Hello everyone! Sorry once again that it’s been so long since my last post. Days can be so full here.
Before I write any further, though, I have some very exciting news: we have two new Christian sisters! They live in a village called Pujaldi – a Hindu village the long-term team here has visited for about 12 years now (talk about faithfulness and patience). When the long-termers first started visiting Pujaldi, these girls were small enough to sit on laps. Now they’re teenagers and have asked to receive Christ and become Christians. I imagine that the consistent love of Christ displayed in the Christians who visited their village the past twelve years helped open their hearts and pave the way for the gospel in a big way. I pray the same for the present little children of Pujaldi, that God would use the games we play and stories we tell and the laughs we share and the love we show to open their hearts so that they know Him some day.
So as you might imagine, a lot has happened since my last post, and as my summer here is starting to wind down, I’m really amazed and honored at all the things I’ve been able to do and see and learn here – both about God and about myself.
Since my last post, I’ve been to the Christian hospital here and watched two surgeries from a comfortable distance of 5 feet away; seen a swarm of gnats that was the closest thing to an Egyptian plague I’ve ever experienced; sang into a microphone for the first time (in Hindi, no less); eaten more lentils in a week than I ever had in my life up until this summer; hung out with a goat shepherdess; sat by a swimming hole full of naked little boys; eaten my first lychee (which I highly recommend if you’ve never had one); stayed up till 3 AM talking about God and marveling at the way He works; made a friend from Kashmir; rejoiced over the answer to a long-prayed prayer; and played basketball barefoot, wearing a kurta, in the rain.
I feel so privileged and blessed and honored (and all kinds of other good words having to do with gratitude) that I’ve been able to have these experiences. This has been such an incredible adventure, though one thing I’m realizing is that all of Christian life is an adventure (you don’t have to go halfway around the world to experience it). God is present everywhere, and He’s so incredibly creative – why wouldn’t He want our lives to be an adventure?
I’ve learned a lot about God on this adventure, more than I could ever possibly fit into one blog post, so I’ll just share one thought instead. This is a journal entry I wrote recently, about the night I stayed up till 3 AM:
Sunday July 25, 2010
Church at Kellogg this morning, and a Sabbath at the house. When night time came, most of the team was watching a movie, but I was feeling stir-crazy and suggested we take a walk; so Nick, Jess, Emily, Kirra, and I set off. We didn’t walk too far – just past Dobighat to this bend in the road that overlooks an incredible valley where clouds like to dance. The moon was full, and everything looked black and white, like the 1920s.
We sat on the road in that spot for a long time, talking and listening to each other. Mixed emotions of anxiety and excitement over the future; the magic of seeing God in everyday moments, unexpected places; what we wrote about last in our journals. Time passed, and we walked home.
Nick, Jess, Emily and I stayed awake for a long time after that – all the way till 3, though Emily didn’t stay with us quite that long. We talked about a lot of things, some funny, some serious – the will of God, His timing, having visions and dreams and strong feelings (or prophecies) about things, how God’s Spirit moves in us, how God speaks to us and answers prayers, how His glory has been displayed in our lives, short as they are.
I’ve been wondering lately about how the Holy Spirit speaks to people, how Christians – on a very practical basis – discern the will of God. I’m certain that a large part of the will of God is what theologians term His “revealed will,” or the desires and purposes of God for man as set forth in Scripture. I’m also certain that whatever Christians discern of God’s will for their individual circumstance or decision must be consistent with this revealed will; God doesn’t lie or mince words.
But I’m still very interested in what I guess I’ll call the Holy Spirit’s method of action. How does God actually direct individuals? So when someone said during our conversation, “But that’s something I need to pray about…” I asked, “How does God actually answer you in prayer? What does that look like?”
So each of us tried to explain it, and the four of us discovered we were talking about the same thing. This might sound mystical or hokey to you, but stay with me. What writers call a stream of consciousness exists in every human mind – thoughts and feelings and perceptions streaming though, sometimes seemingly endless – and this consciousness is particularly directed toward God when in prayer. Statements of thought and feeling are poured out to Him; sometimes questions are asked, and when that happens, possible answers arise in the consciousness. The possible answers can be many or few, but when a thought comes from God, it is decidedly unique. It has a different nature, a different level of certainty; it is consistent with Scripture and glorifies Him, not one’s self; and it brings a peace with it that is difficult to articulate. We were all talking about this same phenomenon, how it happens to each of us, though we are each so very different.
I marveled at this, though it didn’t really shock me (after all, if God can save sinners from hell, He can certainly do something cool like communicate with 4 people in the same way). I agree with the writer Donald Miller when he says that the intellectual side of the argument about God comes down to some really smart people who believe in God and can prove that He exists and some other really smart people who don’t believe in God and can prove that He doesn’t. All that can end up boiling down to people trying to prove their own points for the sake of their own egos, and then we miss the point of actually connecting with God. “As if the Good Lord had nothing to do but exist,” CS Lewis wrote.
