California Challenge

This week, a group of 15 people are here from California. It has been challenging, encouraging, and refreshing to have them here as they see India for the first time. There hearts have been broken for the people of this country in a way that has been missing in my time here for awhile now. They have been challenging me to open my eyes again and to try to see this country with new eyes. It’s amazing how desensitized I have become to human suffering, poverty, and lostness in this land. It has become common place and normal. My heart right now is overwhelmed with a new heart and love for the people here and for the faces and families of the people I have been allowed to invest in.

If I were to be completely honest and vulnerable I would have to confess that the good parts of me have died in this land and that I have just been barely surviving and holding on to the faith that I have known my whole life. For several months now, my heart has been in rebellion against the Lord. I have questioned the Christian culture in which I have lived my entire life and found myself doubting the Church and the way things have been done my entire life.

But today, the Lord revealed my sin and my rebellion. In order to work out my salvation, I began seeking other worldly desires. My heart began to stray and I wanted to do everything opposite of the church and culture I grew up in because I doubted its effectiveness and ability to change lives. But in my desire to be just a follower of Christ and to look different than the church- I began to look too much like the world. My heart began to stray and I was becoming someone that I didn’t like. I feel like I am learning for the first time the balance of what it really means to “be of the world but not in the world”.

I have been reminded this week, through the team here that it’s ok to be different. The life I live as a follower of Jesus sets me apart. The journey here is making me become authentic in my faith and is defining what Jesus meant when He said “follow me.”

I know that the Lord sent me to this land so that I would no longer follow a religion but that I would genuinely follow the teaching and life of Jesus who has radically changed my life and has the ability transform people of all cultures and nations.

Some fun pics with the California Sandals Team...

Me at the Taj Mahal for the third time!

Me, David (the team leader) and Kim at the Taj Mahal.
At the Agra Fort. The girls are on the white onyx queen's throne
The Men on the king's black onyx throne

Laura and I at the Agrah Fort with the Taj Mahal behind us

Some of the boys doing their own modeling shoot