There is only One who is Worthy

In 2004 God spoke to me very clearly about retiring from my work at Quaker because my ministry there was finished.  I had no idea what I was going to do and I abosolutely had no idea that I would be living in Africa and now traveling to India.  Again in September, God spoke to me about ministry.  My direction for the coming year of 2012-2013 is to raise money for a project that Children's Relief International supports in Calcutta India, "Mudpath's." I don't ask God "why," I just do it.  I know that His plans are above and beyond what I could ever hope for or imagine so I will just wait for His next word.  In the meantime I want to share with you about this recent journey to India  because it is you that will make the difference in the lives of those who we at CRI are reaching in the dark dark world of India.  I have the stories and the names of faces that will be different because of your support.

Overall View:

Because of the internet difficulties and how this trip has effected me personally, I will break these writing's of my journey into 4 sections starting with an overview and then speaking individually of each project that I visited, what I learned and what God is doing there.  I am trusting God and the Holy Spirit to be my guide so pray with me that your eyes and heart will be open to His words through my eyes.

Melody Pieratt, Rebecca Sample, Valerie Dorsey and I were the traveling CRI women's team for a vision trip to India.  Only Valerie and I had ever traveled together so I didn't know quite what to expect but the other two ladies were veterans, so I did expect was some guidance and good information from the other two.  The trip was fun, a learning experience, a time to grow in trusting the Lord because of unknown circumstances and it was good to debrief and process with two who already had gone before.

We traveled from March 6th-18th, Valerie and I had 13 flights in those 12 days and some full days at the airport side.  This was the most exhausting trip I have ever taken and the most emotionally exhausting experience I have ever had.  The thought of being in a country where women are so oppressed, abused, irreguarded, and just bottom line left to be hopeless was about all I could process in 10 days in India.  During my open time while I was traveling, I read a book called Half of the Church by Carolyn James.  The writings of this author gives a hard look at women and their positions in a culture where women have no position.  It opened my eyes to information that I was not aware of and gave me a heart for the women and children of this culture that would have taken me much longer to understand.  And yet, I have to rely on God to speak into my heart what I am to do with all of this tension that I feel because of these circumstances.

I made it a point to smile at every woman I could and even muster up when I was not feeling the greatest.  The time difference between home and there is 11 1/2 hours.  This was in it's self not an easy feat to conquer.  I took sleeping pills to sleep and drank tons of coffee to stay awake and that equaled disaster for me for at least 3 days.  My emotions were on high alert and I couldn't get the images out of my mind of people believeing in thousands of gods.  There are temples of worship everywhere, on every corner, in every market, along side of the road, mock, small made up one's in people's homes and the gods all represented something different.  Most Indians worship, a fish, elephants, a turtle, a boar, the cow of course! (they were everywhere,) a man-lion, a dwarf, sex goddess, a male goddess, a man who buried himself ALIVE for pete's sake so he could be worshipped and the list goes on and on and on into the thousands.  How does one person decide which god to choose and how can he know if his prayers are being heard?  I did learn that of the many gods that are chosen to worship, Jesus is one of them for personal worship but not chosen as the sole god of worship.  There in lies our work...... to minister to those who will never hear the wonders of the God we worship and there need not be any other.  Only one God above all Gods and the King of every King!  Jesus!

The food, the smells, the clothing, the homes, or there lack of homes, the water, how a person sleeps, cleans and works, the language, the worship, the history of the land, everything was different.  India is one of the recognized countries from biblical times in the book of Esther.  I walked on ground that has more stories and conversations than the country we live in has years of being discovered.  I walked on the grounds of a musolium that was built in the 1600's.  Can you imagine who and how many of the who's have taken the same steps that I took?  They must have gazed up into the sky just like I did, they must have thought, "oh how beautiful this building is!" and wondered how did the men of this age create something so beautiful with no machines?  It all had to be done by hand and chisel.  Many many visuals to process.

At the end of the day of each day, I realized that my God is a good and just God and He created it all.....and one day........ every knee will bow.... and every tongue confess..... that Jesus Christ is Lord.

His Word says it, I believe it, and I must tell everyone I can about it.!

I will continue in my next blog about each project visited starting with Mudpath's ministry of Calcutta.

Philippians 2:10

Obedience,

Kathy