the relativity of comfort

I am back! This is my first post being back in America. I am sure there will be several more posts because it will be impossible to share all about the epic adventure in just one post. I have actually been back in America for three weeks now but only back in Texas for a week (we took a family vacation to Hawaii for two weeks). It's been interesting adjusting back to life here. I have been super busy and haven't had much time to reflect and collect my thoughts. So here goes my attempt at doing that.

If you have read some of my previous blog posts, I have mentioned that before going on my trip I had been convicted that comfort was an idol in my life. Well, I can type here two months later that it is no longer an idol! There is no such thing as comfort in India. Actually, I came to find out that the term comfort is quite relative. My "comfortable" living conditions are still not very comfortable compared to my American living. I just want to post something I wrote in my journal on June 9 (twenty days into my trip):

"Up to this point in my walk with Christ, I had never suffered for the gospel. I have lived a comfortable life, serving God maybe one week every summer for VBS or a mission trip but other than that I didn't really focus much of my time on loving others with Christ's love. Now that I am in India, I can say that I have suffered and sacrificed for the advancement of God's kingdom. It is very uncomfortable here. Us girls are having to stay in a believers' home but their house is two small rooms and one big room. We sleep on the floor of the big room and I feel like a burden on the family. We are always in their way and it is impossible to sleep without being culturally inappropriate. That brings up my next bit of suffering. The power is off for probably 12-15 hours a day here. Sometimes those powerless hours occur when we are sleeping. In a room with poor circulation and no ceiling fans, sleep is hard to come by. I wake up in the middle of the night dehydrated and sleeping in a puddle of sweat. While these sufferings have, at times, distracted me from why I am here, God continues to reaffirm my purpose here in India. When I accepted Christ I didn't sign a contract granting me a life of comfort and luxury. No. When I accepted Christ I laid down my old life of comforts and pleasure at the feet of Jesus and took on the life of Christ. While he was here on earth, he was rejected, homeless, persecuted, and even beaten by the ones he loved. This is the life I have chosen as a follower of Christ. Not of life of comfort or safety, but a life of sacrifice and selflessness. I know that in the end, the reward will far outweigh the sacrifice. Even in my short time here, I have experienced so much joy in some of the smallest things. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ." 

In retrospect, I do not think that my living situation was that bad or that anything that I experienced was intense suffering. I don't want to scare you away from India. It is a beautiful place with even more beautiful people! I would go back given the chance. Throughout the summer God taught me, like Paul in prison, to be content no matter what the circumstances may be. There were times in India when my cup was empty but there were also times when my cup overflowed. God provided for me in my every need! Here are some verses on suffering that helped me through many sleepless and extremely hot nights!

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.              Romans 8:18

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen in temporary and what is unseen is eternal.            2 Corinthians 4:16-18

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.                1 Peter 2:21

Finally, here are some pictures of where I lived while in India.

This was our sleeping arrangement in the national believers' home.

When we finally got to move to our flat!

squatty potty

our unfinished flat

our living area

Update #3 (from Jill)

Here is the latest update from Jill!  Please continue to lift Jill and her teammates up in prayer!


*Disclaimer:  Jill sends her updates to us with certain things coded for safety/security reasons, and I try to decode as much as I can!


Hey everyone! I am actually going to be able to send updates every two weeks. Since the last update, I flew to another city in the country. It was much smaller than the first and much less westernized. I actually felt like I was officially out of American culture. We stayed in this city for a few days and just tried to adjust to the way of life here. We even got to spend some time with a new family of missionaries who have been here for just two months and have Domino's pizza! We spent one day going around the city in two teams of three with our GPSs which we would be using on our project here in the villages. We went to some historic sites in the city as well as the zoo. It only cost 30 cents to get into the zoo. We wanted to ride elephants because you can do that for about $1 at the zoo but we had missed the time to do it. In the city, we stayed at a home that belongs to another missionary family that is currently in the states. We had electricity almost the whole day and we also had AC. Unfortunately when we left the city, we too left the air conditioning.

