Day One-Hundred and Twenty-Two

Sometimes I think this is all a dream. Walking down streets with a people unlike myself, in a culture that I have never experienced before. People selling fish, vegetables, and merchandise along the road, shouting prices and bartering with customers. The smells are free in India, and that can be a good or bad thing depending on where you are at in the city.

Eyes are always watching, in the train, in the rickshaw, on the street; the sight of a foreigner outside of the big city is rare. It’s an interesting feeling being such a small minority among the Hindus and Muslims. They are warm and loving but their hearts have gone astray, and my heart goes out to them. Such a vast display of faces, their eyes will tell their story.

My family and closest friends are thousands of miles away and we live a day apart. I dream of driving down the interstate to meet friends or just being in my home again. It’s the weekend, a cold Pepsi and a candy bar is the highlight of my day, and hearing the voice of loved ones back home confirms that a world goes on outside of this place I am in.

My brothers are now many, and we all try to deny that I am leaving someday. I have become a mentor to young and old and a friend to all. They call me Prem, which means love. For love is my ministry, a ministry of the heart. A love for this culture, a love for these people, and living my love for Christ.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning with the fresh revelation that I am in India, God’s will has never been so tangible, and each day must be surrendered or lost in time. Time management has never been more important. Listen to a clock tick, those seconds will never be brought back to life again. As fast as they come, they go, and we are responsible with what happens in between.

The truth is that this is not a dream but a reality that is of God and for God. It is the most incomprehensible thing ever. I never thought that this is where I would be in this stage of my life, but it is the most fulfilling, rewarding and most trying thing I have ever attempted. Allen Graham, missionary to Zimbabwe once said "I was born for days like this." I think I am beginning to understand what he meant. All I am was made for a time like today, every experience in my life has led up to this moment….

Day one-hundred and twenty-two....what will tomorrow bring?