Dear Friend,
As I was reflecting on the past year in India, I was thinking about how exactly I have been spending my time here and this verse from Hosea stuck out to me. I have been helping others “press on to know the Lord” as well as “pressing on” to know Him myself. There are days where I am overwhelmed by the depravity of the spiritual condition here in India. There are days when I feel the brokenness is too widespread, too deeply rooted, and too hopeless to be changed. There are days when I wonder if I am making any difference at all. But then I remember the rest of this verse: “his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” God is not going to leave me alone to find Him myself. I may seek and seek and seek and teach others to do the same and still feel like God is distant and that all my seeking has been in vain. But He has promised that He will come to us, that He will reveal Himself to us, that our seeking will not be in vain. He will reward our seeking with a deeperknowledge of Himself. He doesn't tell us how long we will have to seek before He reveals Himself; we simply have to trust that He will keep His promise in due time. He will bring fruit out of what I have been doing for the past year. He will complete the work he has started in me, as well as the work he has started in the people I minister to. My job is simply to keep seeking Him, to keep “pressing on to know” Him. God, please give us the faith to believe that you will keep your promises to us and that our faithfulness will not be forgotten, no matter what our circumstances may look like. May knowing and experiencing you be the all-consuming desire of our lives and may we seek you first always!
We spent the beginning of this month in Bangladesh doing a two-day storying training for a group of about 12 women. The 3 stories we taught featured women as main characters: Mary and Martha, the bleeding woman, and the woman who washed Jesus' feet. The women who attended work in non-profit schools for girls ages 5-14 from the slums. They teach the kids English, math, Bible, and Bangla. During our stay in Bangladesh, we got to visit one of the schools for a day and see their work firsthand! After returning to India, we did another 2-day training with a group of women ages 14-30 at OM's 3-month Bible training school. These women were from rural parts of northern India and most of them live on farms. I taught the story of Ruth and how to craft stories, while Jessica taught the story of the bleeding woman and Lindsey a Creation to Christ story. Just this past Friday, we got to go to their graduation from training school!! Pray for these girls to have boldness, wisdom, love, and power as they return to their villages to share the gospel with their friends and family! Pray for there to people's hearts to be soft towards God and that there would be mass revivals all over rural India because of these girls!!
My storying group is going well! Last time, I told the story of the Exodus in Hindi. It was a bit rough, but my translator was there to help everyone understand what I was trying to say. They had some good discussion about whether or not God sinned because he killed all the firstborn Egyptians! I recently learned that my storying group is made up of fourleaders or potential leaders, each from a different village, and they all came this past week! This past month, I had the opportunity to visit three different villages where people from my storying group live! My team leader has given me an assignment to write a paper about the sapera (snake charmer) culture to better understand how to teach them. During these visits, I got to see them charm snakes!! I learned that sometimes snake charming can have a spiritual meaning. The snake charmers will travel around performing with their snakes and people will sometimes worship the snake. One of the leaders from my storying group told me that some snake charmers who become Christians stop snake charming, but others don't because they feel like they have no other source of income.
Thanksgiving was a massive celebration at another American family's home this year! About 30 people were there and someone had actually found a turkey to smoke! There was a huge line-up of turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, veggies, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cookies, and even some bacon-wrapped green beans, which were my personal favorite! Lindsey's parents joined us from California for the week of Thanksgiving, as did Emily and Celeste from Agra!
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph 2:16). Thank you God that you have the power we need to have faith to trust you and believe that you will fulfill all of your promises!!