Well, the dust has settled. The train rides are over; the crazy rickshaw rides and coach rides are past memories. The mad dash to get home and put all of our students on their connections and headed home is settled and done. And the realization that we are home has now fully sunken in. We are no longer sweating record levels and consuming copious amounts of delicious curry! We are no longer witnessing bulls walk right through the middle of the most chaotic traffic you can imagine. We are no longer watching a monkey jump up and practically give Erin Bidwell a heart attack as she gazes out the window of our bus. And we are no longer taking daily cups of homemade chai.
To be honest, this summer was really a lot of fun. India is such a fascinating place. Trying to describe it is a challenge because honestly it is so different than any other place I have ever been (and I’m confident the same holds true for our students). So in lieu of trying to capture it with what would most likely be boring paragraphs, I thought I would try to recap my top ten favorite moments/things about this summer/India, so here we go.
10. Watching one of our students, Ani, out of nowhere, rap the connecting with God booklet at training camp. Two things passed through all of our minds as she started rapping- A)We had no idea it was possible to rap the CWG and B)Man, Ani can lay it down!!!! You have to hear it to believe it.
9. On one of our last days in India, Matt Duval and Alex Grandjean payed 10 rupees (about 20 cents) each to have a monkey climb on their shoulders and mess with their hair. I don’t know what was funnier, the monkeys or how excited Matt and Alex were. And then the owners of said monkeys tried to extort Alex and Matt for 500 Rupees each!
8. Knowing that we would be facilitating a Vacation Bible School for young people while in India, we as a team during training camp planned out several Bible stories that we could share. One of them was the story of Shadrach, Mesach, and Abendengo being thrown into the fiery furnace from the book of Daniel. The main theme of that story was that there is only one true God that we are to worship. We had no idea how powerful of a message this would be in India until we got there. The Hindu culture is one of hundreds of God (which Jesus is just one of many), so to see how God worked through our students through this story was amazing. And as we already wrote about, several Indian students responded that their desire was to follow the one true God! How awesome is that–God is good?
7. Every night in India, one of our students got the opportunity to share the Word and speak at a devotional time in front of the students who lived at the hostel on the grounds of the school where we were working. It was really fun to see each student share their faith from their own unique perspective and to realize the impact that their example and words had and will continue to have on the young people from the hostel.
6. During a prayer time one night right before the students headed to bed, one of our senior staff, Alex Grandjean, unintentionally prayed something that sent us all into hysterics and completely dissolved our prayer time. He said “Lord, we came to serve this summer, but we got served.”
5. After braving the Old Delhi train station and finally making it to our train platform, several of our students found it rather funny that the only spot on me that wasn’t dark with sweat was the breast pocket on my button up shirt. I was then donned “two-toned Travis” for how often I sweat through my shirts (which happened about once every 3.5 seconds).
4. Watching some of our students on our team love on the street kids in a shopping plaza in Delhi. These street kids are ignored and forgotten and never touched by anyone. So to see our students smile at them, speak with them, buy them ice cream, and hold them was truly an amazing example of Christ’s love.
3. The wife of the principal of the school where we were serving, Victoria, was in charge of all of are meals while we were at Duncan Academy. Now, while the meals were awesome and she really became like a mother to all of us, I will always remember her for how gaga she went over our daughter Railey. Every chance she got, she would cart Railey around the room with a big smile on her face.
2. During our VBS with the older students of Duncan Academy, each of our students led a group where they facilitated discussions about Jesus and the Good News. It was awesome to see how courageous and willing our students were to share their faith.
1. Roof top worship times as we overlooked the city of Raxaul. Somehow these times helped sharpen our focus not only on our big God who is doing big things among this community, but also on the people who are in desperate need of him. It was powerful to walk away from these–clear about why were we there and who we came to serve.
Thanks again to our students who were awesome and to our newfound friends and fellow believers at Duncan Academy!
Travis
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