6 weeks!

“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light” —John Keith Falconer

In 6 weeks I will be going back to he United States! In 6 weeks I will be a wife, a mother, and grandmother again!

Oh to be held by my husband again. Skype is a wonderful tool and I am so thankful that we have had it as back in the days of his deployments it was not the luxury.  I would go days and weeks without talking to him  let alone seeing him.  Oh the the thrill of the thought of holding and snuggling Piper and Kendall is too much to bear…. I have watched the two of them grow so quickly in these in 9 months….

So why are the tears that are inside me not tears of joy but rather sadness and heartache? Why am I trying to figure out when my next trip here will be or how to get here on a more permanent basis?

I will be leaving a land filled with darkness and evil and going to a land filled with light (or at least more light than what is here).  I have such heartache and a part of me crying out  for these women and children who live here. Women, children, and young men who feel that they have nowhere to go except beg on the street or sell their bodies in a brothel. Girls who feel that they can’t follow their dreams because they have to get married or take care of younger siblings. Young men who feel that they have to pick on or worse yet beat or something unspeakable to the opposite sex to be accepted by the older boys and men around them.  Souls that are thought of worthless…less than an animal by some of their peers.

Please be in constant prayer for these souls as well as for me and SB as we are preparing for our transitions back to the US.

Praise reports!

Many prayer requests have gone out and those prayers have been answered of course some not the way we have wanted them answered but we are not God.

Isaiah 29:16

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,

that the thing made should say of its maker,

“He did not make me”;

or the thing formed say of him who formed it,

“He has no understanding”?

 

Although this isn’t exactly a praise we still thank God in the midst of sadness. The young lady who is 14 that we had been requesting prayer for her marriage not to happen, was married a few months back. Although we consider this a tragedy it is a very common practice here, especially in the villages, and we cannot come in with our Western ways and try to change their ancient customs. We personally have had no contact with her but have seen and spoken with other family members who report that she is happy and is working in the fields of her home village.  We continue to pray for her and her new husband and their families and will ask for your prayers for this young couple as they are both so very young. I personally am in the hopes that she will return to Bangalore soon and may be able to get back to the center where we met her and begin some kind of job there. God, I believe, has big plans for this young woman and her new husband, even though he is not yet a believer. The other young woman that we had you praying for we have lost contact with but know that seeds have been planted and will continue to pray for a harvest in both her and her new husbands life.

FEET!!! SHOES!!!! Isn’t it amazing how God works? It was feet that originally broke my heart for India, it was feet that brought me back seeking a full time place here and now it is feet again!!!!! A report several weeks back mentioned that I had been seeing several children and even adults, but more often than not children, with foot problems. Most of the issues were small cuts here and there on the feet but we were also seeing cases of one child whose foot had been run over and multiple cases of holes being burrowed in heels. This as I have come to find out is a diagnosis of planters warts that has gone misdiagnosed, one case the wart has abscessed and become infected. Another problem is the fact that many parasites can enter the body through the feet. This started the wheels turning on getting shoes for the children. One of our college interns just happened to ask for prayer in finding a shoe guy here in Bangalore and low and behold he was sitting there next to her in our fellowship group. We also have a generous donor through our sending company step up to pay for the shoes. We are hoping to have shoes on these little feet by next Monday. Please continue to pray that they will wear the shoes as they are not accustom to shoes and that the shoes will not hurt their feet.

Another praise is little Pushpa who had the branding done to her arm. We have been able to watch her arm heal and although she has a bad scar there she has no pain and suffered from no serious infections during the healing process.

It is hard to believe but as of …July 4^th….I am 2 months out from returning to the states!

This is a bitter sweet thought for me as I am excited to return to my family but the thought of leaving my home here makes me ever so sad. Living in India for the last 10 months I have developed many relationships with people, mainly the women and children that we minister to on a daily basis, and I worry about what will become of them when I leave. Not the relationship but the person themselves.

I am welcomed into their lives weekly as the children run out and shout “auntie, auntie”!

I am asked if I have had lunch and am invited to eat with them.

Although we have been pouring into them for many months, spiritually and physically,  there are no definitive claims or signs of a salvation.

