This past week I have been doing a lot of learning.
-I
learned how to do laundry by hand, bargain for good prices at the fruit market,
and hold my ground on crowded buses.
-I
have learned my way to and from the slum I work in and how to keep my eyes down
when walking through the crowds of men at the bus stop.
-I
learned how beautiful the women are and how strong and courageous they are as
they go home and get beat for listening to stories about Jesus.
-I
am learning to trust God in ways that I have never done before.
-I
am learning about God's grace and how completely it covers my wrongs and how to
have grace with myself and the people I work with.
-I
am learning about how girls are not valued in this country at all. Girls are
aborted all the time and if they are allowed to live they are used in every way
possible. My heart hurts as I sit and tell women they are truly beautiful and
they cannot fathom that being true.
-I
am learning to not see the dirt and disease and to love the kids and let them
love me and cover me in hugs and dirt. I have learned to kiss the heads that
haven't been washed in a long time and hold hands that are used to wipe. We
pray for protection of our bodies and know that we are right where God wants us
to be. The safest place to be is right in the middle of God's will.
-I
still haven't learned how to tell a dear women who hands me her 14 day old baby
girl that I can't take the baby home with me without it breaking my heart.
-I
still haven't learned how to look at the dogs that are beaten and have broken
legs without getting mad.
-I
still haven't learned how to keep a room of 60 excited kids quiet for bible
story time but it is a joy to be around them!
God has been so faithful to us and has been teaching,
stretching, and molding me. Every morning I get up at 6 and we have breakfast
and devotionals as a team. My team of four girls gets on a bus and we go to the
slum we work in. We take two buses to get there. In the morning we work at a
preschool and support the young teachers. I am working with a teacher who has
the 6 year old class. Then we have lunch and help with school preparation or
rest.
In the afternoon the four of us walk through the slum to a house
where we do tuition. Tuition is the program that the kids come to everyday for
snack, bible stories, memory verses, and laughter. We help them with homework.
We have to be really careful about how much we talk about God. Some of the men
in the slum dislike us. We never carry bibles on us as a safety precaution but
they know what we are doing and are mad because they see that our God actually
answers prayers.
Some days after tuition we go on house visits and meet parents
and fellowship with the few other believers in the slum. We have to bring a
translator and the language barrier is quite difficult. We are trying to learn
as much Hindi as we can; it’s hard! The evenings that we don't do home visits
in the slum, we come back to our neighborhood and visit with the shop owners on
the beach. Coni (one of my team members) and I are praying about reading a book
of the bible to the woman we are discipling.
There is a awesome group of guys from the church that we go to
that lead worship for us on Friday nights and hang out with us in the evenings
sometimes. They give me hope that the men of this country will know God!
One of our team members is really sick right now and might have
worms. Please keep her in your prayers and the rest of us as we are worn down
and very susceptible to similar things.
XOXO
Madisyn
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