Compliments become...different :)

Today I was asked if I ate with my hands and fingers at home (that’s the Indian way). I replied, “no...why?” And the girl responded, “Oh, Mahadevi was asking because you eat with your hands well.” SCORE. The girls also pull my sleeve up (it’s legitimately fall weather here now so I often have a jacket or something long-sleeved on) and see my practically translucent skin and marvel, making their sign for “very beautiful”...i just laugh and say thank you haha. They think that all Americans are as pasty as me, so I tell them that I’m actually just suuuper pale compared to most! There are lots of interesting misconceptions that I’ve encountered that have sometimes been pretty entertaining: Everyone in the States is white; everyone in the States is a Christian; black people only live in Africa; there are no poor people in the States; silver jewelry means you’re wealthy (it’s expensive here, so my $15 sterling silver ring makes me look like a millionaire).

Onto more relevant information :)! My health is doing pretty well now!! I just finished my last antibiotic yesterday and still have 2 days of an odd probiotic effervescent mixture left. However, I’m planning on still being cautious with food the rest of my time here (limited veggies, the “less spicy” option when available, etc.). THANK YOU SO MUCH for praying….seriously!! I know that a lot of you have been sick in foreign countries (and I have been one other time as well!) so your support was very encouraging also!

I’ve been asking the Lord to give me a renewed vision for what he has for me here, feeling a little dissatisfied, that I feel like he has more for me. I realized that I had been taking the English teaching a little too seriously, wanting sooo much to impart as many important (and CORRECT) English lessons as possible, and that I needed to reengage my crazy camp side back in :). So I have been making some new games for the kids that I teach, including English word bingo, letter flashcard games, etc. And now Shobha wants a few of us older girls to make lots of different bingo boards for numbers, letters and words because she liked that idea (and I got it from another girl that was visiting to help kids with math!).

The Lord has given me a whole new perspective on the word “hope”...what it means to really hope in and for something (and how that should lead to joy). He gave me Romans 5:3-5 (might as well just name the whole book as my India book haha) and then one of my besties, Shelby, also mentioned it to me the other day...don’t you LOVE when the Lord does that :)?!?!?! If you’re unfamiliar with it, here it is: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” THAT’S GOOD NEWS PEOPLE!!!!! So the Lord has been teaching me about placing my hope in him and the reason that it doesn’t disappoint is because even when circumstances are tough, “[his] grace is sufficient for me”!  Because his salvation is enough (something I have to remind my humanness of often) I can and should always be living a life of HOPE in Christ and that hope gives rise to joy in the Lord alone!! The other day my devo said this: “When thankful words stick in your throat, you need to check up on your foundation of trust.”….whew, that’s convicting to me!! If I am unable to thank the Lord in every situation, do I actually trust him? That’s good stuff.

Arun, Shobha and their daughter Melissa are all leaving for Thailand on Sunday morning (Melissa is staying for 2 months; Arun and Shobha will be gone 1 week) so please pray for their safety! Also pray for me during that time, that I would be confident in the Lord and not in just other people. Also it’s just kinda anxiety-producing for my main hosts to be leaving for a week!

Please Pray:
-I officially have only 19 days left until I begin my journey home, so please continue to pray for fresh eyes for what the Lord has for me each day, hope, revelation/insight on what to speak on (I speak for about 10 minutes during prayer time most evenings) and JOYYYY!!!!
-I’m giving the sermon for church for the kids on Sunday and planning to speak on the Lord’s faithfulness, giving some personal testimony of mine as well. Please pray that the Lord would direct my thoughts, study and words. And that I would be speaking on exactly what he desires!
-continued good health
-for me to be a huge blessing to the missionaries and ministry here
-that I would be focused on BEING HERE, not seeing family and friends in a few weeks

Well I may have said this before, but I love you all.
Bethany

(well this was an interesting article to find in the paper hahaha)

(I showed Spoorti the classic Judy Bell only top teeth smile and she thinks it's hilarious...and i definitely do too haha!! This is her attempt :)! )

What about second breakfast???

Who doesn’t love 2 breakfasts?! I’ve found myself having my first breakfast at my apartment and then second breakfast with the Masseys in the morning, followed by lunch at 1, snack at 4 or 5, then dinner at 8. I often think of the scene from The Fellowship of the Ring when Pippin says “What about second breakfast??” and Mary replies, “I don’t think there’s going to be a second breakfast Pippin.” I can now understand his “problem” haha. And I take great delight in having something in common with him...I know, I’m a super dork :)

The antibiotics seem to be slowly helping. Today is my last day on them and then I go back to the Doctor to check in tomorrow (more symptom checking :/ ). Without giving too much information haha, I don’t feel as sick in the morning and night as before and I don’t get as bad of stomach cramps (still some), but the medicine has, well, put a bit of a holt on things haha. Needless to say, I’m ready for my digestive system to just be regular. Good grief, I should do a dang Metamucil commercial.

