Our team is preparing to travel north, where we will spend most of our summer. Please pray for safe travels and no complications. As we know, this is India, so anything could happen.
The past week we stayed outside the capital city with a couple working to advance the gospel through the area around them. Since I spent two months in India last summer, I thought I had a decent idea of what to expect this summer. Some things haven’t changed, like the minute head bobble that indicates yes, the beeping and honking that fills the sea of cars, rickshaws and motorcycles in the road, and the permanent state our pale skin draws. The thing that was different about Gcity was how western it is. Staying in a hotel in the capital city we see girls in American clothes and McDonalds on many corners, but actually living in a western city is different than playing tourist for a few days.
We helped with a VBS camp for the past three days. It was an English camp held in an actual church building. A nice building. We sang English songs, the teachers dressed up as characters from the bible, and the children did crafts. If the children weren’t all brown it could have been any VBS in America. There isn’t anything wrong with this, Gcity is home to many well off, upper class Indians that have stable and well paying corporate jobs. People just like everyone reading this blog.
This un-indianness threw me off at first. There are people living in poverty, sleeping in tents on the side of the road. Why are we sitting in this air-conditioned church building?
In that very same church building we heard a message from 1 Corinthians 9 in which Paul says
“To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win the Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside of the law ( not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”
Paul became like the people he was with so he could better share the gospel with them. The people in Gcity are upper to middle class. They would not come to a small and modest house church. Many Indians of higher castes see Christianity as a lower caste religion, and they are some of those most hardened to the gospel. If the best way to reach these people is through a nice building, filled with believers that trust in The Lord, than glory be to God!
I fell in love with the 15 9-11 year olds I led in my group, and two girls prayed to put their trust in Christ. God is surely working here and it has been a blessing to see His love be poured into these children over the past few days. Tomorrow the Hindi version of the camp begins, where over 100 children will fill the church. Please join us in prayer for these children!
We will update you as soon as we can, thank for for you continuing to pray for our team.
In love,
Julia
Me with a 9 year old girl from a nearby orphanage at VBS
E3 Global Teams 