January 1, 2010 Evening

Lord,

I don't eve know where to begin. your people in India are amazing! it is such a joy to see them worshipping you in their own way. I must admit however that im tired of sitting in hot 3 hour services where i don't understand anything that is going on. I'm also sad my camera doesn't work but i'm hearing you tell me "its not about your "vacation"! its about glorifying me!" I'm sorry Lord for that. Thanks for all your blessing, including a phone i can take some pics on.

I watched 6 people get baptized tonight and it reminded me of my baptism. Lord, Thank you so much for how far you've brought me and have continued to bring me forward in you.

Psalm 51:10-12 "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence O Lord. Take not thine Holy Spirit from me! Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and renew a right spirit within me." This was my anthem last year at school. I was looking for you to "restore unto me the joy of your salvation" you have restored it to me Jesus, thank you! However, the very next verse (13) reads "Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you." Let this be my anthem now Lord. An appropriate response to to the joy you have restored to me, sharing this joy with others.

first night.

here is an excerpt from a letter to, my fiance, Zack:

January 1, 2010 2 AM India time

the trip is going well, most of the day was spent on the bus (from 3:30am to 2:30 pm), it was a bumpy ride but i got to sleep and see indian culture up close be peeking out the windows :)

the rest of the day was spent settling in and talking with the children (mostly girls, since we are staying in the girls dormitory compound. ) our rooms are nice but simple and plain. The girls at IREF are so sweet; tonight they painted my nails (only on my right hand though ) and gave me henna tattoos on my left. They all ask my name, but call me sister :) they ask lots of questions about my family and my hobbies. they tell me their names and even though i repeat them back to them, i still forget all of them immediately. They tried teaching me some words in Telugu but to no avail, I am so hopeless when it comes to languages :)

We also spent two hours in church tonight for their new years eve service. It was interesting to watch the way they did things but also kind of boring sine NONE of it was in english and i had no idea what was going on. :)

We are here!

December 31, 2009 (3:30 pm) This post is also taken from a journal entry:

We are here! it took us 3 planes and one very long trains ride (about 12 hours) but we are finally here! we were met @ our bus my hundreds of young boys who threw flower petals at us as we walked by. As we entered the main gate to the girls quaters, long indian leis were placed around our necks while close to a thousand young girls smiled, waved, cheered and shouted greetings! I started shaking their out stretched hand only to realize that i was going to have shake ALL of their hands (and that would take some time) , so i just started waving instead :) I have never recienved such hopitality in my whole life! I am still completely blown away! They were legtitmately so happy fo us to get there! Dee (the woman who runs IREF alongside of her husband, Immanuel), also met us at the gate and gave each of us a long hug! she is such a small woman but i can already tell she has a huge heart! Here is a pic of me and some of the other girls right after arriving. Notice how tired i look, they woke us up right when we got there and we got off the bus right away and i hadn't showed in two days at this point.

As I write this I can hear the voices of hundreds of girls playing and doing chores in the court yard right outside my window their laughter is ever present and it brings such joy to me as i listen to it.

It is soo hot! everything is hot for that matter! soon after arriving we sat down to a meal that they had prepared for us: cicken, potatoes, rices, bananas, rolls, and oranges! The chicken and potatoes were made with curry! mmmm! so delicous but so hot! after our meal i promptly took a shower. now dressed in appropraite attire, i lay on my bed and i can feel my body temprising! its gonna be a long 10 days in this heat!

Lord, thank you for bringing us safely this far! Bless Dee and Immanuel and all of these children. Help me to honor you and give us wisdom and discretion. Help me remember names because all 3,000 kids remember mine and expect me to remember theres, so help me with that ;)

December 31, 2009 1 am (india time) this entry is taken from journal which is written in prayer sort form, so when i refer to "you", I am referring to God:

so i'm on the 3rd plane of our journey to india and its been an uneventful trip except for motion sickness [which ended up being because of the malaria meds, not motion sickness. i didn't know this however so i took Dramamine the rest of the trip and was in a constant haze, oh well.] other than that the trip has been good. However, i'm finding myself loosing sight of why I'm really here. it's all about you, Lord and nothing else really. Show me how to bring you the most glory on this trip. Give us opportunities, give me wisdom and courage ti speak your words and your truth! Let this trip be all about you!

I guess one of my biggest fears in evangelism is offending people, not because i care but i'm afraid to to offend people in a way that they want nothing to do with the Gospel. However i need to remember that even though there are ways that aren't beneficial to share the gospel, the Gospel is offensive! It is! Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 that we will be dishonored, have bad reports, regarded as impostors, and unknown for the sake of the Gospel. Your truth is offensive to those in the dark Lord. Don't let this be my reason for not sharing you light! Paul does go on to say however, that the gospel has to be shared in " sincere love, and truthful speech" through you power Lord! Please give me your power to preach your word!

Me and Sandya! My sponsor child!

more random thoughts from the sleeper bus

Dec 31, 2009 6:30 AM India time

Just saw a cow or a yak sitting in the middle of town...

So many people!!!! All just hanging out....

There are lots of stands to buy food, looks kinda like taste of Chicago :)

People use cell phones admist what I would call poverty... Maybe it's not poverty to them...

Piles of rubble lie around, I have no idea from what...

Piles of rubble are of slate which apparently is used to build houses...

Just saw a group of teenage boys sitting in a circle texting.... :)

Just passed a farm. Corn was planted to close together this it was stunted... Potatoe were also growing along with other things I didn't recongnize...

Just saw a bright green bird! It was beautiful!

