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This past week we have been in a East and North-East India where construction is beginning on a new church. KK plans to move his base of operations here as it is centrally located within a major citry and has easy access to neighboring states. KK plans to construct an orphanage, school, and medical clinic this property. The area feels pretty dark, KK informed us that there are no Christians in the area and there is a large Hindu temple nearby. But the property is nice, it is outside of the city a bit surrounded by fields of rice, mustard, and other vegetables. Unlike the city, the air is good there. We arrived in East and North-East India on Monday afternoon after spending 6 hours in a very bumpy jeep ride, I don’t think that KK’s jeep has any shocks. KK had to be there to coordinate the beginning of the construction project, purchase raw materials, and oversee the beginning of the foundation work.

Construction projects here are significantly different that at home. The holes for the column foundations are dug by hand using a tool that is more like a hoe than a shovel. The dirt is loaded into baskets and tossed out of 4-foot deep hole. A group of ladies have been hauling this dirt to construct an access ramp for the site. By hauling I mean that they load the dirt into baskets and carry it across the site to the ramp location and dump it. The rebar for the foundations is all cut, bent, and bound together with wire by hand. The concrete is mixed by hand on a brick platform. I was asked on multiple occasions if this is how we do ti in the States and could only smile and answer “kind of.”

So on Thursday, they had sufficiently completed the prep work to being the foundation. They have a ceremony for the beginning of a building construction. Village people came out of nowhere, snacks were brought out, we sang a hymn, read Psalm 121, and prayed over the building and the land. The three primary laborers were honored with a small gift and shook everyone’s hands. And everyone was given something to eat, a pastry filled with curry, a Bengali sweet (dough soaked in a cane syrup) and another sweet sugary thing. It was a good little ceremony and was definitely the highlight of our week in East and North-East India. It is pretty cool though to be part of building a church in a place where there are no churches, a place that desperately needs light and hope.

On Friday night we returned back, that drive is not fun, but we were all very excited to come back and see the kids.

15 hour flight highlighted by great spicy food. Lots of time to sleep, well mostly me sleeping, time to talk and pray with each other. We finally made it to our destination but could not find KK. The decision to jump into a cab of sorts came after a while. The ride was intense. The hotel is nice. Sam was under a little pressure as our number for KK was incorrect. After waking up Ben to dig up one of Sam’s old journals to find KK’s number we felt a bit of relief. Just as that happened the door rang and as we prayed KK appeared! We will be traveling by train through the night.

There is very little I can put into words about how tight our team is. It is wonderful experiencing this with close friends.

Please continue praying for us as divine appointments are the theme of the trip thus far.

I spent the first ten minutes of this blog staring at the computer screen completely blank. At breakfast today Sam asked who wanted to write the first blog, I answered before I even thought about it. I find I do that often. Words come out as if someone else spoke them and I look around for who the noise came from. I would sound great for me to tell you that this tendency is me acting out of the unction of the Holy Spirit but I know that I am, in general, an incautious creature. If immediate retrospect is possible I am a pro.

Several times yesterday I courted the thought of “what am I doing” which instantly made me feel faithless. I said I was going to India and then I looked around for who made the noise. I know in His divinity, God wove it into His plan for me to come to India but still I doubt. Not so much Him as me. My disbelief is so much easier to entertain than His sovereignty. I am daily acquainted with my unqualified human state. We have become good friends if you define good friends by the amount of time spent with another and not necessarily by the relationship being mutually beneficial. I am little acquainted with the sovereignty of the Lord. Not because it is not everyday around me but because I do not take enough time to dwell in it, to hang out with Him, if you will. But there is hope yet for me, because whether I believe it or not God is who He says He is. And so when my what am I doings arise I am only bringing worry to myself. God is not concerned with my incapabilities. He embraces them for there He can truly be glorified. I am sure this is a lesson I have heard either at church or in some counseling session with a friend but hearing does not mean understanding. Oh, would that it were that simple.

I felt truly handicapped as I was preparing for this trip. Questions of what I had to offer to the team and to the people we will be ministering to entwined themselves around every thought I had about going to India. I even doubted whether I would actually go even up to the week before we left. I woke up early Thursday morning before we flew out of the states and spent the first few minutes lying next to my sister crying into her shoulder asking myself “what am I about to do?” We were on the plane(s) yesterday and I couldn’t keep the questions quiet. It’s amazing what thoughts roll through your head when you are barreling through the air miles above the earth, like there is anyway of getting off or going back. My ipod broke months before we left and I never brought myself to get it fixed so in substitute for not having music readily available (we are so spoiled) I believe the Lord put one song in my head that has just completely lodged itself there, If You Say Go. The lyrics are more than poignant and the Lord is slowing healing the parts of my mind that were preoccupied with the questions and my incapabilities. The chorus is “Your ways are higher than our ways, and the plans that You have laid are good and true, if You call us to the fire You will not withdraw Your hand, we will gaze into the flames and look for You.” For me the country of India is a fire and I haven’t stopped looking.