This week I struggled with not feeling content in fulfilling my purpose in India.  At the end of a mission trip it’s easy to become susceptible to insecurities from the Father of Lies that I didn’t do all I could do, and will soon be forgotten. I am continuing to surrender these lies to the Lord!  Our team has formed some friendships outside the Home, but the language barrier has been the main deterrent from evangelism. Or at least I thought it was.  This week I was struck by the conviction: Olivia, if there was no language barrier would you have done anything...

      Time has a way of deceiving us. It is so easily wasted, so quickly wished away, and so rarely treasured. Before leaving for India, I thought 2 months abroad would be a breeze, after all, I didn’t go home at all my first semester of college. And then I met India. Suddenly, 2 months seemed like a lifetime. One of my teammates says our first week in India she thought, I’m going to die here. Now we can look back on this and laugh, but this is only because of God’s faithfulness to our team!        In an earlier blog entitled Waking...

Today is the last full day in Barasat, Kolkata. It hasn’t really sunk in yet, but God is preparing me and my heart. I haven’t cried- I mean I’ve teared up a few times, but I haven’t grieved. Grief is necessary, when it comes to leaving this place.  God has shone through hard times, hard- hearted people, broken kids, bad circumstances, sickness and even death.  There’s been growth. There’s been joy. There has been love. Those things weren’t here before we came. All of it came from the Lord- ALL OF IT.  This was not an easy four...

It all began the other day when I was sitting in the room at Asha next to Jared.  I dont remember any of the other circumstances except that before I knew what was happening Salem was sitting in front of Jared asking him The Question.   “You leave 7 May?” And so it began. “Yes. Yes, we leave 7 May. No, we will never forget you. Yes, we want to come back. No, we don’t know when.” I was joking around with Beulah in the kitchen when all of a sudden she was asking me if I would forget her. I asked her if she would forget me. How could I forget? How...

October 23rd, 2011 marked midway of our time here in India. It was a Sunday, and we had just ended our time of midway debrief with our team and our field support from AIM, where we spent the weekend away from ministry and really normal life in India as we stayed at a beautiful resort tucked away in a beach haven. We spent a lot of that weekend joking, laughing, and reflecting on the first half of our trip. After that time ended, we had felt refreshed to continue on our ministry for the other half of our trip and really finish strong. We set goals and different things we would work on or...

Being on a bus leaves you with a lot of time to…well, think.  And since we have been in India, we have rode on a bus just about everyday Monday-Friday for 2 times a day, and on the weekends to get to church. The bus ride is usually one of excitement, of amusement, or of irritation, but yes, even when we are squished between an Indian (or 4) and a teammate, we have time to think. But earlier this week, we took various buses from Goa to Bangalore, a flight from Bangalore to Dehli, where we then took a bus from Dehli to Agra (to see the Taj Mahal) and back. In 4 days...