Freshman | Biola

*Disclaimer : I am not allowed to include specific names of the places I visited beyond the city.

Before my trip, my walk with God was stagnant in a way. Although I grew up in a Christian household and knew all the bible stories, I had only begun walking with the Lord in my senior year of high school. I grew a lot during my first semester at college, and at the end I felt a call to go to missions at KCM WinterCon, a decision I wrestled with for months before I committed to go, and I eventually found myself going to India for a month. Before the trip I knew nothing about India, where we were going, how long the flight was, and even the day I was coming back. I wanted to have no room for expectations; I knew that there was so much to learn by just taking everything in. We ended up going to several different places and at each of the different places I felt like God was exposing a different aspect of me that He wanted me to be more aware of.

The first place we visited was called Jalpaiguri. In Jalpaiguri, we went to a smaller, more remote village that contained our homebase. There we spent around 8 days at a school hosting VBS as a class period as well as hosting the morning assembly. Beyond that we had a lot of time for reflection and time to talk to the staff members at the school. After every skit and every VBS dance as I thought about my performance, I felt God asking me “who deserves and will receive the glory?”. It was a thorn that constantly badgered me because I knew that many times my honest answer would have been me. I fought with God trying to justify my right for glory, but as we kept doing ministry, He kept asking, and I slowly learned to give it up. 

The second place we went to was this place called Mirik. There I felt very blessed with the testimony of the pastor, who used to be a Brahma -- a member of the top castes in the social hierarchy of Hinduism, and he was a priest who used to perform black magic for an idol helping others solve their problems. However, he grew angry at the fact that although his god solved the problems of others, he was left with many problems, financially and domestically, and he became depressed until he met Christ when his uncle shared the gospel to him. His social relationships with his village died as he took down the temple he used to work at, and he tried to evangelize the Good News, but none of the villagers would listen. All he had was a bamboo tent and he could only pray. We arrived in Mirik long after this period, and it is now doing much better, but he had spent years in prayer. Now he is doing well with his family, and all the villagers are happy to talk to him, but in that story I saw the power of prayer. A prayer life was something I lacked before this trip, and became something I wanted to take back home with me. 

We then met with a different missionary contact, who ran an asylum and an orphanage. The kids there were unusually happy doing VBS dances and watching our skits, and when I noticed it, I felt God was asking me where my joy was. It had been a week or two into the trip already, and I found that I was starting to hide, doing things just for the sake of doing things. I lost all emotion behind it. As I watched the kids, I was reminded of the initial joy I had when I first began my walk with God and was reminded to do all things with the same joy.

The past 3 places we visited were fairly developed, but this next one was the only place that was still new in its ministry. The newly built church was made out of concrete, had a table, a couple chairs, and a tarp on the floor to sit on. The night we got there, we split into three groups each with one person who spoke Bengali, and we started to go from door to door. It was wildly different then what I would have imagined. The guy leading us spoke to every person and entered every home whether they listened or not. Even though I couldn't understand what he was saying, his emotions were super prevalent, and I was reminded of the urgency of the gospel. The desperation that he had wanting others to be saved was more than I had ever seen before. 

At that place I also got sick and was unable to participate in ministry a couple of times. All I did and all I could do was pray and reflect. As I was reflecting I realized that during the trip I was so focused within myself, I had forgotten that I was with 14 other people in India, and that God was working not only through me, but all of my team members as well. I was reminded of the importance of Godly community.

Now back home, I don’t expect my life to be completely different, but there are things from this trip that I have been and plan on continuing to take to heart. For example, after being able to experience prayer and its power, I have been dedicating some time every day to pray and do devotions. There is always something to pray about, the missionaries, my church, family, health. It also helps me to reflect and set my eyes on the important thing in my life: my walk with God.