I miss India. A lot. Right now, as I type, there is another team from GCC most likely laying their heads down to sleep after a long, hard day of manual labor. They are helping to rebuild homes in the Tsunami zone, and it sounds like they are having an amazing time.

I have found that one of the highlights of my day is to log onto their blog site to read the stories and see the pictures of what they are accomplishing as well as who they are surrounded by. It only truly hit me 10 minutes ago how much my heart is aching for India. And it was brought on by one of the most random things – beef jerky.

When all of us were packing for India, we stocked our bags with all sorts of non-perishable food items in the case of there wasn’t much we could/want to eat, or if we were hungry while on the trip to or from, we would be all set. Ironically, the only time in India we busted out the food was on our last night – we all got back to the hotel after the restaurant had closed and we couldn’t order pizza again (the nice man wasn’t working the desk that night…) so we dined on tuna, beef jerky, peanut butter and crackers, nuts and assorted granola bars. And we thought it was great!

And I can tell the team currently in India now feels the same. They just blogged about a care package of food that was sent with them made by a woman from GCC…

Its kinda crazy how something like beef jerky could pull my heart strings and bring back all kinds memories of my time in India.

I have to go back….hopefully sooner rather than later…

Reflections

Well it has been almost two months since our return from India and here I am still trying to process everything I saw and experienced. I wonder if I will ever truly be "done" processing...

Last night Lindsey (one of my fellow India travelers) and I were talking about the pace of our lives. Somehow, without our knowledge, our lives have gone crazy. It seems like my life is over flowing with too many things to do and not enough time to do it in. Slowly, the pace of my life has increased back to warp speed. And it spawned a conversation about the pace of life in India...

India is a hard country and culture to put into words. As I have told many of you, even though we were actually only gone for 10 days, it felt like we were gone for at least a month. There was so many things packed into our days that it often felt like one day was really two or three. I believe most of this is simply because of we were "guests" from America and everyone wanted to see us, have a chance to talk with us and to have us pray for them. There is kind of a relaxed urgency in their way of life. The church planters we were with packed their days with visiting people and ministering in villages and homes, wanting nothing more than to love these people and help them to meet or know Christ better. Yet at the same time, there was always downtime to spend with their closest family and friends. Every day we were in the villages we "took rest" - some of us napped, some of us just laid down our heads, but there was always down time. How ironic is it that I had to travel across the world to see an example of relaxed urgency. And even after I experienced it and yearned to be like that upon my return home, somewhere along the line I returned to my old habits. Packing my minutes, hours, days and weeks with stuff, without "taking rest" every day.

How desperately do I want to remember how the Indians lived, and learn to emulate it into my daily life.

The white people are melting and the indian people are freezing...

***This blog was originally written last Thursday, the 21st...due to blogger craziness, it didnt get uploaded until now...in order to get the full effect of this email think back to the weather we had the middle of last week - such as frosty nights, seeing your breath, goosebumps and shivering...***



Have any of you seen the movie "Fools Rush In"? There is one line in the movie that perfectly describes part of what we experienced in India...The white people are melting! Last night the reverse happened...

Four amazing men that we got to know while we were in India are here! They all work for The Bible League and came into town for some meetings (in Chicago I believe) and are hanging out here for a short time. Everyone who has visited India was invited to a cookout last night to eat and welcome them. If you happen to live in the Michiana area, or at least keep up with the weather on the news, it was cold yesterday. Abnormally cold. Not cool, cold. And since this outting was planned before even my trip to India in August, the plans were already made to hold this get together at St. Pat's park in a covered picnic area.

Are the pieces fitting together yet?

The Indian guys were definitely outside of their comfort zone last night, in more than one way! But despite the weather, we all had a great time chatting with them and with each other. Members from my team exchanged stories with people who have gone before us, and we all shared stories and advice for the newcomers heading out in October. It was a fabulous night and the weather couldn't burst our happy bubbles.