I write all this to say that I’m not much interested in proving God to anyone, though I am very much interested in helping people connect with Him. However, by nature, I have a very rational, skeptical, factual mind (I relate a lot to doubting Thomas), and this was a really cool encouragement to me – to see God’s consistency in communication. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck, smells like a duck; must be a duck. To me, listening to each of our descriptions, this looks like God; in fact, I’m sure it is, though you may not be. (And if you aren’t sure, ask God to show you. Jesus had a lot of grace with Thomas, and He’s certainly had a lot of grace with me.)
We also discovered the answers to the questions in our prayers don’t always come this way. Sometimes, I just make a decision based on what I know I should be doing according to the Bible (since I know that’s true and right and doesn’t change). I commit my decision to God, pray that whatever action I’m taking works to His glory, and try my best to trust that He’ll redirect me if I’m screwing up or affirm me and help me along if I chose correctly. I think God has us do this, take these steps in faith when we may not be exactly sure what to do, to deepen our trust in Him, to build our assurance that He can and will take care of us.
So then all of a sudden it was 3 AM, and we’d covered a lot of really great stuff, and I’m fairly certain all our hearts were singing praise to our Redeemer; I know mine was.
“My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being!”
[Psalm 108:1]
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Shakedown Cruise
Well, this is my first time on the computer this summer, and I have to admit - it's been very refreshing to be disconnected. I also apologize, though, for failing to keep this thing updated. I'm pretty horrible at writing consistently.
I haven't been a lot of places in my life, but after being here for a few weeks, I have to say that India is the strangest place I've ever been. Monkeys hang out by the roadside; people live in estates and shacks made of tarps by the roadside, right next to each other; women in the villages, miraculously strong, like ants, carry bundles of leaves on their heads larger than their own bodies, straight down mountains; the former pet dog here was eaten by a panther; there are absolutely no rules when driving; eating out can give you diarrhea faster than you can say tandoori chicken; and toilet paper is a rare and special commodity.
And yet people here are very much the same as people in America. People share the same needs, deal with the same problem of evil, share the same laughs. People may worship concrete idols here, but we have our own idols in America (they're a little more subversive, more cleverly disguised, but just look for them, and you'll see). When two Indians begin a conversation, they find out which caste each man belongs to. In America, we do the same, only we're less straightforward (your hometown, what your parents do for a living, where you went to college, what kind of car you drive). The human condition is the same, I think, no matter where you go or what cultural veneer it's covered in.
Thankfully, the fellowship between Christians and the way that God redeems each of us is the same as well. Hearing the redemption stories of two of the people working here was such a great blessing - listening to the way that God pulled them from their old lives and gave them a new reality, with the underpinning of their stories, their thoughts and emotions, very much the same as mine, very much the same as every story I've ever heard (though the physical details may differ). The Spirit of God is the same all over the world, and the warmth and genuine love with which Christians receive one another doesn't change because it is the manner of Christ, which transcends time and space and culture.
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On another note, we visit the villages here on 4-day camping trips about every other week, and they too are unlike any place I've ever been. The trip starts with a 2-hour jeep ride to the first village (the only one we can reach with a car). After that, we load our stuff on donkeys and our backs and walk the rest of the way in. These places remind me of ancient towns out of Lord of the Rings. The flies buzz around incessantly, water buffalos and cows live in front yards and in the bottom floor of homes, goats walk the streets, people farm on terraces carved into the side of sometimes impossibly steep mountains, and people invite you to sit on their verandas and drink tea without hesitation. Though I can't speak much Hindi, I can still share a smile and a laugh with people as I ask them how they are, and it's a blessing for me to sit by as the Hindi speakers with us talk about family life, share the gospel and pray. Little girls have fleas and lice, but it's a privilege to play duck, duck, goose with them, wash their hair, and hold them in my lap (they feel like little skeletons).
Up until very recently, there were no Christians in these villages - not a single one. I don't know if you can imagine a place with no church, no pastor, not even a single Christian. People here still pray and offer food and who knows what else to their little idols at shrines in their homes and the concrete gods in shrines by the side of the path; processions of people carrying idols and playing drums in a frenzy still move through the village streets. They estimate 9,000 villages in the region, and we've only visited about five or six. Many people have never even heard of Jesus.
