Anyway the Wind Blows: June 2015

The people and country of India have left a huge impact on my heart forever. For the sake of the safety of the national believers and church in India there are many stories and photos I will not be able to share publicly online. While believing and sharing the gospel is not illegal in India we learned there is still active persecution of Christians in India. Once you choose to be a Christian in India you give up your caste (social status) and are demoted to the "Christian caste" and while Christianity is not a caste by any means this category effects every aspect of life in India. I have grown up in the church my whole life and I have even been on many mission trips before. Where this trip differed was the primary purpose was evangelism. This aspect in itself was a huge personal leap of faith and growing experience for me. While in India our team together shared the gospel with 826 people and 260 people turned their faith to Christ in just five short days.

Doha, Qatar

We started the trip off quickly with our first taste of "this is not like home" when landing in Doha. Since Qatar is a primarily Muslim country the religious holiday of Ramadan is observed. When the flight into Doha landed we were informed that eating or drinking in public from sunrise (430am) to sunset (630pm) was not allowed because of the fasting period for Ramadan.

I quickly learned that for my time in India I was going to have to accept the fact an American walking into their villages was similar to a celebrity walking around in America. People would stop in the middle of the street and walk us around introducing us to neighbors and family members and of course everyone ended our time with the same question for a photo. There are probably thousands of photos of our American team throughout India.

I had heard of Holy Cows before traveling to India but I never expected the sheer amount of cows or the free roaming of cows in the street. The side of major roads would be lined with cows which would then wander into the road. From what I could tell not hitting a cow may be the only traffic law in India, you can even go to jail for the offense so holy cows are no joke.

Bus adventures: We spent hours traveling the streets of India as mentioned before I do not think traffic laws exist. Roads were mostly just wide enough to pass oncoming cars by inches (quite literally there were times we had to reverse because our bus was to wide). Also the amount of honking was equivalent to giving a toddler control of your car horn.