In a devotional that I read last week, God pretty much summed it up for me…

Psalm 37:8b Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

 AKA…worrying. I am notorious for preaching it but no practicing it. “Don’t worry it’s a sin” “Don’t worry, God will take care of it”, but I can be one that will constantly worry about things. In the devotional it spoke that very truth. It is easy to say but very hard to practice. When we worry we are telling God that we don’t think he can handle the situation and therefore we are trying to figure out how we can handle it ourselves. Well I am going to try and practice what I preach. God brought me to build the relationships and plant the seeds, there will be other people to come and reap the harvest. I will be back sooner than later and until then I just have to trust in Him that He has this covered too.

Again…Thank you for your continued prayer and support along this journey…Every hug I receive, and every tear I wipe you are doing too because of your prayerful and loving support of me.

Motherly Love….

Imagine this is your child….now imagine if she was ill….

You would want to do anything for her….

Wouldn’t you go to the ends of the earth and spend whatever it cost to make her healthy again? Parents in India are like parents in any other part of the world and do the same thing.   They even seek a higher powers, a deity….man made gods, local healers.  Again going to the extremes of whatever it costs to try and heal her, going to the ends of “their” earth.

Sadly it leads to this…..

The wound seen here is called “branding” and is carried out by heating rods or bangles red hot and then laying them on the child’s skin. The belief is that whatever illness the child is suffering from will be released through the area that has been burned. Often times the child will suffer a secondary illness due to infection at the site. Often times they will also suffer from diagnosis of Hepatitis and/or HIV after receiving these due to the equipment not being cleaned properly or dung and ash being put on the wound post branding. This type of healing is often times done in the poorest of the poor areas because they can’t afford to take their children to the expensive hospitals and doctors, it is also the type of healing they know because it was most likely done to them. Much like the way we operate in the United States, following what our mothers taught us, they do the same here. With that being said there is a good chance that there is a long family history of “branding” with this child.

Before her injury, Pushpa* was suffering from sadness and would not eat according to her mother. As seen in the photo here the branding must be working, again according to her mother, because she is smiling, laughing, and has been eating. It could by no means be because she is scared out of her mind if she shows an ounce of fear or sadness, that this pain may happen again to her other arm or some other part of her body. We have been keeping a close eye on the wound for 3 weeks now and although it is horribly infected she has not been running any fevers that we have witnessed and her mother appears to be applying coconut oil to the site which does have great healing properties.

This act is an outrage and we can easily say “How dare this mother?”, but I point you back to the start of my entry…Imagine this was your child…now imagine she was ill. This family knows tragedy and illness first hand. In the last year they have suffered the loss of one son burning himself to death because he was drunk, another son suffers from heart issues and asthma, and now this daughter is ill with depression and lack of appetite.  They don’t need our scolding they need Jesus! The gospel has been shared many times with the family through us and others here in the area. Yet they continue to rely on the gods of India and the chance of karma.

I share this report with you not to make you sad or outrage you but to show you the disparity between our beliefs held in the west and the beliefs held here in India. Please pray for Pushpa and her family; pray for healing and that they will ultimately come to know Jesus as their savior.

*name changed

Hands….

A tennis racket is useless in my hands. A tennis racket in Serena Williams hands is worth Millions.

It all depends on whose hand it is.

A rod in my hands will keep an angry dog away. A rod in Moses hand parted the mighty Red Sea.
It all depends on whose hand it is.

A sling shot in my hands is a toy, A slingshot in David’s hand was a mighty weapon.
It all depends on whose hand it is.

Two fishes and 5 loaves of bread in my hand is just enough for breakfast in my house.. Two fishes and 5 loaves of bread in Jesus’ hands fed thousands.
It all depends on whose hand it is.

Nails in my hands might just cause a temporary injury.  Nails in Jesus Christ’s hands produced salvation for the entire world.
It all depends on whose hand it is.

As you see now, it’s all depend on whose hand it is, so put your concerns, worries, fears, hopes, dreams, families and your relationships in God’s hands because It all depends on whose hand it is.

This message is now in your hands…. What will you do with it? It all depends on whose hand it is.

(this message was shared with me from a fellow believer here in India)

Breath….

Sorry for the delay in posting an update.

The last few weeks of been a whirl wind of activities…flying to Goa to see friendly faces from the states and help host/lead medical camps with our partners there and coming back to Bangalore with our partners from Goa so they could help us in teaching/leading some self-defense classes for the ladies we are in contact here. After two weeks of going full speed, today, I am stopping to “take a breath” and write!

