A shameless plug.

I am busy formulating something profound to write on my blog to update all of you on the status of life here...but until then, please enjoy my shameless plug comprised of pictures of myself in my new and prized sari.  I have wanted an awesome silk one forever and I finally was able to shop and buy just the one I wanted...for only 10 bucks!  Isn't India amazing?  Love you and miss you all!

The week in pictures.

An outdoor market in Dubai that was closed for the
afternoon but we still walked through it and checked out
the neat old style buildings.

The camel that I rode in Dubai.

Friends walking and shopping in Dubai.

The evening water show (Bellagio style!) in front of the
Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building.

Indian style sewing machine at the Ashraya house in Tenali,
a rehabilitation center for women who came out of sex
trafficking and prostitution.

Indian man climbing a huge palm tree to collect buckets
of rice wine, a substance made from fermented palm sap.
He will climb the tree, tap the fronds with a machete
and a bamboo tube and then bring down the buckets
of fermented rice wine. It is said to taste reminiscent
of Blue Moon beer...I got to taste it...it was gross!

Tapping the palm fronds to make the rice wine.

100.

This post has been a long time coming.  I have thought about what to write dozens of times...for nearly months now.  I know it's just a blog, but so many important things were evolving in my life that I was nearly too overwhelmed to form my experiences into words.  This is also my hundredth blog post, which, for my nerdy self, feels significant. So, without further adieu, I bring you post 100.

It is 5:45am in Tenali, India and contrary to my usual ways, I am awake...by choice.  Living in India shifts everything for me, the bad mingled with the good...but this is one of the good things, getting up early and enjoying the pre-dawn quiet of the day.  Ironically though, my alarm clock is the neighboring mosque and their loudly projected call to prayer. Though I am not Muslim, there is something reverent about being woken up to pray before dawn, so I have decided to adopt this habit as much as possible.  Living in a house with many other people also makes alone time rare and this seems to be just the cure for that.

When I arrived in India merely four small days ago, something epic happened within me.  A shift that I had waited my previous 6 months here to feel, finally released and I felt something I had never before felt in India...

that I was home.

It was an incredible revelation for me to feel this way, because, as you may know, my previous 6 month stint here was difficult, to say the least.  It was wrought with tough lessons, culture shock, and struggling to find myself in a culture that relegates women to something I was not used to.  I was thankful for what became known to be my 6 month India "boot-camp" and shortly after arriving back in the States last June, I realized that the Lord had merely been priming the pump for me to enter into long term ministry in India, which very much surprised me.  I immediately knew I was going to come back, I just didn't know when or for how long when suddenly the RockHarbor India Residency was on my radar...and, well, the rest is history.

Despite the small areas of discomfort here (which are of little concern to me at this point), there is so much about this country to fall in love with.  Now that I am past the portion of myself that reacted negatively, I can feel that process happening, as I was trusting it would the second time around. God's plan is so beyond perfect and beautiful, it is intricately poetic, despite my best efforts to screw it up at times.  For example, yesterday, our first full week day here in Tenali, we were told that we would be visiting one of Harvest India's elderly homes.  When we arrived, I was overjoyed to find it was a home I had visited just over a year ago on my first trip.  During my first visit there, some of the elderly people got up and shared their stories, many heartbreaking, about poor health, being forced to beg, and being disowned by their families because of their old age or windowed status.  Each person that got up to share walked directly over to me and locked eyes with me as they talked.  I was unsure why any of them did this, as I was sitting among 15 other people.  Others on my team noticed and later shared that they felt that was God confirming through that my choice to stay in India as a missionary; I personally felt as if my heart had been captured in a way it hadn't before.  It was an incredibly touching experience and I felt that truly was one of the early formative moments that started me on my journey back to India.  So, needless to say, it was extremely special for me to go back to this same elderly home and see once again many of those same faces.  I was also able to share this story with the elderly people and thank them for blessing me in a way that ultimately God used to help me come back to India.

I am thankful that the Lord has allowed me to begin to experience the true magic and beautiful intricacies of this place that has captured me. I knew before that it held my heart but it was difficult to even express why or how.  I am suddenly feeling that the mystery of India is being revealed to me and the locked door that kept me out and in the dark before has been opened and the light of understanding has flooded over me.  I see myself here, not in the sense of seeing myself living here but rather that I have been given eyes to understand myself within the context of this culture...and it makes sense.  I am finally finding my identity here...finding my voice.

Take heart.

Life is overwhelming.  The ups and downs, the happiness and sadness, the hard work and the emotions we all feel each day...

it's a lot.

I was reminded today of the fragility of life while reading some updates on Daisy Merrick, the little girl with cancer who has become well known through the amazing power of the internet and the willingness of God's people to pray.

I was also reminded of the strength of the spirit and the ways in which we were created to overcome, to conquer, and to redeem so much of the hard stuff...but not alone.

Every single day I find a portion of my thoughts falling to India and the time I was able to spend there serving, learning, growing, and being challenged.  I sometimes have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I was chosen to go, me of all people...so broken and emotionally scattered...yet I was blessed with an experience of a lifetime.  It doesn't make sense, but it's beautiful and for that I am thankful.

While learning to live again in a place labeled "home," I feel the weight of adjustment every day.  I feel the anxiety set in each morning taunting me to feel unsettled and unsatisfied.  But I have to fight against what the world pushes upon me because I know I serve a God bigger than any pressure, real or imagined.

Take heart, weary servants, knowing that we are not alone in our pain and our anxiety.  Remember to let go of the complexities that make our heads spin and simplify life into one thing: loving God so we can love others.  There is immense joy to be found in the journey but you have to remember to allow yourself to find it...

Street Sweeping.

This morning was one of those mornings in which I kept waking up afraid I was going to over sleep...and I over slept.  Rather than my alarm waking me, I awoke to the intrusive sound of the street sweeper...and remembered with a sharp pang that my car was still parked on the street and it was a few minutes after 8...

Sure enough I started my day late and with a parking ticket.

Though this is generally not a worthy topic to blog about on its own, I have been meaning to blog a  lot more often and it bums me out that I've already let myself become too busy to do the things I want to do, even the little things.

I miss India and the slow simplicity of life there.  Sure, sometimes I got bored but nothing was ever really that stressful.  I had time to just sit and think, time to contemplate, time to just be.  For whatever reason, I don't allow myself that time here and during moments where I have nothing else to do, I feel anxious about figuring out the next thing I'm supposed to be doing.  I have always thought that it was just me but now that I have seen myself outside of my culture, I realize so much of it is just my environment.  It feels like a terribly difficult up-hill battle to fight against busyness...but I realize it's perhaps what I have to do to maintain my overall health.

Why do we keep ourselves so busy?  What are we afraid of?