Indigo Nights
5 of those days were spent in Georgia meeting my teammates and preparing for the next several weeks
1 day of just traveling from GA to Amsterdam to Delhi
1 day lost in the midst of time zone changes
17 days in country
At training camp they spoke about giving up our rights and
expectations. For the most part I was fine giving up my rights, rights
to comfort, to foods i like, to cleanliness, to communication, to
personal attention. But one of things said about expectations was you
don’t know you had them until they weren’t met.
I was never sure of what my expectations were. In fact I questioned my
very presence here in the first place. Despite getting the funds to
come and everything falling into place, to me my desire to be here was
based off a whim.
Fueled by good food, documentaries, and rich culture, to me the country
was the goal. It was India. So my expectations all revolved around just
getting there not necessarily what I’d be doing. All I knew was
everyone was telling me my time here in India would be life changing.
The ministry we are doing is very much relational and showing love to orphans and lepers, rather than preaching the gospel.
[James 1:27] Religion that God our
Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans
and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by
the world.
We do bible stories with the kids, sing songs that are somewhat
related, and mainly just play with them. When school starts we’ll help
them more with homework and English. At the leper colonies sometimes we
have a translator and sometimes not. We just split up into two groups
and sit with the people. Sometimes we’ll help them break up pea pods,
other times we sit in silence. This past time we were blessed with a
group of ladies where one of them spoke a bit English. Mainly there we
are laying down the groundwork , [openness to foreigners] for future
groups to be received and the word to be planted in tilled hearts.
[I’ll have more ministry stories later]
lepers and their families and I know I’m doing God’s will here. But I
felt …less than satisfied. What drew me to India was human
trafficking and the sex trade, and I knew I wasn’t doing anything here
related to that, but I still didn’t feel like I was fulfilling my
purpose here. Problem was I didn’t know exactly what that purpose was,
just somehow that it was supposed to change me life.
So here I was in India, a week in, not experiencing culture shock,
everything just fitting. Its just like any other country that has that
third world atmosphere. It wasn’t exotic to me [except for the peacocks
but then their screeches all night long pretty much killed that for
me], it wasn’t exciting. My heart didn’t break being with the kids or
the at the colonies. I was simply living life. I was trying to be
patient, but I was telling God, ” I don’t know how this is going to be
life changing. What else ya got?”
A couple days went by, more ministry days, more hanging with the team,
and I was hanging out on the roof. I finally had one of those surreal
moments. I took in my surroundings, took in God’s presence, and just
started to write in my journal.
“The night is a dusty indigo
The lights of the city mix with the dirt of the earth and the smog in
the air. It all fades into a muted indigo void of vibrancy, yet finally
sinks into a a murky dark almost rich black. A smattering of pinpoints
of dim light be-speckle the sky.
They still twinkle in spastic motions. The pathetic fallacy of my mind
is complete. I long for clarity, yet I’m finding contentment. There’s
beauty in the night eclipsed by the sun. Somethings can only be exposed
d by the darkness. Beauty unveiled.
I will wait.”
I poured out my heart to God of all the things I wanted to know, all
of the things I wanted revealed; himself, my future, my purpose in
India, how to love like he loves.
I waited. He blessed me with contentment in reveling in the beauty of
creation, and then reveling in the beauty of his command and view of
pure religion as stated in James 1:27. Even if I wasn’t sure of myself
at the moment, I knew I was exactly where he wanted me to be and that
was enough.
I hung out a bit longer, not wanting to leave the gift God had given
me. In the midst of sitting and being he spoke. He told me my purpose,
answered some of my questions and corrected some of my thinking in one
swift deposit in my spirit.
He affirmed that my time here would be life changing, though not
because I was India, but rather because of him. He would be the source
of the changes, not what I experience, or see, or even do. He’s placed
me here, with my teammates, leaders, and just this community because of
the questions it would cause me to ask him. I’ll change because of the
answers he’ll give me.
Then linked with that was the question of purpose. He affirmed what I
had heard at training camp, but of which I wasn’t sure. My purpose was
simply to seek him, delight in him, and in his word. It was because I
sought him that I was here in the first place. Through seeking him,
I’ll be changed. Through seeking him, he’ll pour out during ministry.
Through seeking him, I’ll delight in his commands. Through seeking him,
he’ll prepare me to be a witness here in India, back in the states, or
anywhere else he leads me.
Given that deposit, I have a new found freedom and joy in what I do
daily. Not only am I satisfied in obeying his commands, I rejoice.
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