It was so great to get out of the city life of Bangalore and into the more laid back beachy chilled life that is lived in Goa. It was also great to see faces of friends from the US, as members of our medical team were friends from Pensacola, you don’t realize how much you miss faces and the touch of the ones you love until they are there with in your reach. It was such a thrill to see Amy, Matt, Steven, and Annie but it was also very difficult to see them leave. I would never change the path that God has set me on.  I praise him every day for the ways that I am growing, and for bringing friends from across the world to share in my journey as well as bringing new friends into my life to join that path, but when we have to say “phir milenge” (see you later) to those friends it is so hard and so sad. I know that they cannot stay with me as they have their own paths to follow.

Medical camps were the theme of the visit to Goa and were a great success as we saw 200+ patients throughout the 4 days. We saw many of our usual ailments that I am accustom to seeing here in India; ear infections, cough with cold and fever, skin infections, body aches and pains, and various others. The most difficult issues that we faced was in working with the local providers who will often times treat the surface of the problem and not the root cause. I have witnessed this on more than one case and it baffles me to no end due to the fact that in the states we have renowned physicians from this country in fields of neurosurgery, oncology, psychiatry, and many other specialty fields but as I witness diagnosing and prescribing here in their own country is grossly flawed. A patient with an ulcer in eye and rather than prescribing antibiotic only pain medicine. A patient with an infected boil on the arm, fever 101, and only fever reducer was given, no antibiotics again. Again I love India, the people here and what God has sent me over here to do but when working side by side with “some” healthcare providers, as I cannot lump everyone into the same pot,  it can sometimes be very frustrating.

I was also getting my feet wet on leading teams. Of course I have had the pleasure of assisting in the leading our Christmas team back in January of this year, but God is really getting me to step outside my comfort zone and take the reins on things and really “BE” the leader. My vision when I was first planning my trip over here was to take a backseat ride when it came to the teams and other important responsibilities. Let me tell you something…don’t have visions like that because God has different plans for you! I knew when they told me I was going to Bangalore and that I would be handling the budget that this trip would not be an easy ride for me, but I also knew it was God’s plan as he has been whispering to me for some time now that I need to be leading teams to India instead of just being a part of the team.

I thought with the camps being over maybe life would slow down for a minute or two but I was wrong. From the day we returned to Bangalore we have been going non-stop. We returned with our partners from Goa so CK could do some self-defense training for the young women we are reaching out to. It is so exciting to see the women that I have been working with learn these new skills from CK and gain confidence in knowing that they do not have to be victims to strangers, family members or their husbands. Some were almost giddy to learn the next steps in how to properly protect themselves. To hear her tell them that God has made parts of their body as strong as a man’s body amazed them and they were all eager to use their bodies to try and break out of; bear hugs, same side wrist grabs, hair pulling, choking, and so many more threatening encounters. Many of the women and girls that we saw you could tell that they had experienced somethings similar to what we were showing them, as they were having tears in their eyes, they were so very eager to learn how to break away from particular moves that attackers may put on them, and when CK shared that it is not always a stranger that does these things but that it can be a family member many of the girls became very silent. It is heart wrenching to know that many of the young women that SB and I are coming in contact with daily may be struggling with someone abusing them. I pray that we will be a safe place that they can run to if they have the strength and courage.

This update is getting so long and my deep breath has lead me to the day SB and I leave for a relaxing trip abroad. It is time for us to start visa runs and focus a little on ourselves. So until the next update…..

PRAY

Happy Easter from India!

I wanted to share something that one of our friends here in India shared with us on Good Friday.

It’s Friday
Jesus is praying
Peter’s a sleeping
Judas is betraying
But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
Pilate’s struggling
The council is conspiring
The crowd is vilifying
They don’t even know
That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
The disciples are running
Like sheep without a shepherd
Mary’s crying
Peter is denying
But they don’t know
That Sunday’s a comin’

It’s Friday
The Romans beat my Jesus
They robe him in scarlet
They crown him with thorns
But they don’t know
That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
See Jesus walking to Calvary
His blood dripping
His body stumbling
And his spirit’s burdened
But you see, it’s only Friday
Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
The world’s winning
People are sinning
And evil’s grinning