Dec 31, 2009 3:30 India time

So we just got on the sleeper bus and everything was pretty routine until 2 mins ago when one of the bus guys just sprayed like a whole can of air freshener in the bus! gag!!! LOL so the sleeper buses are crazy!! it has 5 rooms with 4 bunks in each.... Really narrow bunks mind you... :) should be an interesting experience we are going to be on here for about 8 hours.... I heard that Indian roads are crazy so we might get jostled a bit... Haha we already are gettin jostled and we are still on the main roads.... ;)

So outside the airport there were hundreds of people waitin for idk, something... But I noticed a lot of the men had there ears covered but idk why yet... [ me again at my computer in Ohio, found out that the reason they had their ears covered was because they were cold!!! it was like 80 degrees! no joke! they thought it was cold! we thought it had to be some religious practice! nope! they were just cold!)

[ ok, the next little bit, might be kinda jumbled and disconnected, but i'm letting you read exactly what was coming to my mind and what i was writing down as we traveled on the sleeper bus in the early morning in Hyderbad, India]

Also the airport was really nice but it didn't look like it was used much... Someplaces were completely bare... In rooms there was stuff but it just looked empty.... It just felt weird....

We are in what I would call a slum right now except I don't know if it really is a slum.... I've been in rough spots of Chicago and Cleveland but this is nothing.... American products have their bilboards all over the place.... Bilboards are huge, everywhere and badly maintained... The poverty is gut- wrentching...

They drive on the left side of the road and our driver honks his horn and zooms past other cars.... Other cars do the same....

Poor. That's the word I would use to desribe India. It heartbreaking... Why are we so blessed [remember this word! i will get into this word in much more detail later in my trip] ?

Just passed a legit slum. Peices of wood, plastic and just scraps of stuff made small lean too.....

Driver just had to slam on the breaks for stray dogs... Already seen 5 in the hour I've been here....

People are starting to get their days going and I see people walking around....

Filthy. There is trash everywhere.

Cars and a lot of big trucks are parked haphazardly all over the streets. Doesn't seem to be much order or organization..

Starting to see people get breakfast... It's now 4:36.

Saw some wealtherier homes... Had barbedwire around them...

No glass in any of the windows, just holes...

random plane thoughts!

so the water bottles they gave us the plane are like 5 ounces! no joke! i don't know why but it's really funny (maybe because i'm slap happy from the time difference) ok we are about to land! gtg!

Last One!

Dec 30 2:36 PM American time... 3 AM India time (22 hours after boarding our first plane in Chicago)

So we just boarded our third and final flight, this one is only an hour and a half!!! Yay!!! so every time we landed in a different airport the first thing i do is check my phone to see if i have coverage to call Zack, but of course i never do.

So about our trip so far.. It's gone pretty smooth except for the throwing up incident :) so the first thing things i have noticed about India and its people is that is smells really different here and the people have no problem cutting or letting other people cut in line (us americans were outraged! but it seems normal here) other than these two things they really aren't that different from Americans, some are rude; some are quite friendly. The lady i sat next to on our last flight was a doctor in Philadelphia but was originally from Mumbai (Bombay), India. She was very nice and further educated me and Sami ( a girl from my team sitting next to me) about India and Indian culture. This women was obviously from a wealthy family and one thing that struck me as odd was as we were landing in Mumbai, she pointed out the never ending lights of the slums (it was dark so we couldn't see much), it was odd though becasue she poijted them out like they were a tourtist attraction, not a horrible place where people were forced to live... hmmm... i think i have a lot to learn about India culture.... [ this is me interjecting my thoughts about this as i sit at my computer in Ohio. I was very tempted to judge this women as she pointed out the slums with such little apparent compassion as she lived out the american dream in Philly, but i hear the Holy Spirit inside of me questioning my own heart... how many times have i driven past a trailer park (the american equivalent to a slum) and never though twice about it. I drive my by in my car, listening to my ipod, talking on my cell phone, driving to my ridiculously expensive undergraduate school and never once think about the people in the trailer park living in poverty... hmm really made me check my own heart. ok back to my thoughts on the plane.]

Honestly, the trip has been uneventful so far; lots of sitting then lots of standing in lines to get back on a plane where we sit again... :)

I'm really excited to see what God is going to do here! I'm learning not to be afraid to share the gospel even if it might seem offensive, because it is offensive! but it still must be shared in love and in truth; as well as in Gods power!!

Snack time....

Dec 30, 2009 11:12 AM

Ok i'm back,our snack turned out to be a cucumber sandwich with cheese and weird mayo. It wasn't that bad though ;) so anyway we have like a half hour left on this flight and then one more short flight and then a 7 hour bus ride. this flight went much better than the first because mainly because i've slept this whole flight and i wasn't sick! yay! after writing on the first flight, i felt really sick and ended up throwing up in the little paper bad during landing... the poor guy sitting next to me...

Dec 30, 2009 10:38 AM

I just woke up from sleeping for 6 hours! Yay!! we are on our second of three flights. They are serving breakfast now... apparently it's lunch actually... some kind of weird sandwich. i tell ya how it is :)

ok here we go!

I finally have time to update you guys on what i did in india... So these next couple of posts are from notes i wrote to my fiance on the plane. enjoy!

I'm Back!

So we landed yesterday at 11:30 am and I'm already back at school and in classes! I wasn't able to update this while I was in India but I faithfully journaled so I will be posting them ASAP. Some of them are in the forms of prayers to God, letters to my fiance, and some are just my random thoughts from the day. I hope that this allows you all to get a better sense of what God is doing in India and in my life! Thanks to all of you who supported me in prayer and finances!