Kolkata, India (AG Church)
Hello India,
So, I’ve arrived at India about a bit over a week ago and so much has happened since then. Of course there is the switch of climate, and by that I mean so much more than the weather, although the weather was a huge change… living in a place with a lot of humidity plus 100+ degree weather, isn’t the most comfortable. A lot of things happened and we’ve worked with the Assemblies of God church here for now but I’ll hit the highlights.
First night we arrived pretty late and took the mini-mini van (cause it was a mini van, only smaller than an actual mini van) to where we are staying now. The drive there was like a hit in the face with the reality of this city. Homeless people everywhere. Parents, children, men, women, all of the streets of Kolkata as we drove and I couldn’t help the tears… they just started to roll down my eyes. A person from the church said its like “sensory overload.” The smell is… well, pretty bad. It’s like a mixture of a dump, wet dog, old food, nasty water, poop, and pee. At times its only one of those smells and at others all. Then you see the people on the streets. Flies on their face. Not much clothing. Cardboard bed. Then you see the buildings. An old, broken down, sort of rusty apartment type building and right behind it you can see the nice modern skyscraper. It was hard to reconcile all these things in my mind. Still trying to do it…
I met a lot of awesome people. People that I know I will keep in touch with because I know this isn’t the last time I’ll be in Kolkata. I fell in love with the city, but most of all fell in love with the people. The little street kids that come up to me and say, “Uncle! Uncle!” and want some water or food, and the people from the church. They’ve all been so good to the entire team. These people really understand what it means to be desperate…
So, there is a divide in Kolkata kind of like home. There are those on the streets, but also those that are pretty well off. You have to also remember that this city has 18 million people… so its hard to reach everyone. Anyway, regardless, I’ve seen a homeless drug addict get saved and it was great to be a part of that story… I’ve seen ordinary church goers have such a desperate heart to have an encounter with God. I’ve seen people jumping up and down, crying on their knees, being so desirous of the Kingdom to fall. It was like being at a youth conference except people were at 13-35 and they were all just desperate. People deal with a lot of drugs, addictions, depression, thoughts of suicide, and things that are common in the states. This was something that I didn’t really expect. I was expecting like a super poor group of people, but they had alright clothes and what and it seemed like they all dealt with similar struggles as people back home.
Last thought.
All people have dreams. Desires. Ambitions. Things they want to do so that they may achieve in what they may believe is great. Sometimes we’re so involved in trying to make our dream fit into God’s plan that we forget God’s dream for us… God’s vision for us. We’ve been so side-tracked with what we want to do, whether it be for the kingdom or not, that we haven’t really laid it down before God, surrendered it God and asked God to give us the vision He has for us. We’re all selfish people. We need everything to be perfect, everything to make sense, but God is mysterious… He will do what He wants and if we don’t have the faith to trust in His good will and instead rely on our plan A’s and B’s and C’s then I wonder if we’re really living out the calling that God is entrusting us with. So basically…
Are you really a Christian?
I’m learning here that God takes the weakest people and uses them, so that He may be glorified even more. So that people can’t say that a person conjured something up, but that God created something out of nothing. God uses the fools of this world to confuse the wise.
Just a few thoughts the past week… a lot more, but not even time.
We’re gonna start helping out in the Mother Teresa homes tomorrow. I’ll update after that and when I get into Darjeeling.
AND
