Daily "If"

My blog has been sitting pretty quiet for a while. I haven't forgotten about it, I've just been trying to think of something to write. I don't want to just post nonsense things on here, I want this blog to have a little bit of a purpose.

I do still have some things to share with you all from my summer, I'm just trying to figure out a way to word them.

But until then, I'm going to start something new. Last year, I posted a picture every day-I'm not doing that again. That got old really fast haha.

This summer my sister gave me the book If by Amy Carmichael*. Its just a short book of "If...then..." statements that are really great and convicting. And so, each morning I'm going to share with you the next "if" statement. If you want, you can check here in the morning for the "Daily If" and then allow your heart and mind to meditate on it throughout the day.

*If you don't know anything about Amy Carmichael, you should look her up. She is one of my spiritual heroes. She lived and worked in Southern India, providing a home for girls (and eventually boys) who had been sold to the local temple. She worked there without furlough for over 50 years until her death. I wrote a short article about her life in the last edition of Virtuous Woman here at UNC.

Also, besides the Daily If, I am going to be trying to memorize scripture. And so, I'm also going to be posting the verses that I am memorizing on here. Right now, I'm just going to memorize a rather random stack of verses that my sister gave to me years ago. I may eventually get a little more systematic about it.

I hope that you will find these two things beneficial and meaningful to you. I know it will be for me.

So here's our first "Daily if."

If I have not compassion on my fellowservant, 

even as my Lord had pity on me, 

Then I know nothing of Calvary love. 

And my first verse is going to be 2 Corinthians 12:9

But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. 

I have the best major!

And you should all be jealous!!

Just kidding.

I did just want to take a second and point out that I have the best major ever!!

Seriously, my homework has been to read a kids novel and blog about it-- 2 of my favorite things!!

Finally, the work that I'm doing, I can actually see myself using!

I'm not going to lie- I was a little overwhelmed the first week of classes. Will I be able to do everything that they are asking of me? What if I'm terrible at teaching? I can't change my major now (like that was ever a thought for the past 2 years).

What if I fail?

But after a few pep talks to myself and, more importantly, getting some serious reassurance from the Lord, I can say that I am so happy with what I am doing. God has a purpose for me being here. He wants me to learn these things. He has a plan for how I am going to use them in my life. There is a reason He put me in this program and didn't just send me straight to India.

And now I am in absolute school heaven! I love the people in my classes. I love that I am going to be with the same 30 people for the next 2 years. I love that I will actually get to know them and build relationships with them!

I'm happy that I finally get to be with children! I finally get to be in a classroom, to see how a school operates. 

I'm just so excited!!

oh, and I get to read Harry Potter for class!!! Dream come true!!

Broken Hearts Become Brand New

Hi everyone! I haven't posted in forever, but I've been running around like crazy! I'm all settled in Chapel Hill in my new apartment and classes start tomorrow! I'm super excited about this year, but I'll tell you all about that later!

I have so many stories and amazing things to share with you all from my summer that I will share as I process through them myself. I've put up pictures on my facebook- so go check them out if you want, you don't have to though. But I want to go ahead and share with what I have been thinking about this weekend and was really struck by this summer when I was in India.

This summer, we were blessed to be able to hear a lot of the stories of the children in the orphanage. They were so sweet and willing to share what happened in their lives and how God worked. Every time one of them would share I would always come away thinking the same thing.

How is any of this possible?

and I don't mean how is it possible that these precious children have suffered the things that they have. They have lost parents, grandparents, been abandoned, watched people set on fire, lived on the streets by themselves-- basically seen things that I can't even imagine.

But I know why those things happen. We live in a world controlled by sin. It is broken. People suffer. Innocent children suffer. 

What blows my mind is that despite everything these children have been through, they can smile. They can laugh. They can love. They can worship.

Everything that I know about how our minds work (which, granted isn't very much) tells me that this is not how things work. Everything that I see here in America tells me that these children should not be like this. The little bit that I know about psychology and children tells me that these children should be scarred, deeply scarred and that it should affect how they act, how they relate to people. My experience in public school tells me that they should have behavioral issues. What we see of kids coming out of foster care says that kids don't have a future.

Rani should not love me. The fact that I come and go so much should make Rani afraid to get close to me, because I'm just going to leave her again. She should be guarded.

But she's not. 

She loves me.  And it is a love that lasts. It doesn't matter that I hadn't seen her in over a year or that I had only ever spent about 3 weeks in her life, she loves me. She greeted me with a smile and a huge hug. And when I left, she gave me a note saying that she loves me and can't wait for me to come back and that she is praying for me.

She shouldn't be able to joke around with me. But she does.

They all love us in ways that I can't understand.

One night, one girl shared her story and after she sat down, I looked back and she was crying. She had her knees pulled up and she had hidden her face in her knees and was crying. 

I was taken aback. 

Because I forget the pain that these kids carry in their hearts. I forget that their lives have been so hard. That their pain is so fresh. It was the first time I had seen any of them sad. 

I went and sat next to her and hugged her and just held her as she cried, praying over her. 

I wanted so badly to take away that pain she was feeling, to take it upon myself. I want to take all of their hurt and their pain. 

But I can't. All I could do was hold sweet Priya and beg Jesus to give peace to her heart. I can't carry her pain. 

But Jesus can. 

Jesus has done miracles in these children's lives.

It is a miracle that Rani loves me. 

It is a miracle that Shivani and Esther can get up in front of everyone and sing and dance. 

It is a miracle that Anosh can pour out his heart in worship to God. 

It is a miracle that all of these children can smile. That they can laugh.

