Okay, I have time to write an update...

Yay! I finally have some time to sit down and write a good update for y'all. Right now I'm sitting at a laptop in my apartment, eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich and drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper (sadly, they were out of the regular kind at the import store). So I guess you can say I've acclimated well to Indian culture...just kidding!. I actually really like Indian food, but we happened to have this around the apartment. The bottom floor of my apartment building is an organic grocery store, so I can always go down there and buy really great fruits and veggies. And our apartment even has a water purification system, so I have a nice little set up here.

Here's a quick update of the last 3 weeks, since I've done a bad job at posting consistently:

We have seen God do so many amazing things over the past 3 weeks! I feel like everyday people would come back with awesome stories of God healing someone, or someone deciding to follow Jesus or being really interested. It's amazing to know that no matter where I go in the world there are people who want to know more about Jesus- it's not coming to a different country and telling people, "well, no, actually you need to believe this" but there are people everywhere that are legitimately wanting to know God more and are so excited to find out how they can! Here are some of my favorite stories from the trip:

- I met a girl one night at a mall when we were asking directions to an Italian restaurant (which was really good, by the way, I've been so spoiled by food here!). When she found out we were from America, she immediately asked us, "Oh, do you know Hillsong music?" Apparently they are really popular here and we immediately got to talk about God more. She was Hindu but has been going to a cathedral every Sunday because she feels peace there. My friend and I got to have dinner with her the next night and she told us how she had read the Bible a lot as a child and has always wanted to know more. We got to share the Creation to Christ story with her, which is a story talking about God's plan for us from beginning to end (really great for people who aren't from a Christian background) and at the end I asked her if she wanted to have a relationship with Jesus. She immediately replied, "Of course! I've wanted this my whole life!" and then added, "wait, this isn't religion, is it? I'm tired of religion because it's just a bunch of rules that don't make sense." We got to explain how it's more about a relationship with Jesus and being led by the Holy Spirit. There are things that God calls us to obey, but we get to know His heart through it all and can know it's for our good even if we don't understand everything. She was really happy to hear about all of that and prayed to start a relationship with Jesus. I've gotten to follow-up with her for discipleship and look forward to continuing to do so!

- One day we were eating at a restaurant and someone felt like God was wanting to heal someone there, so we asked the waiters if anyone who worked there was sick. They said that only one person was sick, but he was at home. So we prayed for him, and one part specifically my friend prayed that he would have a dream or vision of Jesus and be healed through that. Well, that guy was at home and felt as if he'd be sick for another week. But that night he had a vision of a Shepherd walking through his room and immediately felt that he was healed. He actually got up from bed to see if someone was still there because it was so real to him. He came to work the next day completely fine and found out that we had prayed for him the day before. He got in touch with our guys and we got to follow-up with him. He had been really seeking the Lord for the past couple of months and now was super hungry to have a relationship with Him. He asked Jesus to come into his life and is now so hungry to share Jesus with others. He said, "Just teach me the Bible and tell me what to say, and I will do it." We said he should make a list of 5 people he wants to share with, but he said he definitely had more than 5 he wanted to share with.

- Some of the guys from our team got to meet a guy from a country in the Middle East that is really hard towards the Gospel. We'll call him Bob. They got to talk to him about Jesus some, but Bob wasn't very interested in following Him. But that night he heard someone call his name in the middle of the night and started thinking more about Jesus. He met with one of the guys in my group and told him about that night and our guy got to tell him that it was Jesus, because He wanted to have a relationship with him. Bob that day had a bad pain in his chest, so my friend got to pray for him and while he was praying, he felt Bob's chest literally pop up for a second. After he prayed, the pain was completely gone. Well, needless to say, Bob had really experienced God and decided to give his life to Jesus. He got to come and worship with us a couple of times and said he wants to go back to his country and share Jesus with his people. Praise the Lord!

We got to talk to so many people and saw many decide to start a relationship with Jesus. I love getting the chance now to do follow-up and start discipling/training new believers. Please pray:

- that new believers would begin to spend time with Jesus and grow in their faith

- that we would be able to connect with people because many have busy schedules right now

- that new believers would be excited to share Jesus with their friends and family

Okay, I have pictures I want to post, but I'll do that as a separate post, because I think it'll mess up what I've written so far... Hopefully I'll get the hang of this by the end of summer.

Overall, here is what the Lord taught me the past couple of weeks:

- I felt like God showed me every place where I run to different things to get security and comfort apart from Him. The biggest one was looking for comfort in this culture. India has felt different from everywhere else I've travelled. Normally I can connect and adapt to the culture really easily, but here it's just different. Maybe it's because the culture here is a mix of so many different cultures, but I just haven't felt comfortable here. But God is showing me that I just need to look to him to find security and not in my own ability to be "culturally relevant". It's such a place of weakness because I never have any idea what I should do here, but it's okay because I'm also learning...

-that it's not what I can do in my own strength that matters. I really have nothing to offer- it's only through abiding with Jesus like in John 15, and hearing from Him and saying what He tells me to say. I've gotten to see so many amazing things happen, but every time my reaction is, "wow, that was so God- I feel like I just showed up at the right time and got to jump into what God was already doing and just go along for the ride.

Okay, so this is already a pretty long post, but please be praying for me for direction for the next couple of weeks. I really want to be led by the Holy Spirit. So pray for greater breakthrough for me in hearing the voice of God and being led by Him. Thanks and I appreciate you guys so much!