It’s Friday
The soldiers nail my Savior’s hands
To the cross
They nail my Savior’s feet
To the cross
And then they raise him up
Next to criminals

It’s Friday
But let me tell you something
Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
The disciples are questioning
What has happened to their King
And the Pharisees are celebrating
That their scheming
Has been achieved
But they don’t know
It’s only Friday
Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
He’s hanging on the cross
Feeling forsaken by his Father
Left alone and dying
Can nobody save him?
Ooooh
It’s Friday
But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
The earth trembles
The sky grows dark
My King yields his spirit

It’s Friday
Hope is lost
Death has won
Sin has conquered
and Satan’s just a laughin’

It’s Friday
Jesus is buriedn
A soldier stands guard
And a rock is rolled into place

But it’s Friday
It is only Friday
Sunday is a comin’!

SUNDAY IS HERE!!!!! He is risen!!!!

7 Months…

It’s hard to imagine that I have been here for over half of my expected stay. 7 Months have passed like the wind and only 4 more are left here. Today, Monday, is what SB and I call our Sabbath day, as pretty much every other day of the week we are running 90mph (145kph) to nothing, and I am sitting here realizing that I have not updated this since the 26th of February. I am also sitting in a dark place today, figuratively not literally (although the literal is happening more often than not with summer being here and everyone has their air conditioners on), musing over my time here and the works that I have seen God do not only through me but in me. I am also just plain sad for some reason.

Now for updates….

We have been busy for the last few weeks. The beginning of March SB and I made a jet set trip to Goa so that I could do some preliminary planning for a medical camp in April. RR guest house in Goa is great as it is set right on the beach…a nice little get-a-way from the hustle and bustle of Bangalore…I am also excited because two close friends from the US will are on the team for this trip and I have also found out that some other friends from the US will be in Goa at the same time. It will be great to see some friendly/family faces from home. 🙂 I am looking forward to the medical camp as I will of course be in my element and I get to spread my wings a little as I will be leading this camp. Prayers are appreciated. The camp will run April 14-18th.

After the trip to Goa we brought back two of our team mates from there to spend a few days with us here. It was a whirlwind of shopping, eating, meeting and getting my root canal finished but so much fun to have David and Grace here even if it was only for a few days.

The last few weeks have been just keeping up with our usual places that we visit on a daily basis….

The government women’s home that we go to 3 days a week has seen a little change in the volume of women there, but this is a common occurrence as women come and go on a pretty regular basis. We have shifted our training from focusing on the reading, writing, arithmetic, to trying to teach them a skill or vocational craft that RR maybe able to sell in their store or online catalog. The ladies are excited about this shift and much more eager to learn. Keep your eyes posted in the next few weeks as something should be unveiled soon…

Our newest venture in the slum is a big hit so far with everyone there. SB and I are still learning everyday that we go out there but by the time that we head back to the US we should have it all set in place. It is my hope that after my year commitment it is up here that I will be able to return every couple of months to check on the status of everything here. So far our building has been a life saver for us to get in out of the heat and as of yesterday we now have electricity and a fan was installed for us!!!! YAY!!!!!  Our hope is to have our auto driver, who is a believer and helped us so much get the building, start a “Young Men’s group” in the area as this is a large part of the problem with a lot of the ministries here…they focus on the women and the children but forget about the men. The men are the ones that are having a lot of the troubles and often are really searching for God.

At the HIV/AIDS clinic things are going well. Raju, the founder, has asked our help in getting one of the young ladies that he has in the children’s home some further training as she will finish high school the end of this month. We are working with some other network partners to see if this will be possible.

In closing please keep all of these updates in your prayers, on your minds and hearts as you go through the day. I am so blessed to be here and as I finish this post I am thanking him because my sadness has slipped away…I look at all I have typed and see each one as a flower that has bloomed in a valley.

Thank you Father for being my shepherd that brings me here to lay beside cool streams.

I read a devotional several weeks back and  I am reminded that it is in these valleys that God does his greatest work with us. The writer told us that although we love to be on the mountain top, because that is where we feel closest to God, that is not where things grow. On the mountain top you will often only find rocks and weeds and maybe the occasional flower but in the valley you find lush green carpets of grass meadows, and gardens of flowers, streams of water.  Much like the lush green grass and the flowers growing in the valley we too are growing during these times in the valley. God is refining us and growing us up.

Emotional valleys are no fun to be in but in all things praise Him.