We drove about 1.5-2 hours to get to the area where we are staying. The flats we are supposed to be staying in are still under construction so the boys stayed in one national partner's home and the girls stayed in another. I stayed with a family that had two sons who were 13 and 11. The dad spoke some English and so did the boys but the mom spoke relatively no English. This made it really hard to communicate with her. I had a photo album with some pictures of my family so I felt like showing her the pictures would be a really good way to relieve some of the awkwardness. Sure enough, it worked! I showed her mine and she should us hers. The house we stayed in was pretty small. There were only two bedrooms which couldn't have been bigger than about a 10' x 10'. We slept on a few blankets on tile floor with no ceiling fan but one small box fan that worked even when the power was off and a stronger fan that only worked when the power was on. In the area I am in, power is off for about 4-8 hours a day. It always seemed to go out right before we went to bed and in the middle of the afternoon. Needless to say, I have been constantly drenched in sweat. I take a shower before I go to bed and wake up drenched in my sweat. There's no escaping it here because there is no relief given by AC. While I only slept 2-3 hours the first night and had a full day of work ahead of me, I was reminded of why I am here and the suffering that Jesus went through while he lived here. In a letter from a man named Peter (cough, cough) I read that to this I was called because Jesus suffered for me and left me an example that I should follow. This put everything into perspective. While I am uncomfortable for a few months, Jesus suffered so much more than I do by just being hot and sleeping on a hard floor. I just have to keep reminding myself of this. 

So a little bit about what exactly I am doing here for 6 weeks. We are separated into two teams of three people each. Each team must have at least one guy and one girl because cross-gender communication is considered inappropriate in this culture. We drive 30-40 minutes to more remote villages to survey the government water pumps. What I mean by survey is that with the help of the translator, we ask the villagers how deep the pump is, if any part of it is missing or broken and if the water is potable or not. Then using the GPS, we tag each hand pump in a village and take a picture of the pump. A village can range from 5 to 5,000 people and can have 0 to 300 government water pumps. The whole idea behind doing this is to survey what needs to be fixed so that the local body of God can go in and fix the pumps and build relationships with the villages and if one decides to follow Jesus, they can help them grow in their walk and teach them how to plant other bodies of God in their own villages. Basically we are just preparing the field and sowing the seeds for the harvest. Because of this, it's easy for our daily tasks to become mundane and to get frustrated that we aren't directly seeing the fruits of our labor. The beautiful thing about it is that we get to cover hundreds of villages in pr as we go. 

Here's a couple stories about the three days that we have been surveying. We get up around 5 AM, and try to be out at the villages by 7 so it is somewhat cool (in the 90s). The first day, I took my camera and took what seemed like hundreds of pictures of children and women. Most of them had never seen a picture of themselves. It was frustrating try to talk to the villagers because they cannot speak English and I haven't picked up much more than "hello" and "how are you?" in the native tongue. I realized that pretty much the only way to show these kids the love of our Father is to smile and laugh with them. I need to get it out of my mind that there is only one way to show people God's love. The second day went better than the first day, I learned how to ask them about the conditions of the well in their language and more people were responding to my hellos. Apparently, I am an easy target because on the third day we were surveying another village and we were gathered with a huge crowd of people in the middle of the village and someone threw a small piece of a corn cob at the back of my head. Just my luck! It didn't hurt though.

Two observations I had noticed by going around to the villages. I now see why it was such a big deal that Jesus cleaned his followers feet. By the end of the day my feet are dusty and gross and sometimes they have cow poop or other nasty mud like substances on it. The other observation was that I feel like I can somewhat better grasp how Jesus felt when he was followed by large crowds. We attract sometimes 40+ people in a given village. People engulf us. Children, women, men, young and old. People are touching us and pushing and shoving to see what we are doing. This experience has shown me how much patience and grace Jesus has because I have gotten irritated and frustrated with the people who follow us at times.

