Tuesday, January 29, 2008



Hi!! So! I haven't posted for 2008 years basically...! Just got back from India on Saturday night. It was the longest day ever! We were traveling for 36 hours on the way back, but I slept a lot on the planes. It's been weird transitioning back to being in the States again. I'm feeling just like I don't know where to put all the experiences I had...I don't know how to apply them to my life now. Its such different worlds. I just feel like I need to meditate on everything....and journal about it or something. So that's what I'm kinda doing now. Sometimes, I just find myself staring off into space, recalling images from the trip...but then not feeling like I can grasp the full meaning I felt when I was there. It's just this separation, and feeling of alienation.

I don't really feel like describing everything that happened there right now. I just want to talk about the things I haven't really been able to put into words. I feel like I saw a whole different side of God there. Like God was so much clearer there. Maybe it was because there is such a drastic and obvious difference between Christianity and Hinduism and Islam. Like in the States, everyone basically believes in God to some degree...or they believe such a wide variety of things. In India, you're basically either Hindu or Muslim--and its such a clear cut religion. Even visually obvious--the Hindu dot, and the Muslim black covering. India is only 3% Christian. So I guess I'm trying to say that there's such contrast. In the US, everything's muddled. So the Christians just stuck out in the contrast--the Indian Christians, and our team. Our team already stuck out because we're white...but I think the spiritual contrast made it easier to live entirely in the Spirit--it made us want to show the real Jesus to all the people who were watching (and people were staring!)..maybe BECAUSE they were watching, and also because we felt that urgency that we probably would be one of the very few Christians they would ever encounter.

I've been thinking a lot about the verse "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." And thinking a lot about what it means to hunger and thirst... I noticed in the Indian Youth for Christ staff that we were with a lot...and at the churches we went to...that they had that hunger for God. At one of the church services, Prahba (he is the national director of YFC) taught about depending on God. We have so many things we can lean back on...our education, our family status, our looks, our friends. We can find comfort in anything, but the only gateway to experiencing life in the way it was created for is to allow God to fill us...say no to the temptations that fill our lives with cheap and artificial comfort. Be willing to dwell in that hunger for a while, and actually wait on God. In my devotional book, it said something like..."only those who want righteousness can ever get it." Do I really want righteousness? I want to want it.

I'm sick of sitting around. I need and want to get involved in a ministry. I'm sick of being a "hearer of the Word" and not necessarily a "doer." I don't want God to be an accessory...I want him to be my passion...in every area of my life! I'm trying to learn what it means to open up doors to Him that I'd never even considered offering before.