I was interested in going on STSM from watching last year's teams’ Instagram stories. What initially started off as mere curiosity developed into a genuine “what if I went” question coming into the school year. I felt that if I was truly serious in growing in my faith, then missions would be a great way in drawing near to God and seeing how deep His love goes for His people across the nations. By the time applications came out, I found out that going on STSM this year would mean delaying my graduation by a quarter but I felt a strong conviction that God was calling me to go this year and that a unique opportunity like this to go on missions abroad with people my age would never come again. With a lot of prayer and by the grace of God, my parents gave me the green light to go. 

Preparing for the trip, one of my main prayer requests was that God would humble my heart. One way He humbled me was by showing me the true power and importance of having a good prayer life and how much it actually costs to follow Jesus. At St Paul School, one of the main places we did ministry at, the staff and pastors there do early morning prayer at 5 am Monday-Saturday where they pray over numerous topics such as the salvation of their surrounding neighbors and for the other India Evangelical Church (IEC) ministries in the neighboring regions. This was a pivotal moment for me since they’ve been faithfully doing this everyday for almost 20 years and we were standing in the fruits borne from their prayers. I was reminded of this when we went to another ministry location in Ranirhat where our team got a glimpse of what it looks like to start a ministry from the ground up; the pastor and his family there were the only Christian family in a Hindu-majority village, yet he faithfully outreaches to the locals even when they reject him constantly. This revealed to me how sheltered I was when it came to faith and how following Jesus will always come at a cost; where in this case, it cost the pastor comfort and a stable job to start a ministry in difficult conditions. But seeing how faithful the pastor’s family was and how they truly believed God had called them to this place for a greater purpose and that He would move mightily there was a big encouragement for not only me, but our whole team. Another instance was when our team was traveling to various cities during our traveling days. One of them was Varanasi where the whole city was dedicated to worshiping one of the Hindu gods, Shiva. As we were touring, we saw people bathing in the Ganges River where they believed the water has the ability to ward off evil; they were also worshiping and chanting to their idols and it was a reality check that prayer is much needed in a nation where so much darkness resides. It was here where God truly gave me a heart that broke for the loss and where He revealed to me how much He desires for all of His children to know Him.

Another of my main prayer requests coming in was to find genuine joy in serving the Lord since I never really knew what that looked like. In the first full week of ministry we had, I felt that I was giving it my all but I didn’t feel completely satisfied because it felt like I was doing things with no real purpose behind it; like I was just doing things for the sake of doing them. It wasn’t until the second week when I got pretty sick where I became heavily limited in what I was able to do in terms of ministry; this was probably the most discouraging moment in the trip for me but from it, I was able to grow in my desperation for the Lord and asked for a desire to depend on His strength alone. Someone (I forgot who lol) told the team the reason why things like VBS, childrens’ ministry, and disciple training are important is because most of these students and their parents are non-believers so we share with the students the love and goodness that we have come to know through Jesus; we hope that through us, they’ll come to know who Jesus is and share that same love with their parents so that they too may come to know Christ. After being told that, I was able to do things with a purposeful heart even through the sufferings; through little moments, I was able to witness God’s heart for His people and caught glimpses of what it meant to find genuine joy in serving the Lord. Even though I knew I wasn’t there to see fruit being born, I believed that God was going to use whatever our team did to advance His Kingdom; whether we were there to plant or water the existing seeds, I had faith that God was the One at work and He would reveal Himself to His people in His perfect timing. 

Although it is hard to still have a missional heart now that I’m back to my comforts at home, I don’t want this trip to feel like a fever dream and forget about all the lessons and experiences. I want to apply all that I’ve learned in my time in India back here. I hope to be a desperate child of His, knowing the joy there is in joining Him in His Kingdom work and in having a diligent prayer life. I hope that nothing I do would be for my own gain or benefit but all of it would be for God’s Glory.