Here are some things you can be praying for over the next two weeks:

-against distractions and discouragement from the enemy (its so much more intense over here)

-against sickness and heat exhaustion (its almost impossible to stay hydrated since we sweat constantly, and many of my teammates have gotten sick)

-the Holy Spirit to transcend language barriers and make his glory known throughout this state

-God to continue to prepare a person of peace in each village to spread his love to their family and friends

-unity with my teammates

-that my joy be found in God alone (there is so many things that can steal my joy here)

-that I would completely rely on God for everything

-that I would be humble and that my voice may not be heard but his, that I would not receive the glory but he would, that I would not be made known but he would.  -that I remember that He must become greater and that I must become less

Thank you all for your continued love and support. Your letters and texts help me get through some of the hardest days and I truly appreciate your constant pleading with the Father on my behalf. Thanks again.

Jill

Also, here is a link to Jill's supervisor's blog.  It contains additional information as well as few pictures.  It is also updated more frequently, so be sure to check it out!

http://cliffdaniels.wordpress.com

Update #2 (leaving comfort behind)

Here is the most current information we have from Jill!  Please continue to pray for Jill and her team!


Jill is now at her final destination.  They are staying at their national partner's small house until they finish their flat (probably the end of the week).  The family they are staying with does not speak English very well so communication is challenging.  They are sleeping on a tile floor with just a sheet so it is uncomfortable.  She also said it is hotter at this location than any other place they've been.  They have no A/C but do have fans.  However the electricity is only on about 4 hours a day.  They start their work (surveying pumps in small villages) tomorrow at 6 AM to try to get their work done before the hottest part of the day.  Jill said she is feeling the effects of the heat and the food and doesn't feel 100%.  She asked for prayer that she doesn't feel entitled to all the comforts we have in America and that God is more than enough for her while living in these conditions.


Thank you all for your continued prayers and support of Jill!  She greatly appreciates it!

Update #1 (from Jill)

Hey guys and gals!  Here is an update from Jill!  This update is a few days old, so I (her sister, Johanna) am sorry for not getting it up sooner!  I will try my best to put her updates up as we get them!  Please keep Jill and her team in your prayers!  I know she appreciates them!  :)


Hey everyone!
I have partially made it to my location. We are in a main city right now getting trained and having orientation and tomorrow morning we fly out for our final destination. I have really enjoyed getting to know my team, even though they are all from South Carolina except for one aggie... ;) Anyways, orientation has been really useful and I can't wait to get out on the field. We have been exploring the city and getting to know the culture. It is so much different than America! All of my senses are overwhelmed here from taste, to sight, to hearing, to smell. I am on sensory overload. I got my eyebrows threaded for the first time ever which is painful and I was able to encourage a national sister in her walk.

When I go to my final destination I will not be able to access the internet so this may be my first and only update. Although I will do my best to not make it that way. There are some people on my team who have already presented themselves as hard people to work with so I ask for prayer for unity and understanding and like-mindedness. Also, I am experiencing some struggles within me. I had my first day of homesickness today and everything seemed to tick me off today. Pray for patience and love to abound within me. Pray that the Holy Spirit would speak through us and transcend language barriers to make his glory known. Pray that his love would abound and that we would find our joy and our strength in God alone.

One quick story I want to share with you. One of the guys on my team prayer walked at a local temple. This temple is known to still practice human sacrifices. It is a very dark place. This whole country is still a very dark place. While he was standing there praying silently, a head official of the church interrupted him and he was able to talk about God to him. God is definitely moving in this city and amongst these people.

Thank you so much for your love and support and prayers. Please continue to pray for me and my fellow teammates throughout these next two months. I will try to get my dad to send some updates as I am able to text him.

Love,
Jill

faithfulness, fish eggs, and fundraising

So sorry I haven't posted in about a month. School has been absolutely hectic! I am so ready for this semester to be over! Anyways, I just wanted to catch yall up a little bit with what has been going on with me and preparation for the trip.

It has been incredibly awesome to see God's faithfulness through answered prayers. A couple weeks after I found out my assignment for this summer, I realized that I had no love or compassion for the people I would be among this summer. I began to pray to God that he would break my heart for these people and give me compassion for them. Literally the next day he answered my prayers. God is so good! While at a weekly prayer time, a book called Operation World was placed on the floor in front of us. Something inside me was curious so I picked it up. If you have never heard of Operation World, it is a prayer guide to every country in the world. It is incredibly awesome. It even had specific information on the district I would be in this summer. As I read through the data and prayer requests, my heart broke. There is no other way to explain it. I felt like I was being called to share with these people the hope and grace and love that is only found in Christ Jesus. My heart was broken. Beautifully broken. In case some of you were wondering what I read, I will share with you some of the information about the area I will be serving in this summer.