This is Raj. He's pretty important, people know him.
He is actually one of the big-wigs of the Bible League in India.
He's in charge of the Bible League in Tamil Nadu.
And he's flippin awesome! Great sense of humor!

This is Immanuel and Francis.
Immanuel watched out for us alot during our time in India.
He is in charge of the Bible League office in Chennai.
He's pretty important too. People know him!
Francis is just a hoot! He was with us on our
shopping day at Spencer Plaza. He took
videos of us on his camera at Pizza Hut.
He has the greatest sense of humor and
the best smile. Even the cold couldn't bring him
down - no that's not a turbin on his head, its a scarf!

Here is Francis, Immanuel, Zephaniah and Raj.
They picked to stand in front of the fire to stay warm.
Smart men.

You have to meet Sheela!

This is Sheela. She actually works for the Bible League and came along with us as a translator. I absolutely LOVE Sheela! I have to say I think she was the most fun of anyone I met in India. While she is very much a lady, she had no problem telling us that she wants to marry a man that can cook and clean because she does not do those things ---not very common in India! We all decided we were going to find her a man who is domesticated because she is very much a city girl!

During our time in India the heat was often stifling, and many times it ran through my head that I just needed time for my body to adjust to India. The phrase from the movie "Fools Rush In" is perfect to describe how we felt - "The white people are melting!" Then, come to find out, Sheela was miserably hot too! One of my favorite Sheela phrases is "It is not this hot in Bangalore" (where she is from) She kept telling us that we needed to visit her because it was much more comfortable and their Bangalore had A.C. It was nice to know it was not just us that the heat was effecting.

Lanette, Jennifer and I were blessed to get to spend some time at the beach along the Bay of Bengal. Esther, her children and her church family took us to the beach one of our last days in India and it was Sheela's first time ever to put her feet in ocean water! She was so excited and giggly that it made the rest of us excited also! It was such a blessing to get to be there with our new friend and she got to experience the fun and excitement of something so simple yet so amazing! I love the nature - especially the beach and water - so as I stood there laughing, smiling and taking pictures, I could feel God. He was right there with us playing in the sand and the water. It was awesome!



I miss Sheela. She is an amazing woman and I can't wait to get to India again to see her!

More Sheela stories to come...

I would like to introduce you to Esther...

This is Esther. While I only got to spend 24 hours with her, she will always hold a special place in my heart.

Esther is, in essence, a working mother. Although in this case it is not as it seems...Esther and her husband are church planters and they have two beautiful sons, Jose and Joel (pronounced Jos and Joelle). While we were visiting Esther's husband was in Sri Lanka for a few weeks, but that did not stop her from continuing her ministry. One of her friends, affectionately referred to as "Teacher", travels to the different villages with her to care for Joelle, age 2, and keep an eye on Jose, a 2nd grader. During our short visit, we headed to many people's homes from cell groups Esther runs nearby villages, as well as visiting some members of her church family. One of the things that I admired about Esther is that even though her ministry and these people are extremely important to her, her priorities are straight. God, family, ministry. While we were heading from home to home Joelle became extremely tired (he was getting over being ill) and Esther told us we were going to speed up the process of our visits in order to get Joelle home as quickly as she could. People were counting on us visiting them, and no one was left out, yet she altered her plans to care for her son.

Esther is also a very humble woman. Sometimes in America people try to act humble, who really don't have a humble spirit. Esther has the humble spirit. Everything she has - her gifts, her home, her family, her words - she constantly reminds us are all because of God's grace. I could feel the Holy Spirit moving through her and through her love. Her love for God, her love for her family, her love for her church, her love for the village people, and her love for us.

I never realized before I went to India that I could love someone so deeply in such a short amount of time. She truly encourages me to be a better woman of God, just by being her. She is an example of who I want to become. Esther is a woman I view as a mentor, which is ironic since she is just a few years older than me. I will never forget Esther, or her amazing smile - I see God in her smile, and I hope someday people can say the same about me.

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!