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| He changed into a yellow shirt to match me! :) |
So... India. Let's talk about the kid in the picture. It's not that he's the only kid from the children's home... nor a favourite... cause we ain't suppose to have favourites, right? :) This was my date at every single meal for most of the 7 days we were in Visakhapatnum. At every meal that I could remember he would grab his plate and insist that he would be sitting beside me... breakfast, lunch and dinner. No fail, this kid was sitting beside me. Trust me, I wasn't particularly nice to him... in fact there were moments when I had to constantly yell at him to eat his food... or to chew... or to not play with his food... :P
It was through these meal time interactions that we bonded. He does NOT like eating boiled eggs... so one morning I sat there with him and waited as he finished breakfast. Haha... goodness gracious, it was quite the task trying to coerce this kid to finish his egg. At the end I think he got away with just eating the egg white and not having to eat the yoke. By the time we left, his promise to me was that he would finish his breakfast every morning, including his egg! :)
Yet, this trip for me really wasn't about the kids. I know we always come back from missions talking about how the kids have changed us more than we've changed them... blah blah blah. For me... it really wasn't like that? Why? Perhaps because I work with children on a daily basis and it doesn't require a missions trip for me to see that. Perhaps, that wasn't the lesson that I need to be learning in this season... I learned that lesson many years ago. This wasn't my first trip to a children's home... but I pray that it won't be my last either.
So, what did I get from my trip? One of the biggest revelations since coming home was that it's time for me to stop half joking about God training me for the missions field and start taking that seriously. Hahaha... I joke about this aLOT... or talk about it casually... but I think it's time to start praying about this and starting to ask God for some more concrete answers about what this all means. The running joke has always been that if God called me to Africa tomorrow, I'd drop everything to get on a plane to go... but now... it's time to re-evaluate what those words really mean. It's time for that to stop being a running joke in my life... but for me to really consider what I mean when I say words like that. So one thing that I came away with was the thought that I think God really might be calling me to missions... so time to start praying about that.
The other thing I came away from India with, is that I need to stop running away from children's ministry. I disqualified myself from children's ministry... almost 8 years ago now. That's not a story for this update, so you can ask if you'd like to know. For 8 years I haven't touched children's ministry... but every time I have gone out on a missions trip, I have ended up at a children's home/ orphanage. Of course, that could just be the nature of the trips I had ended up on... regardless... the doors to the mission field for me has always led to children. While we were in India... perhaps more after coming back... God seems to be confirming that gifting in me. That he has gifted me in working with children. So it's a season where I need to stop disqualifying myself... and start rebuking all the lies which I have bought into for so long.
This is just a small glimpse into the things that God spoke into my heart from my trip to India. It was a good trip.. I think not because of the children, or the things we saw. I would have been happy going on a trip to anywhere... had I met with God in the same way that I was able to meet God while I was in India this time around. It wasn't about where I went or what I did... this trip was simply that I got away... and in the midst of me getting away, God met me, and He revealed to me the things that He wanted me to know. Despite all that we did in India... and the tiredness I should have felt... I did feel refreshed spiritually. I came home excited and recharged to keep going into this season! :)
