Here is a culture story for all of you back home!  First, the story.  Then, some cultural notes to shed some light on why this was blogworthy. 🙂   STORY TIME!!!   This wonderful team of 21 girls is split into two groups of about 10 girls each. The team that I am on goes to dinner twice a week just to get away and build team unity.  This usually consist of invading a local food establishment, ordering some food, prayer, deep talks about anything and everything (Legit: one of my team leaders warned us about constant talks about bodily...

Yesterday was uncomfortable for me. Actually really uncomfortable, and I woke up with a feeling that it would be. Our leaders have been pushing for us to go out and partake in village ministry for a long time. They have really wanted us to be able to go out and share the gospel in words, rather than actions. They used that big scary word we all like to avoid…. EVANGELIZE. And if I'm honest I had been hoping to avoid that type of ministry. Give me street kids and the orphanage any day of the week, and I can love on them well and through exhaustion. But hand me a mike and ask me to...

I'm in India. It's hard. But it's good. God is teaching me a lot.    After finishing our work on adoption papers and sewing clothes for the kids, we have been working in the special needs orphanage for about a week and a half now. A woman who works at the orphanage went around showing us the different orphans who need some extra help, love, and care. I picked a big (about 10 years old) boy named Master. Master doesn't walk. Doesn't talk. Doesn't focus his eyes. He lays in bed/sits in a chair all day with flies buzzing around him constantly. The first day I...

We completed the first phase of our clothing project on Tuesday, so on Wednesday we were assigned one of the children in the homes to work with for the rest of the week. The little girl that I got paired with – we’ll call her Trinity – is blind and also has some learning disabilities.  She can walk a little with help, but not for very long and she doesn’t speak yet. The physical therapist asked me to focus on helping her walk -going up and down stairs to build up her muscles and also just spending time with her and giving her the attention and love...

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...

This week has been a really challenging one for my team. We've battled some serious sickness, lots of dehydration, intense spiritual warfare, sleepless nights, and a broken air conditioning. We've spent a lot of time in prayer and worship trying to regain the strength this week took out of us. But today, being our Sabbath, we were rewarded.  There's a French bakery in town called Caramel. The owner is a great guy who spent 4 years living in my hometown of Sugar Land, TX! We eat there on occasion and have made pretty good friends with him. He spoils us with cheese pizza,...