Friday I was able to take a rest day and I didn’t teach at all, which was soo good. Thursday night, after beginning the medicine, I was FINALLY able to sleep all the way through the night without waking up in terrible pain or having to go to the restroom (thank you Jesus!!) So, because I was suddenly able to sleep, I took a 2.5 hour nap later in the morning and Shobha told me to just take it easy at my apartment...they even brought my lunch to me (how sweet!!) But if you know me at all, you know that I like to be doing things...I like to have tasks and have a plan, even if it’s as simple as fold these papers in half or lets watch this tv show. But being stuck in my apartment alone with no way to check my email (which was necessary due to me dropping the bomb of potentially having amoebasis and e-coli) and not much to do, I got bored fairly quickly and headed over to the Children’s Home haha. The first thing I heard was “Didn’t Mama tell you to take rest until 7pm?” (that would have been about 4 more hours!!) Although I LOVE dahl and rice, the smell of chipatis (their tortillas) is pure torture, so I’m pretty excited for whenever I get to eat normal food!! 

Saturday and Sunday (and finishing today) I was making paper bookmarks with the girls and boys. We used glue and tiny beads and wrote bible verses or truths on them. They look amazing but HOLY CHAOS. It's soo difficult to lead a group of children when I'm constantly relying on others to translate such simple phrases. Why don't I learn them? There are TOO MANY "simple phrases" to learn haha!! And they're actually very difficult. Plus, Shobha told me to only speak English with them. But they don't really understand why I'm not learning Kannada (said like Canada, but with soft A's). One little boy, Prem, has stolen my heart completely. Affection is so different here because most of the children have lice, so I can't just pick them up and cuddle them all the time :((((((. But he was basically my shadow last night...precious :)




Also, it’s legitimately cold here. Like this is fall weather (temperature- wise), but spring weather (rain- wise)...how ironic that my favorite season is summer, yet I’m missing India’s summer AND the United State’s summer hahaha… #firstworldproblems #lifecouldbeworse #iminfreakingindia!

Please pray:

-For my continued recovery (2349850928304%) and that these medicines would be anointed by the Lord to completely rid my body of whatever is troubling me!
-For me to be 100% present while I’m here
-For ideas that I can do in the down time with the kids using fairly limited resources
-For the words to speak at the evening prayer times (right now I’m talking about the characteristics of God...we’ve talked about loving, gracious/forgiving and patient. Planning to also talk on holy/just/slow to anger, faithful, and creative!
-For the Holy Spirit to touch and affect every person I’m around!

Love Love Love.
Bethany

 (This tan spider straight up ATE this other spider right in front of my face. Holy. Crap. hahaha. The Circle of life my friends.)

 (making bookmarks. From left: Jyote, Amruta, Priya, Pooja, can't remember her name haha, and Ambika)

(this is Prem. sweetest heart in this one)

definitely different.

Thank you all for praying for me, for my health specifically! I went to the doctor (lets call it an adventure) today with one of the women from the children's home. They said it was close, so we'd walk. A few miles later we arrived :)...these are the moments when I realize how American I am. The doctor is an MD and in pretty high demand evidently, because the waiting room was full with about 20+ people and people waiting outside. We waited for over an hour and then went in finally. He asked my symptoms, checked some vitals (who needs to know blood pressure? not this doctor!), and felt my stomach (which was painful!). He asked some other questions and then determined that I have a mix infection and I'm thinking That can't be good. He said I have Amoebas and E-coli, although I don't think it's the same insane strain of e-coli people get sick with in the States, but I think we also are starting the meds early enough. So I got 2 antibiotics, probiotics and another gastrointestinal liquid medicine. Which, by the way, is "peppermint" flavored. But guess what color it is? Orange. It's ok, I don't understand either. And it's soo thick. I'm such a baby when it comes to liquid meds...pills all the way for me. I'll take these for 5 days and then return to check up with him. Definitely thankful for a good doctor to go to here and one that Shobha trusts.

Thanks soooo much for praying and please pray now that these medicines would COMPLETELY kill whatever nasties I have and that I would begin to feel 100% again and be able to eat normally (he put me on a strict rice and dahl diet for a week...dahl is lentils and sauce).

Love love love you all!
Bethany

distance really does make the heart grow fonder.

Happy super belated 4th of July everyone!!! I have now spent my country’s Independence Day in three different countries (Belize, India, and home)! Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while— the wifi has been out here at the house and I’ve had this dang blog ready for two weeks now! Because it’s been soo long since I posted, I’m gonna try to make lots of short updates!