Quick update!

So today was the day that we were visiting the catholic church about the building we were interested in renting. In speaking with some friends from church we had discovered that it is more favorable to to approach the “Father” with a “connection” some one who is already associated with the catholic church. It just so happened that one of  our “Auto” drivers is a practicing catholic and he was happy to help us out. Unfortunately I don’t think the church was really keen on our working in the area and told us the lady that actually owns the building was not interested in renting it to us or anyone else for that matter.

          

However, our auto driver being the saint that he is stuck around to help us the rest of the day in looking for places to rent in the area.After some walking and looking w e had found one place that was just a little way from the area that we are working in and had pretty much settle on that. So we went to the slum to start doing our house visits…As our driver was waiting for us he continued to look around and found another spot for us that was available. Funny it was the spot we had just asked the church about! This time he was speaking directly to the owner of the building and she was more than happy to rent it to us.  So praise the Lord we have found a place and will hopefully start working in it as soon as this Sunday. We will travel back out there tomorrow (Friday) to ask some final questions and hopefully pay a deposit, we already have the key!!!!!

God really does answer prayer, so thanks to all of you who have been praying! Keep it up!

Praise and Prayers!!!!

Thank you for the prayers!!!! God is so good all the time and all the time God is good!

Updates and Praise reports….

1. So A’s wedding did happen and we have unfortunately lost touch with her because she has moved to another area of the city. SB and I are trying to get with her mom to find out where she is living so that we can continue to connect with her and share God’s love. I don’t know if I had shared with you before but A had stated previously that she and her family were believers but had been hurt by the church and therefore converted back to hinduism. With the help of the Christmas team and the continued follow-up that SB and I have had with this family God is softening this families heart again.  Please continue to pray for “A” and her family and that SB and I will be able to connect with them.

2. Our translator for the slum area that we are working in continues to ask for prayer on her engagement. Thankfully there is no set date for this wedding as both the bride and the groom are very young. God is a God who answers prayers, maybe not the ways that we think they should be answered but he answers them just the same. Please continue to pray for this young woman and her young groom.

3. Praise Report!!! The slum area where we are trying to focus a good bit of our time is starting to come together! SB and I visit this area twice a week and as I have said in previous updates we have been given the go ahead to find a space where we can move our activities indoors. In our visit this past week we think we may have found that space!!! It is an absolute answer to prayer!!! The building is one that we have been meeting in front of for the last several weeks because it casts a nice shadow in the late afternoon. I have mentioned to SB that it would be great if we could get this building for our center as it is centrally located and perfect sized but alas our translator has always said “no auntie I think someone lives there”. Well this past week while we were there some of the ladies from the area called us over to the building say hello. While we are feebly trying to converse with the ladies SB said to me “hey look…Jesus is in there!”, oblivious I look around and see a picture of Jesus behind the bars of the window in this building. Mind you we have never seen this picture there before!!!!!  So we had our translator ask the ladies who, if anyone, is living in the building or owns it. The ladies replied that the catholic church owns the building but they don’t use it very much. 🙂 What an answered prayer!!!!!!  So our next step will be to talk to the catholic church in the area and see if it will be possible to rent the building from them to carry on social work type activities. Another answered prayer was that a woman who introduced us to this area who is also praying about planting a church here has been offered some land to do just that. So in one week we have found a building to do social work and medical and an area for a church plant…WOW!!!! Praise be to God!

4. Praise!!! God has really filled our week up so that what was feeling like a lot of home sickness has turned back into thanking him everyday for allowing me to be here in the country that I love with the people that I love. God is allowing me to do so much more hands on medical here in the slum that we visit, the women’s center and the other care center that we help at during the week. He is reminding me that “YES” he did send me here for a reason and that I just needed to be still and listen.

Please continue to pray…

-That we will be able to reconnect with A. In reconnecting with her we will meet her new husband and be able to share the gospel with him and his family too.

-Continued prayer M and her groom, first and foremost that God’s will be done in all of this. Her groom is not a believer so please pray that he may become a believer through this.

-For us to be able to connect with the Catholic church and that we would have favor with them and be able to rent this building.

-Continued favor in the slum not only with the people there but also the people around the area.

-Strength, wisdom, courage to keep fighting the battle here in India as SB and I approach our 6 month mark of being away from home.