• The population is 99,556,918.
• Christians make up 0.1% of the population. That's less than one hundred thousand people out of 99 million people!
• This area is the country's poorest state and has the second highest population density. It has been used with words like deprivation and misery.
• This area ranks highest on every index related to corruption.
• Deep poverty, widespread illiteracy, lack of resources in local languages, and strong spiritual opposition and persecution of religious minorities are major hindrances to evangelism.
• It is one of the least-evangelized mega-populations in the world.

Please spend some time this week praying for the people who my team and I will come in contact with this summer. I just included in the list the things that broke my heart. Don't get me wrong, God is definitely at work in this area. The number of those coming to Christ is increasing and has nearly doubled! Missionaries in the area are also reporting a more openness to speak about Christ and the gospel. God is moving and will continue to move in the hearts of these people as we travel there this summer and after we leave.

God has been a faithful provider throughout the past few months. I have to raise $3050 for my trip and while donations seemed to be coming in slow at first, after praying about it, God provided me with over half of my total so far! This is where I would like to take a second to thank everyone who has helped in any way with the fundraising. Thank you to everyone who has made donations and bought shirts. I wouldn't get this opportunity without you! I pray that God blesses you through your faithfulness in giving towards my trip. But don't forget that I am not at my goal yet. I still need to raise over $1000 so please continue considering supporting me financially.

One aspect of my trip preparation that I have struggled with is trying to prepare myself for the culture shock, specifically the food. I am going to a region of the world that has a culture vastly different than American culture. While my parents have done a great job at making sure I experience different cultures through food, we have never been to a restaurant of this country. I have had several opportunities to eat the food of the country where I am going and every time, I haven't been able to eat more than a couple bites. The food is flavorful, with flavors I am not used to, and can be very spicy. While I am confident that I am either going to like the food when I get there or else I am not going to eat much and then get so hungry that I will eat whatever is put infront of me, I just wish I could like the food now. Its frustrating to be able to eat raw fish and fish eggs but not be able to eat the rice they eat in this area.

While I have had several moments of the "I am not going to South Asia. I am not going for 8 weeks" thought to myself, I am excited for this trip more days than I don't want to go. My experience so far has been that the days I don't want to go are days when I am not firmly planted on my faith and I can feel Satan attacking me. Please pray throughout the next 40 days that my heart would be guarded against Satan's lies and that I would be excited to serve the Lord by serving others in South Asia. Six weeks left in America!

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people." Ephesians 6:18

What's with this wild goose?

Chasing the wild goose. That may seem like a strange name. Frankly, it is for a blog but the meaning runs much deeper. Over the summer I did a bible study called "Wild Goose Chase". It explored what it meant to truly chase after the Holy Spirit (aka the wild goose). The book explains that Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit "An Geadh-Glas" which means wild goose. Like a wild goose, the Holy Spirit cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger and an air of unpredictability surround Him. These are some of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit that I have come to know the past year.

The first step I took in my pursuit of the Holy Spirit was to completely surrender myself to him. I accepted Christ and was baptized in 2007 but still hung onto most areas of my life. I was reluctant to let Jesus into my life, especially the areas that I felt like I had under control. It wasn't until last fall that I realized that I was living my own will instead of God's. I wasn't going off the deep end, so to say, but I definitely wasn't consulting God on how I should be living and what I should be doing. So I surrendered. I let Jesus into the areas of life where I had been shutting him out and began to pray and seek God's will in all that I do.

It's not always easy to do. One time that I didn't seek God's will before I jumped into action was last summer. I wanted to go on a mission trip but knew I had to take summer school. So being the obedient slave to school I sometimes am, I took summer school. All summer long! I watched my friends and family be sent around the world to share the love of Christ while I sat in a classroom for 6 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, a classroom can also be a mission field, but I felt the most regret I have ever felt in my life. I felt God tugging on my heart and telling me that there's more to life than doing well in school and making sure I graduate in 4 years. After talking with my dad about it, he encouraged me to take my next summer off from school and engineering and do whatever I wanted, so that's exactly what I am doing.

