Hey Family and friends,
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| YWAM friends! |
My life in Lonavala, YWAM these past 6 months have been crazy, exciting and filled with experiences of learning and growing. The first month of my stay here I felt like I was on a vacation, a camp of some sort. There were new rules, new schedules, new people, new classes, new activities, new environment, new roommates, new food etc. The classes were very basic and for newborn Christians and I wasn’t very happy or satisfied with my classes but the Lord reaffirmed me that he was concreting my foundations and everything I learned at home. He was teaching me that I needed to have a very strong foundation before I left for outreach. Within my 3rd week, I was feeling homesick and lonely. I started believing the lies that I was alone, my family didn’t care about me. I was drowning myself in self pity and self doubt. I also started doubting about my calling but God was so patient and faithful to me. He was reminding me constantly that my family was my biggest blessing, my support and that my mom was the best role model of a missionary and living out her calling. He spoke truth over me and reminded me of my identity in him. He reaffirmed my calling through Isaiah 62, where I would help women rediscover themselves and who they are in Christ and give them new names in Christ.
He’s been teaching
me how to discern dreams that are from him and those not from him. I have been
having really disturbing dreams and he’s been showing me how to discern which
ones are from him and which ones are from my own fear or from Satan himself. He
led me to the verse in 1st John where he says to test every spirit
and the spirit which leads to Jesus are from God and everything else which
leads to fear and doubts are not from him. I realized then that I have been
unintentionally giving the devil a foothold over my dreams and fear. The Lord
set me free through the truth!! I am now able to sleep peacefully as I have no
fear in perfect love!! The teaching phase passed by really fast. One of the
lessons I really enjoyed was hearing God’s voice and I have been able to hear
his voice so much clearer and louder since coming here. One of the biggest
lessons I’ve learned and am still practicing is patience. Patience with my
leaders, roommates and different people here at the base is a big lesson that
the Lord is teaching me.
The Lord has also
answered my biggest prayer point. He has given me a really good circle of
friends. He’s blessed me with 4 really good friends of ages 27, 24, 22 and 19
and all girls. Their names are Vingshong, Jungla, Achi and Danielle. I truly
believe that we’ll be lifelong friends. They help me when I need it, they help
me run closer to Jesus and I’m still teaching them how to be sarcastic! Danielle
and Achi are getting the hang of it but I gave up on Vingshong and Jungla.
I finished my lecture
phase and for my outreach I went to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bangalore.
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| House visiting. |
My
outreach experience has been the real testing period of my Christian living.
Before leaving for outreach the lord promised me through the scripture in
Isaiah 26:2-4 and 7 that he would make the path leveled and smooth for the
righteous ones and that our testimony when we got back from the outreach would
be Isaiah 26:12,13 and 15. The first few weeks of outreach was in Telangana
where we visited 13 village churches in 13 different villages of Telangana. The
services all took place in the evening and went late into the night. I could
see how hungry and thirsty all the people were to hear God and we got to
rekindle their passion for Jesus. It was a lot of travelling and very
exhausting but it was fun at the same time. I could say that we were living out
Matthew 28:17,18. The next location was
in Andhra Pradesh and we stayed there for a month. It was during this month
that I had to really stand firm in my teachings and values that I grew up with.
We stayed in villages that had no tap water but we had to draw water from the
well. It was exciting but also hectic because of no clean water. We painted a
church and got to conduct a service in that newly painted church. We also got
to baptize 4 people at the beach from that church. The ministry was really,
really good but the real challenges for me was in the team. My teammates were
the obstacles for me but the Lord has been teaching me how to handle each one
and understand each one differently. There were so many arguments,
misunderstandings and things happening that weren’t right and pleasing to the
Lord. When I confronted them about it they did not respond well to it. My
leader did not know how to lead but the Lord was using him to teach me how to
be a good leader by showing me the things I shouldn’t be doing as a leader
through him. We spent a week in the slums doing ministry among the people that
lived in the slums. We got to bless the kids by giving them their baths, new
clothes, feeding them, taking tuitions, teaching them songs and spending time
with them. We distributed pamphlets and door to door ministry and spreading the
gospel. It was literally living out Luke 10. I got to lead 4 women to Christ
through this ministry. The Lord has been really keeping his word and making
smooth and leveled paths for us and hence making our testimonies glorifying Him
and expanding the nation!!
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| Preaching and Teaching. |
The last location was
Bangalore and for me coming back home to do ministry was funny. It wasn’t my
choice to come here but the Lord had his reasons for me coming home. We spent 2
weeks here. We got to do Muslim/kids ministry. It was so fun. The kids were too
cute but we had to be very careful with them as to not say anything about religion
or Jesus. Instead we had to show Jesus to them and it was the most satisfying
throughout the outreach. We finished our outreach and got graduated too! During
my teaching phase I felt the Lord asking me to stay back and help with the next
school and the next batch of students. I went through a week of workshop on how
to run the school and handle the students. The school started on September 30th
and it has been 3 weeks since then. I have 35 students and 9 other staff
leaders. Most of my students are older than me and my co leaders are all older
than me. But the Lord is showing me that it’s not the age that matters but how
much they need Jesus.
Some prayer requests are:
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| Kids ministry! |
Some prayer requests are:
1.
Please pray that I would live out Jesus more
than speaking about Jesus.
2.
Please pray for my students that God would open
their eyes, ears, hearts and minds to hear him, see him, know him and feel him.
3.
Please pray that I wouldn’t be satisfied with
how much I invest in my students but go the extra mile in loving them.
4.
Please pray for my outreach and for my outreach
team. We’re still praying about the locations so please pray that God would
lead me where the need is the most.