Now, though, in one of the villages, three boys have accepted Christ - and one is telling others. This is a big deal. In America, religion is very much a personal thing - a decision often made on an individual basis, where your beliefs may not often have much of a consequence in the way you're treated. Here, it's very different - to abandon Hinduism here is to abandon everything: cultural identity, family values, unity in the village. One woman who attends church here in the city was forced to leave her village 15 years ago for marrying a Christian man and hasn't seen her parents since. And so, these three boys are the first Christians out of Poojalti. Another girl is very close, and many of the little children are learning a lot. There is so much hope, if for no other reason than that God is moving and will accomplish His purposes. And that's very exciting. Pray for these kids - they have a big battle to fight. And pray for our team - that we'll stay unified, focused on serving God in whatever way we can. Pray for the long-term team here as well - that God will sustain them, give them energy and creativity, faithfulness and courage and determination as they minister to the people in these hard-to-reach (in more ways than one) places.
I've learned a lot here in these past few weeks - about myself, about this place, about God - much more than I can write in a single blog post. Hopefully I'll be keeping up with this a lot better from now on.
I haven't been a lot of places in my life, but after being here for a few weeks, I have to say that India is the strangest place I've ever been. Monkeys hang out by the roadside; people live in estates and shacks made of tarps by the roadside, right next to each other; women in the villages, miraculously strong, like ants, carry bundles of leaves on their heads larger than their own bodies, straight down mountains; the former pet dog here was eaten by a panther; there are absolutely no rules when driving; eating out can give you diarrhea faster than you can say tandoori chicken; and toilet paper is a rare and special commodity.
And yet people here are very much the same as people in America. People share the same needs, deal with the same problem of evil, share the same laughs. People may worship concrete idols here, but we have our own idols in America (they're a little more subversive, more cleverly disguised, but just look for them, and you'll see). When two Indians begin a conversation, they find out which caste each man belongs to. In America, we do the same, only we're less straightforward (your hometown, what your parents do for a living, where you went to college, what kind of car you drive). The human condition is the same, I think, no matter where you go or what cultural veneer it's covered in.
Thankfully, the fellowship between Christians and the way that God redeems each of us is the same as well. Hearing the redemption stories of two of the people working here was such a great blessing - listening to the way that God pulled them from their old lives and gave them a new reality, with the underpinning of their stories, their thoughts and emotions, very much the same as mine, very much the same as every story I've ever heard (though the physical details may differ). The Spirit of God is the same all over the world, and the warmth and genuine love with which Christians receive one another doesn't change because it is the manner of Christ, which transcends time and space and culture.
--------------
On another note, we visit the villages here on 4-day camping trips about every other week, and they too are unlike any place I've ever been. The trip starts with a 2-hour jeep ride to the first village (the only one we can reach with a car). After that, we load our stuff on donkeys and our backs and walk the rest of the way in. These places remind me of ancient towns out of Lord of the Rings. The flies buzz around incessantly, water buffalos and cows live in front yards and in the bottom floor of homes, goats walk the streets, people farm on terraces carved into the side of sometimes impossibly steep mountains, and people invite you to sit on their verandas and drink tea without hesitation. Though I can't speak much Hindi, I can still share a smile and a laugh with people as I ask them how they are, and it's a blessing for me to sit by as the Hindi speakers with us talk about family life, share the gospel and pray. Little girls have fleas and lice, but it's a privilege to play duck, duck, goose with them, wash their hair, and hold them in my lap (they feel like little skeletons).
Up until very recently, there were no Christians in these villages - not a single one. I don't know if you can imagine a place with no church, no pastor, not even a single Christian. People here still pray and offer food and who knows what else to their little idols at shrines in their homes and the concrete gods in shrines by the side of the path; processions of people carrying idols and playing drums in a frenzy still move through the village streets. They estimate 9,000 villages in the region, and we've only visited about five or six. Many people have never even heard of Jesus.
Now, though, in one of the villages, three boys have accepted Christ - and one is telling others. This is a big deal. In America, religion is very much a personal thing - a decision often made on an individual basis, where your beliefs may not often have much of a consequence in the way you're treated. Here, it's very different - to abandon Hinduism here is to abandon everything: cultural identity, family values, unity in the village. One woman who attends church here in the city was forced to leave her village 15 years ago for marrying a Christian man and hasn't seen her parents since. And so, these three boys are the first Christians out of Poojalti. Another girl is very close, and many of the little children are learning a lot. There is so much hope, if for no other reason than that God is moving and will accomplish His purposes. And that's very exciting. Pray for these kids - they have a big battle to fight. And pray for our team - that we'll stay unified, focused on serving God in whatever way we can. Pray for the long-term team here as well - that God will sustain them, give them energy and creativity, faithfulness and courage and determination as they minister to the people in these hard-to-reach (in more ways than one) places.
I've learned a lot here in these past few weeks - about myself, about this place, about God - much more than I can write in a single blog post. Hopefully I'll be keeping up with this a lot better from now on.
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