First of all, thank you for praying for mine and Melissa’s train ride home— all went well and we were both able to sleep on the train! Before we got on the train we went to a restaurant in that city and I got ice cream. So I’m eating and quite enjoying my vanilla with chocolate swirls ice cream when I feel a crunch. I look down and it looks like it is perhaps freezer burnt and then I thought Maybe it’s granola. Well, although the freezer burn part may have been correct, what I pulled out of my mouth wasn’t a frozen piece of ice cream, but a 1-inch insect leg (later to find out it was from a cockroach...you know how I feel about those wretched things)— ahhhh!! Needless to say, this was my one exception to waste food in India! On the train, we made friends with a girl around my age, Harshita! I sat on Harshita’s bed for about 6 hours total, chatting about anything and everything from her religion (Hinduism) to my relationship with the Lord to her arranged marriage coming up in Nov (which she legit wants me to fly back to India for :)) She asked me if, as protestants, we are under the pope and why we aren’t. I explained (with eagerness!!) that since Jesus paid the price for our sins, we have direct access to be forgiven by him and don’t need to go through a priest (although we have a lot of respect for the pope) and that Jesus WANTS to speak with every single person. It was awesome :)! We exchanged contact information and I am REALLY looking forward to continuing my relationship with Harshita, confident that the Lord put her in my path to plant truth in her life and expose her to Jesus! We arrived back in Dharwad at about 5:30am, totally exhausted. It is soo nice to be back at the children’s home...man I missed these sweet girls and hearing “Seester” (sister) or “Acka” (big sister) a million times a day!! To my surprise, I remembered the majority of their names (thank you Jesus haha).

There have been several visitors to the Children’s Home recently. A group of four Australians came and stayed in the guest house with me— a couple (Ravi and Merlyn), their 21 year old daughter (Roshni), and her British-Australian friend (Olivia) who is also 21! My time with them was unbelievably refreshing and SUCH a blessing and answer to prayer!! After talking with them for just a short amount of time, I found out that not only were these INCREDIBLE Jesus- lovers, but were also huge fans of Bethel Church, Hillsong, Bill Johnson, etc. Not only that, but these people were carrying the Holy Spirit like crazy and I was jazzed to be able to hang out and do ministry with them for a short time. From 7:30-8pm is usually prayer and singing time before dinner at 8, but we started prayer/worship time at 6:45 Wednesday night, due to the guests wanting to share! After Ravi and Merlyn shared a bit with the children, Roshni and Olivia went to the front and told the kids that they were going to play (from Roshni’s iPhone) and sing the song “Oceans” by Hillsong (as soon as I heard this I got suuuper excited because it’s one of my favorite songs!!). Roshni mouthed if I knew the song and when I said yes, she motioned for me to come up as well. So the three of us played the song and sang along with it, while we had all the children and staff just close their eyes and encounter the Lord while listening (we explained the song first). I then wrote the words to the bridge on the chalk board and Shobha translated and then had them repeat in English. And for about 5 minutes we sang the bridge on repeat, acapella. The bridge goes: “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters wherever you have called me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, that my faith would be made stronger in the presence of my Savior”. It was soo beautiful :)...the younger girls just sang “la la la la”...precious! After, we said if anyone wanted prayer to stand up and we would pray for them. Well, about 25 people (mostly children) stood up, so Roshni, Olivia, Merlyn, Ravi and I began moving from child to child praying over them. Oh.my.word. THE HOLY SPIRIT SHOWED UP. The Lord began giving us words of knowledge for these children and we were able to proclaim promises and truths over them of how the Lord has created them and is shaping them. IT WAS AMAZING and sooooo fun :)))! I was soo pumped after...the Spirit’s presence was so thick and sweet in that place. Let me tell you what...this group of children is being raised up as Circuit Riders, leaders in the charge of the Holy Spirit movement. It was awesome to be a part of and I felt so unbelievably blessed and honored to be a vessel of the Lord’s sweet truth. The four of them left the next day (Thursday), which was a bummer, but we all felt so blessed and joyful, even as they left, and exchanged contact information, especially with plans to eventually go stay with them in Australia :)!

Then Friday we had a man from the States (OHIO specifically!!) came to visit at the house for several hours! That was fun to talk about his journey here and hear him process about this being his first time ever out of the States! I also had such a good time of teaching 6th grade Friday evening and got to work one on one with a sweet girl named Keerti...I was BLOWN AWAY by the progress she made in an hour. These kids are so hungry to learn— I LOVE IT!!!! Saturday I slept in a bit and got some much needed rest (complete with a dream that I was back at IWU and everything seemed normal until I found out it was 1955 instead of 2013 haha). Also, the YWAM group that’s here (from Korea) did a service tonight and prayed over everyone. Language just doesn’t matter in those situations...the impact is deeper and so much sweeter than the barrier!! There were also 2 guys here (father and son) from South Carolina staying in the guesthouse as well. The Father, Dan, teaches at the missions school, EI, in SC and he and his son spoke at the youth camp! It was soo nice to chat with them and spend time just hanging out a lot!

