Here I’am in a place I once never thought or wanted to be in… How wrong was I to believe that this place was not for me. I’am sharing this experience of being in Calcutta with people I met a week ago and learning to live together as family. This place previously was real to me through TV or documentries, and having the privilege to be here and minister to the orphans here in Calcutta is a joy beyond life itself.   I’am completely out of my element, and so far I find this to be so cleansing, unreal and incredible..I feel blessed to say the least. To even explain...

I go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning hearing barking stray dogs, the eerie sound of Hindu prayers, honking vehicles and blaring communist party messages. There is no denying where I am. I am in Calcutta, India, a place of evident spiritual darkness and brokenness. I am reminded of what an honour it is that God chose us to come here and do His work, His will. Yesterday, our team went on a prayer walk through the slums. We saw so much hurt and pain in people’s faces as we passed by. But even more evident was the heaviness we all felt as we were walking. The people are...

There were many lasts this week, our last days of ministry, of seeing the boys, of interactions with the neighbors. We wanted to be super intentional with the short time we had left. We went to see Rupa, the Hindu pastor that we made friends with early on in the trip, wanting to share Jesus but not knowing how to and scared how she would receive it. So we went to her house and we talked for awhile. There was a lot of awkward silence and repeated conversations from past interactions about school, weather, and the states. Because of the language barrier we didn’t know what else to talk...

How do you say goodbye to the children you have spent the past 2 months with, 7-10 hours each day? How do you say goodbye to greeting them every afternoon with hugs when they get home from school? How do you say goodbye tutoring them and to the children who don’t understand the English language yet are being taught in English every day at school and are making bad grades? How do you say goodbye to the children who fall asleep in your lap? How do you say goodbye to the cheek kisses and the goodnight, I love you’s? How do you say goodbye to the tickle fights? How do you say...

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 ” You are our letter written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” In our last evening of prayer with the boys this is the verse the Lord prompted me to share. You see, as the team and I leave this place we carry the boys, the ministry, and the different people we have encountered in India in our hearts. Everything they have taught us about love, prayer, worship, or...

(note: this says it’s posted by Heidi, but it’s Raelyn’s blog! Enjoy!) Sometimes when you go on mission trips to foreign countries you get sick. You may get a cough, the sniffles, a sore throat, or other things commonly acquired by most people in the States. As for me, who happens to normally have unfortunate luck when it comes to sickness, I end up quite sick. Yes, I was fire burning in Calcutta with a raging fever amid other symptoms. Yes, I did get admitted in a hospital in Calcutta, India. Yes, that is right, Indian Hospital. But, before you panic please let me tell...