INDIA July 2- August 3

            

            This summer, I had been enrolled in a few classes in Paris, France. I was planning on studying abroad. However, I was able to rethink my plans for the summer and actually take some time to pray about God’s plan for me with constant encouragement from my KCM small group. It wasn’t all that easy though. In the beginning, out of the sinfulness of my heart, I was thinking of ways that I would be pleasing God in France to use as an excuse not to think about missions. After a while though, I just learned to ask God. I asked him what He really wanted me to do and that’s when I received a strange conviction to go on missions.

            Missions in India this summer was an amazing experience. I learned what it really means to grow in my relationship with Jesus Christ, I was also able to see the urgency of the Gospel message, but what really made the biggest impact in my heart this summer was the meaning of faith in God.
            For about four days, our team did ministry at St. Paul School in a city called Berikai. After school ended, we got a chance to bus to a couple of the villages nearby. One of the villages we stopped at was called the untouchables group village. This little community is composed of people in the lowest caste system in India. People live in little huts on made on dirt floor. As soon as I walked in, I could sense the lack of hope in the lives of the people. Gathering a crowd in a small corner of the village, we started off by doing a couple songs and skits. After a short while, and with insistent prayer, we started the Obsession skit. The whole time we were performing this skit, I looked up to see an elderly lady that was nodding her head and watching very intently. I wanted to talk to her so I went up to her and gave her a hug and although she didn’t know very much English, I explained that there was a God that loved her very much and that believing in Jesus Christ can get her into Heaven where there is eternal life and pointing at the Bindi red dot on her forehead, I told her that it’s not Hinduism which teaches about many different gods but that there is only one true God. She looked at me and took the Bindi off her forehead and threw it on the ground and asked me to pray for her, giving me the biggest hug. Since that incident, I wondered why God would use someone so weak and foolish like me, but that’s the crazy part- God wants to use weak and foolish people like us to do His great work. We just have to be usable.
            Through the lives of the missionaries in India, I was able to see what it meant to be usable and I learned that it requires complete faith in God. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as being certain of something we do not see. I find that extremely difficult and there are times when I doubt and struggle but through them all, I’m learning what it takes to lay down my idols and really die to myself and carry out the cross day by day. One of the main things I learned from Missionary Chung’s lifestyle in India is how to live a life with the mindset of “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart” (Job 1:21). We leave this earth with nothing left of this world. As I learn and grow in my faith, I desire to be a woman completely usable for God, submitting everything that I have accumulated in this earth to Him who made me.

Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”-- that is my prayer.