I wanted to do whatever God wanted me to do this summer. For once in my life, I wanted to know that I was doing something because it was God's will and not my own. When the position list for summer missionaries was posted in October, I had a list made of all the trip descriptions without prices, places, or durations. I knew these would be things that would distract me from God's will. I went through the list and picked a top ten and then narrowed it down to a top 3 at which point I looked up the places, durations, and prices. My first choice was all summer to South Asia and my second choice was all summer in Round Rock. I immediately thought "Oh no God! You must have misunderstood me. I wanted to go to South America or Africa or Europe. Certainly not South Asia. That's too far away and too different. And certainly not Round Rock because that would be like spending the summer at home." I began to look over the position list and see if I overlooked where God really wanted me to spend the summer. No luck. There wasn't a single trip I was really interested in that was where I initially wanted to go to this summer.

South Asia. That means I can't even read their language and pretend like I can understand. Their culture is so different than ours. Most of those places smell really bad. I will stick out like a sore thumb. All of these are thoughts I had in the pursuing weeks and months. I had asked several people to pray about this trip. I really wanted to do the project, but I just didn't want to do it in South Asia. It's amazing to see how God answers prayers. In the days that followed, God gave me peace about South Asia and made me excited to get to experience a new culture and way of life. God is so faithful!

So here's the part where I almost lost track of the wild goose. As part of the process, all potential missionaries had to go to this event called Discovery Weekend. The best way to describe it is that its a disciple now for college students. We were split into groups and stayed at host homes. Throughout the weekend we explored the gifts God had given us and what ways we could use those gifts this summer. All was fine and dandy. I felt like God had equipped me for this trip. Right before I had my interview, I read a packet that had more detailed information on my trip. "This is very hot city (110 to 115 F and above) and AC will not be available." this was the first thing that caught my eye. "Places to stay will be pretty dirty and may not have hot water although a hot water bucket can sometimes be provided. There will probably be no AC. Power typically is only on 2 hours a day." Boom. Everywhere. All over that packet. More and more reasons not to go. I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and doubting everything I had done up to this point.

This is where I need to take a break and give you some insight on what I thought I would be doing on this trip. I knew that this was a water project in South Asia and that I would be helping people get access to clean water. I thought that I would be staying in a hotel and commuting to the villages. I expected AC and a bed and certainly not 110 degree heat. I thought there was no hotter place than Texas in summer, but apparently there is! I knew that God was going to stretch me this summer. I mean South Asia is a big stretch in itself. Certainly God wasn't planning on stretching me even more! But that's exactly what he is planning on doing. In that moment, God showed me that comfort was an idol in my life. How could I turn away from what I knew God was calling me to do because it sounds uncomfortable? Living life on this earth isn't supposed to be comfortable. God also reminded me that safety is not a right, it is a blessing. I knew that I had to go to South Asia, even if that meant possible putting myself in danger.

So the way the rest of Discovery Weekend worked was that we were able to preference trips that we wanted to go on but our small group leaders would ultimately be the ones who determined where we would go. On my preference card I put only one preference: South Asia. I knew that if it wasn't where God intended me to be this summer than I would be appointed to place where he wanted me to serve. 5 days after Discovery Weekend ended, I got my appointment email. After a long week of 4 tests, I was overwhelmed when I saw where I would be serving this summer. I didn't know what else to do but cry. It said South Asia. In that moment, I was overjoyed but scared. I still am overjoyed but scared.

While it is still not clear to me every aspect of what I will be doing this summer, I know that I will be doing God's will in South Asia. The wild goose chase is taking me halfway around the world to a country and culture vastly different than my own. This goose chase is mysterious, unpredictable, and potentially a bit dangerous (sorry dad), but worth everything I am. I am excited to see how God will use me this summer and how he will move in the hearts of the villagers.

As I continue to chase the wild goose in South Asia, I ask that you:

• pray for spiritual and physical preparation
• pray against distractions and fears
• pray that I find my joy in Christ alone through this entire journey

"I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth." Psalm 108:3-5