It is a miracle that they can look at their lives, already, and see the work that God has done and how He used their pain to bring them to Himself. 

Jesus is doing miracles. 

Every smile, every hug is a miracle. 

That night, I wrote this in prayer to God, "I praise you for their smiles, every smile in that place is a testimony to your greatness. Every laugh, every hug is a sign of the miracles you have worked, a sign of the life you give to them. Because they shouldn't be able to smile. All psychology and common sense says that they shouldn't be able to smile, they shouldn't love, they shouldn't be open to love. They should be distant and cold, to protect their hearts from pain. But you are bigger than psychology and you can heal in ways that would baffle therapists. While they would be diagnosing, you have healed and you have given life."

There is a song that always makes me think of India. The chorus says, "I've seen dreams that move the mountains, Hope that doesn't ever end, even when the sky is falling. I've seen miracles just happen, silent prayers get answered, broken hearts become brand new. That's what faith can do."

I have seen the miracles that Jesus has done. 

Jesus has made these broken hearts brand new. He has made my broken heart brand new. He can make your broken heart brand new.  

Praise Jesus with me right now for the miracles He has done and is doing, in India, here in America and in Chapel Hill.

Praise Him for this smile, because it is a miracle. 

Leaving India

Hi friends, sorry that I haven't posted anything real for a long time. It's been really busy here. We had 25 high school and college guests for the past 2 weeks, so we have been going and going with them. They left on Wednesday morning and are now on a plane back to the US.

I leave India tomorrow morning and will be heading to Dubai to meet my sister and then from there we are flying to Greece for vacation with our parents.

I definitely have very mixed feelings about leaving India. This summer has been wonderful and hard and confusing and reassuring all at the same time. I will be putting up more pictures and writing more about my time here when I get back to the States, have no fear. I just haven't had time and want to continue to process what I've seen and experienced this summer.

Thank you for remembering me and thinking about me while I have been here. It has been a constant comfort to know that I have so many wonderful friends and family thinking about me while I have been away.

As hard as saying good-bye always is, I am looking forward to time with my family (even more time with my sister!) and seeing all of my friends again. It is going to be a whirlwind of activity when I get back. I get in late on August 10th and start moving into my apartment on the 15th. So needless to say, I will be busy, but I do want to see those of you who I can and share with you about my time here. I also will be returning with a bag full of purses and scarves that I will be selling to raise money for the orphanage here, I'm thinking another purse/chai party will be in order (I can also make chai a lot better now).

Bittersweet, that's what I'm feeling right now and what I will continue to feel. But I'm excited about this next year at school. I think that it will be really great and I'm excited for all that is to come and the ways that I am going to grow and be stretched as I enter the last half of my time in college.

Oh yah, I also get to see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow night, so that gives me something to look forward to ;)

Thank you, sweet friends, for all your love and support. Thank you for making this trip possible. Thank you for buying scarves, having me babysit and just giving generously to my work here. This summer would not have been possible without each one of you. 

The blog will probably be quiet for the next week and a half, but then I will be back with lots of beautiful pictures!!

check out these cool shoes and a give-away!

One of my favorite blogs, Sit a Spell, has been doing a series of posts about caring for the poor while still living in the USA. The woman who writes the blog, Heather, lives in Haiti with her family, so a lot of the posts are talking about how they made the decision to give up everything and move.

One of her posts was about one of her friends who works in Africa for a shoe company. This company helps woman earn money for the education by paying them well for the work that they do making these shoes.

Check out Heather's post here.

Monsoon Time!

Its monsoon season here in India, but it actually hasn't rained that much. It has sprinkled a few times- enough for us to go running to get the clothes off the roof, but didn't end up doing much.

But one day last week, while we were out, it rained like crazy! and I mean rained! We couldn't go home because the road in front of it had become a lake!

Here are some of my pictures from the day.

You can see the water pooling on the side of the street. Everything was flooded within minutes.

Chickens hiding from the rain under a truck.

Sweet school girls running home in the rain. I felt so bad for them, they were soaked through.

This day was also the first time that I felt scared while driving. I trust A's driving and I'm not normally scared, but in the rain, Indian driving is terrifying! 

India pictures!!

Hi Everybody!! sorry I haven't put up pictures recently! We've been pretty busy and there were other girls here so I couldn't hog the internet to blog.

I'm having a wonderful time in India. Coming back gets sweeter every time.

Here are some pictures from my first week here. I'll just put up a few and then when I get back to the States I'll probably do some more posts about my entire summer.

I'm so happy to be back with these precious girls. I'm also very happy that I don't have to leave them again for a while. 

I can't believe how much they have grown in the past year. Girls that seemed so young the first time I met them are now beautiful teenagers. 

I have so many pictures of my girls already and its only been a week, so I'll be putting them up for a while!! The first night we with the kids, a couple of the girls came up to me after and were saying "Laura Didi (sister), don't go back to America, stay, stay." I was laughing and crying at the same time. Oh I love these girls so much! I was very happy to at least be able to tell them that I would be staying for the whole month. 

Camels, just chilling behind the vegetable market. Gotta love this place. 

Ever had to avoid a herd of cattle while driving down the road? Typical day here.

The tractor clearing the land where the new campus for LCH will be. What an answer to prayer! If you look closely you can see 2 little boys helping the driver.

"and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head..." Matthew 27:29 Seeing these thorn bushes definitely gives new meaning to this verse.

This picture may not look like much, but this is where, one day, I will be teaching the children of LCH.

And to continue with the theme of flower pictures. There are fewer flowers to take pictures of here, but they are still so beautiful. 

That's all for now folks!! I'll post again soon hopefully. In a few days, we begin shopping for books!!