "You have 5 minutes. If the person bringing you the tickets isnt here in the next 5 minutes you arent going to be able to make your flight. Maybe you should call him again." Right after she got the words out of her mouth we see Jack fly up, Julie run and grab the tickets and run back up to the lady. Talk about God! Then the amazing ticket lady put our luggage at the front of the X-ray line! We then got through security, ran to our gate, and barely made it in time to make our flight!

If anything, this experience at the Chicago airport proves to use exactly how involved God truly was with our trip. He reminded us right from the start that this trip was all about Him and that there was no way we would be able to do this without Him!