Long awaited update!

Sorry I haven't posted anything in such a long time. The trip has been so busy so far. Well, it's actually quite laid back and very refreshing, but I haven't had spare time to go to an internet cafe. But I just got stood up for a meeting with a girl (eh, it happens...), so I have time to get to the cafe. But the cafe is closing in 12 minutes, so this might end suddenly. My group with Elevate is leaving on Thursday to go back to America, so after that time I will be on my own except for a married couple that is also staying the whole summer. I'll be moving into a service apartment, which I can't wait to have a kitchen where I can cook food rather than eating out everything meal! I'm also to move to the apartment because it is in a quieter neighborhood (right now we are staying in the commercial/ shopping center of town, which is great because there's always tons of people here, but it's starting to ware on my nerves. But I'm sad to see the rest of my group go because I've gotten used to them being here in India with me. Most days we split into smaller group (normally 2 or 3) and go out to meet people. Most are surprised that we are tourists and are staying only in one city rather than going to see the tourist sites, but I much prefer actually meeting people over seeing buildings, which in this case would just be Hindu temples. Okay, I got to go, so this is part 1 to an update. Sorry, communication will probably be limited until I'm in the apartment. Love you guys!

First days in India

I'm starting to get settled a little more into the city. I feel like I'm constantly learning more about the city and the culture here, but still have no idea what I'm doing. I figured out that it's rude to blow your nose in public (after many people stared at me horrified when I was blowing my nose at Pizza Hut- my alleriges are going crazy here because of all the dust). But overall I've heard it's a very forgiving culture, so it's okay if I don't do everything perfectly.
It's funny to me that the workers here at restaurants don't let you open the door for yourself or serve your own food. I keep doing it on my own out of habit, and then they get very embarassed, rush over, and push me out of the way at times. I got to go purchase a traditional Indian outfit that I can wear around the town or if I go out to a village. It was fun trying on all the clothes, especially the poofy pants that remind you of MC Hammer (hopefully I can post a picture of it at some time, but I realized I left my camera cord at home, so I'll try to figure out a way...).
I feel like I'm for sure trying to learn how to communicate with people here. Everyone bobbles their head to say "okay" and I've been trying to pick it up- it's a lot of fun to do. I've gotten to meet a lot of people so far from some many different backgrounds- Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Iranians, etc. I even met an Indian girl named Cristin, except she spelled it "Crystin". I got to pray for her and her mother at Pizza Hut (there's a Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and KFC right down the road from me- I haven't been to the McDonalds yet, so I don't know how they handle the whole no beef thing...)
One cool story is that we got lost the other day trying to find a mall and ended up walking past a hospital. We figured we might as well go inside and see if we could pray for patients. We discovered that it was actually a Christian-owned hospital and there were pictures of Jesus everywhere inside. The administrator that we needed permission from to pray for patients wasn't there so we had to come back another day, but we met a floor receptionist who was a Christian and we got to encourage him and teach him how to share his faith. We went back to the hospital yesterday and talked to the administrator. He couldn't give us permission to go from room to room to pray for patients, but he said that we could go to the Hospital's prayer hall and pray there. We said we'd love to do that and he had one of his assistants escort us over there. We got there and it was this little prayer room for us (see below) and we got to have a good time of intercession for the hospital and the people there. It was so much fun and we really believed that God moved through our prayers, so much so that we gave our phone number to the administrator and told him to call us if any miracles happened, because we have a God who loves to show himself and demonstrate his power!

Overall, even though I'm still getting used to everything here, I love the laid back pace of life and feel like I have so much grace to deal with the random cultural peculiarities here. And I'm so excited to learn more! Well, there are my random thoughts. Until later,

I made it!

Yes, we made it to India. After 19 hours of plane flight (not too bad) we arrived here at about 2am. Yesterday we mainly slept and then tried to get oriented to the city. We went on a scavenger hunt and got to see some of the city and meet some people. I think I'm still trying to get used to my surroundings- I go back and forth between feeling smewhat comfortable and having no idea what I'm doing here. I think this is the first time I've traveled somewhere where I really don't know the culture at all. But in general I like the city- we're in the middle of the big commercial district so there are tons of people. And even though it's hot here, the humidity isn't bad at all so I'm comfortable (remember, I'm from Houston, so i have a different standard of humidity and I was expecting the weather to be like Thailand...). I just have time to add a quick "hello, I'm here" but here are some funny experiences so far:

- I have fully embraced showering out of a bucket (fill up a large bucket with hot water and use a smaller bucket to dump the water on yourself). We have a shower head in our bathroom but it's only two thin streams of water so it's just easier and more refreshing to go bucket style- never thought I would say that. (There are my buckets and shower area to the right- it's just level with the rest of the bathroom, separated by a curtain.)

- I think I've gotten ripped off on every rickshaw ride I've taken and have fallen for all the tricks. But I feel like God has given me a lot of grace so I'm never angry, but I just feel stupid. My favorite was today when we finally got the rickshaw driver to agree to a normal price, but then he "missed" our street and had to take a huge turn around because all the roads were one way and then he didn't have change, so I had to pay about 3 times what it should have been... (but you can't get angry because it still only cost $1.

- I went to a Muslim beef market and had to dodge gigantic hawks that were swooping down to grab pieces of meat the vendors had thrown out on the ground- and of course the vendors laughed at us.