So I have reached the halfway mark for my time here in India…. Wait what?! I can't believe that I have been here for 3 weeks and that's only have something like 34 days left. It seems unbelievable. It has flown by so fast and I think that a part of my heart will always live in India because of it.
One of my teammates here in India has a tattoo. It's a big old fashioned compass with the German word FERNWAY written underneath it, and when I asked her what it meant she said that it is a word that means to be homesick for a place you have never been before. And I may have been homesick for India without even knowing it before. Because this place for all of the brokenness and sadness has hidden treasures that have revealed God to me in a way I previously never have encountered… And it has been awesome. There is so much beauty amidst the brokenness, you just have to be looking for it. And God has definitely revealed some to me.
The kids here in India are hilarious. They all know my name and call out to me from moving vehicles, the street, really if any of them see me they yell Kadyakka (which means sister Kady in an endearing way) and they run at full speed slamming into you because they just want to shake your hand and say "how are you" in broken English. My team actually jokes that I have a beacon above my head that actually let's all the children know I'm someone who wants to play with them and just love on them with a love they normally don't get from anyone else. And there is beauty I their smiles and their laughter. They are precious children of the most high king and they bring so much beauty to what otherwise would be such a dark and hard place to be.
Sarah's Covenant Home also has been a place of extreme beauty. The kids there, their loves were so dark at one point. All were abandoned, left at hospitals and railway stations and left by their families and the government to simply survive. Yet Sarah saw their potential and loved them with the love of Christ and she has rehabilitated so many of these kids who are now being matched with families and are on their way to finding they're forever home. And they are beautiful. Every single one of them has a spirit and a joy that makes me laugh and smile like nothing else (so seriously if you want to adopt an all star kid look no further). And these kids have shown my love in a way I never knew existed, and I think I was homesick for this kind of love without even knowing it.
In coming to India I have learned so much about myself and about God. And I have grown so much and gone deeper in my walk with God in a way I never thought was possible. And I know that I was homesick for this place and for this intimacy with God without even knowing what I was missing before this trip. Because in finding so much beauty amongst the pain and brokenness within a culture that so desperately needs God, I have seen God and experienced the kingdom that my heart has longed for so desperately without even being aware.
So in hitting the halfway mark my heart feels heavy. Sad and so full of unbelief that we are at this point yet also so appreciative and joyful that I have come and I have seen God in such a close up and intimate way and through that I have discovered a true home in the kingdom of God. And I long for that place I have never been.Yet I anxiously wait for that day when I will be homesick no more.