July 9-11 was Youth Camp in Belguam (about two hours away from Dharwad). The days leading up to up leaving were full of preparation, which for me and several older girls helping, meant making over 70 starts to friendship bracelets (for those of you who make those bracelets and are confused what “starts” would mean: we chose sets of three colors, looped them and tied them so we could just hand them to the kids instead of taking forever to decide on colors!) They brought a huge jug of purified water for us and with no choice, made me sleep on a bed with a mosquito net while the older girls from the children’s home in the room with me slept on floor mats with no nets. There’s something to be said for honoring your guests, but the culture here makes me superior to them without any choice from me. It’s actually really difficult because there are lots of things that you cannot challenge because it’s offensive to them. So it’s taking more discernment to know when I can push against them and try to be seen as the SAME as them. When I first arrived at the camp, I was coming out the bathroom and was pretty much blocked from going any further by a group of 7 Indian girls and women, just STARING at me. Shobha said, you can stare at her all you want, touch her, etc. I said “I feel the same as you!” Some of these people have literally never seen a white person face to face...I think it’s as shocking for them as their reaction is for me. It doesn’t matter if I do something right or wrong, there are constantly stares...makes me careful of what I do for sure haha! I also shared my testimony on one of the days (translated by Shobha)! I shared about how in the States a big struggle is fighting against the “American Dream” and material possessions. And I talked about how part of my testimony was gaining victory over my thoughts and how, when we walk with the Lord, we can claim HIS victory over our sins and can be set free from the prison of our sin (Philippians 4:8 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 were two that I used). They were all really attentive and I prayed over them at the end, declaring victory and freedom from sin and strongholds and binding satan’s schemes in the name of Jesus!! After the Gospel message one of the days, about 23 people came up to accept Christ and be prayed over (they are all from Hindu background)...it was AMAZING and emotional! One girl got overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit, blacked out and fell down! It was fantastic :)...she said she was so filled with the Lord’s peace.

I spoke at the Sunday morning service about the power of the tongue to either speak life or death, and how it’s ALWAYS doing one or the other, whether we mean it or not. I had 6th grade and up, which was easier to speak to, and it went super well! We had a prayer time at the end to invite the Lord to point out times when we’ve spoken death/curse over someone and I challenged them to go to that person and ask for forgiveness. I also got to talk to 20 of my family members the other day on the phone while they are at Kelley's Island....bittersweet to not be there, but SUCH a blessing to hear everyone's voices!!!

On a different note, my stomach is still on and off with issues. For the last 2 weeks it was still reallllllly upset, even after I finished taking a 5-day course of Cipro while in North India. Shobha told me to stop eating the veggies (even though they’re cooked) and that has seemed to help. So I don’t think I have a chronic bug...I think the veggies, like some in the States, just upset my stomach, which super sucks because they’re tasty! Please continue praying for my health. Pray for complete healing and against pains! Pray for the Lord to give me joy in the midst of difficulties and pray that these issues would end and not be a distraction for me anymore!!


Please pray:

-pray that this food would nourish my body, settle and digest well. Breaking that junk in the name of Jesus!!
-For me to rely on the Lord for HIS plan for my journey, not my own plans and expectations.
-For joy to continue spilling out of me and that it would be such a blessing to everyone I’m around!
-The language barrier...still tough, especially now that the girls are more comfortable with me and talk more. Pray for the Spirit’s empowering to transcend that gap!
-Teaching: that the Lord would equip and empower me to teach these girls beyond what I could do alone (I’ll be teaching 5-7 grades for the rest of my time here...one hour in the morning and one in the evening).
-for the Lord to use me in every single way he desires while I’m here!! I want to be 100% available for what HE WANTS!!!!!!!!

Thank you all so much for your constant support...I love and miss every one of you! (and sorry this one is a novel haha)

Love from India,
Bethany

 (Melissa, Harshita and I on the train)

 (beautiful terrain of India from the train)

 (typical Indian village...that's a Hindu temple, which they have in every one)

 (Arun and I with three of the Australians: Merlyn, Olivia, and Roshni!)

 (Roopa--from the Children's home, Olivia, Melissa, me, Roshni and Leha-- Melissa's cousin)

 (Playing with a sweet little girl, Spoorti)

 (play time with Spoorti and Ahsha...they're the youngest, 4 yrs old)

 (Korean YWAM team praying over the kids!)

 (worship and dancing--on left-- time at the youth camp)

 (giving my testimony at the youth camp)

(about 23 young people accepting Christ for the first time....all from Hindu backgrounds.....praise the Lord!!!!)