So whenever I get home from this whole World Race thing people will
undoubtedly ask, “How was your trip?” or ”How was your year?” For the
most part, those people probably won’t want more, or get more than
“good.” Some will go a little deeper and ask something like “What was
your favorite country?” That, too has a lot of possible answers,
depending on if you are speaking of contacts, ministry, the beauty of
the country, etc. Even within those breakdowns it will still be
somewhat difficult to say, and that’s with about 3 full months left.
What I can say, however, is that I will likely not be answering “India” to the latter question.
It wasn’t that I hated India, I don’t.
It wasn’t that I’ll never go back. In fact, India was home to some of
the people that sought to honor me, my team, and squad the most. I now
have, what I feel can be, lifelong friends in India.
It wasn’t just because I struggled to find my place in the ministry we were assigned to.
It wasn’t just because I didn’t always agree with what I was faced with.
It wasn’t just because our team struggled with communication.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have any adventure in India. We started in
Mumbai for a few days, trekked 27 hours by train to Calcutta, another 4
or 5 hour travel day (including 2 hour flight) had us in Jaipur, and a
few days later an overnight bus took us 7 hours to Udaipur. 3 days
later we were shuttled 6 hours to Jhabua, and a couple days after that
we found ourselves in Delhi (a missed train, 5 hour rocky-sea-like car
ride, and plane trip later). We were the only team that got to visit
the Taj Mahal, via a round trip of over 10 hours one day from Delhi,
before heading back on a flight to Mumbai.
Then there’s the whole travel to debrief a couple hours away, travel
from debrief to an airport where our flight had been canceled without
our knowledge, and search that finally had us in bed at 7am 2 hours from
the airport.
This month didn’t lack stories so much. It definitely didn’t lack cows in the street, palaces, and curry.
It didn’t lack a ministry. We traveled around the country worshipping
the Lord with Burn 24/7, but it was a struggle for me. And I can’t say
that a lot of it had anything to do with India itself.
Sure we had celebrity status in a worship setting, and while I’ve never
feared celebrity status, in a worship setting it’s tough.
It’s the kind of thing that made me wonder if these people could be
closer to worshipping the One True God if I hadn’t brought my white butt
to their village or city.
But instead I stood there trying to be genuine and find a secret
worshipful tone with the God I love and want others to as well, but they
are more interested in snapping camera phone shots of me than what I,
and they, supposedly came there for.
Even at the Taj Mahal, filled with thousands of people, most near our
team seemed more interested in us than this wonder of the world.
It was humbling. Because I know I didn’t deserve this sort of attention. I didn’t come for it, but it was there.
The month had a lot…
From feeling miles from God while others worshipped joyfully below, to
riding thru a red light district in Calcutta feeling discontent for not
feeling the brokenness I knew in my heart that the situation called for,
to feeling a bit of weight lifted, to seeking Him thru all the noise
and acclaim for my team and me.
This month brought some of the moments where I’ve felt the most distant
from God in my entire life, and, in the end, some of the moments where
I‘ve felt the closest.
And, as I sit and type this, the thought occurs that maybe God was just
preparing me to be able to seek find the secret place with Him, even
when everything and everyone else looking in from the outside points at
me or my group as something “special” or “exceptional,” when I knew
better.
I’ve felt there’s a potential call on my life that might lead to a large
platform, and who knows if that’s true, but I felt for great leaders of
the church this month like Giglio, Chan, Piper, and so on… Men who
teach and proclaim and seek so much for people to treasure Christ and
love others as a result, often times only to hear more about their name
and how awesome they are for saying it a certain way, than the message
they tried to convey.
I’m not saying I’ll ever reach that status, but God pushed me to a point
of being desperate for Him this month, and Him alone, and that’s never a
bad place to be.
India is just hard. It’s spiritually dark and needs so much light.
It’s not that there aren’t lights here, seeing places like SEAL and
meeting people like Prathap, the Ellis family, Steven, Praveen, Kevin,
etc showed me that, but there’s so much darkness and so much need for
more light.
I faced spiritual attacks in a way like I’ve not experience prior on
this journey, but I also found a peace that I can’t quite compare
either. There’s a peace I’ve felt prior, but there’s nothing quite like
peace after a battle and a storm.
So I must say India was not my favorite month, in fact it was probably
my least favorite, but as with many things that aren’t our favorite in
life, they have the potential to turn into the thing that was the best
for us.
And it’s quite possible that August in India was the best month FOR me, even if it wasn’t the best month TO me.
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