Dear Home,             I will be back soon. I know we’ve been apart for three months, but I’m coming back in just a few days. I look forward to familiar hugs, a comfortable mattress, and my favorite snacks. I really have missed them all, but I must let you know that I haven’t missed a lot. [be grateful I’m coming back]             Expecting to miss every ounce of familiarity you have has left me dumbfounded as I have found a new normal: new tastes, new smells, new hugs, new friends, and new family. This nation...

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(?Romans? ?8?:?37-39? NIV) It’s hard to find accurate words to wrap up India, so bear with me. I’m incredibly humbled to look back at the last three months. The lessons that I’ve been taught in this time are far too many...

As I was eating my breakfast this morning, I reflected on three words. Hard to love.   When I walked to Victory Home for the first time, all of my teammates had already been paired with children and I heard stories about their adoration for these beautiful children. When I told our contact I wasn’t paired with a child, she was surprised.  She looked in the other room and said “I need someone with extreme patience. Are you up for it?” I came to India to serve. In any way possible. So I said, “yes”. When I walked up to the room, I definitely...

If you were to ask me to summarize my past 2 months in one word, that word would be LOVE. God has taught me so much about His love in these past 8 weeks. At training camp, He reminded me how great the love He has for me is and showered me continually with that love. In our time on the field, He revealed to me even greater depths of His love by letting me experience that same love from the other side.  By loving others through me with His love.  That incredible, unconditional, mind blowing, gut wrenching love that He loves me with. Now, in these first few days home, He’s slowly...

It's here. We're here. Leaving India, leaving this season. A time which seemed impossibly ahead of me, always in my future, has finally come to be the present. Soon, it will be the past. This will be behind me. I will know how this went, I'll remember my heart, I'll feel the nostalgia. As for this moment, though, I'm in the gap, and it seems like a strange dream. This past week, the impossible time came to say our goodbyes to India, and the kids we've grown to love so dearly. I don't think there are any words to describe the scene of departure, all of the flutterings...

Today is Wednesday, June 24 in Hyderabad. It is the last day of debrief and I am coming to terms with the fact that this summer is almost over. It seems like yesterday that I was loading up my pack while Sampson (my dog) kept dragging things out and back into my room.  During debrief, I was asked the question, "Do I accept that the next season of my life may not look the same as this season?" Well, yeah. I hadn't even thought of that yet but it seemed like an obvious question to me. Obviously I wasn't going to be living in India with 21 girls next semester. I'll be...