YL Sila English Class!

This jolly group are some of the kids and leaders at our English class on Tuesday.  We started last week and had 21.  This past class we had almost 80 high school kids!  WOW!  Praise Him for this awesome group of teenagers!  And Praise Him for the leaders that sacrifice their time to teach them!

By the way, some of them are throwin' up the "YL" sign :)  So fun!

Pondering the story of Luke 5:1-11 as we "fish for teenagers."  <><

Motivation

Today I had lunch with one of our key Young Life leaders.  Her name is Javeen Rai, she's 28, and started her own school for poor children 4 years ago.  She's a CHAMP.  Because she takes risks for others and for the Jesus.  Her school has about 40 kids who pay very little, so she has very little income and pays her teachers a minimal salary.  She has also been helping us start Young Life in her part of town by spending time with high school kids...playing badminton, teaching English every Saturday, and tutoring.

As we ate at Subway, we started talking about her father.  He was the first Christian in their village.  He was 24 and was extremely sick.  One day a Christian man from a nearby town came to his house and told him about Jesus.  Her father told the man that if, after praying to Jesus, He healed him, then her father would follow Jesus.  At that point, he had been to so many doctors and no medicine or remedy had helped at all.  The next day he felt better for the first time and was completely healed.  So he committed his life to Jesus and decided he would give up everything for Him and for telling others about Him.  Before Jesus, he was as good as dead.  But this God was actually alive and had given Him life (physical and spiritual!) so he decided there was nothing he wouldn't give up for this Jesus.

So he went anywhere and everywhere to tell people who would listen about Jesus...and the transformation He brought.  Her father was an alcoholic before he met Christ but along with everything else, he left alcohol and never touched it again.  Javeen said that there was no place he wouldn't go to share Jesus.  Not only did he spread the gospel but he helped in the development of their village - roads, schools, water.  My conversation with Javeen today started because she told me that today her village is 80% Christian.  But when her father started following Jesus, he was the 1st one!  WOW!  What a legacy of faith and love he left!

Tears filled her eyes as she said that none of his children (herself included) was doing anything even close to what he did.  Oh how wrong she is!  She is sacrificing her life for the same Love that her father lived for.  And, like him, she asks for nothing in return.  She has never asked me for money.  She lives on a very small amount because she does not make much in teaching these children.  So why does she keep going?

LOVE.

Not from herself.  But from Jesus and HIS sacrificial love.  There is NO way I would be in India or Javeen doing what she does (running a school and loving teenagers through Young Life) if we were motivated by something like money or fame or man's praise.

NO.

It is Christ's love.  That deep, wide, high, and long love compels us to live for Him.  He desires that all would know Him and would experience all that He is.  So we, as followers of Jesus, seek out opportunities to be a blessing to the world in any/every way and to share Him.

¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

(2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

Friday, Friday, Gotta Get Down on Friday!!!

I teach a little girl named Hannah.  She's 4.  She makes up wild, fun, imaginative stories and asks about 397 questions a day.  She has a little brother, Sammy, who always wants to wrestle and roar in her face.  She also has a baby sister named Phoebe, who we affectionately call "Pheebes" and who has one giant curl on the top of her head like a "who" from a Dr. Suess book.

Anyway, Hannah didn't really want to have school today.  So I quickly tried to motivate her by saying that in honor of Friday we were going to review the letter "D" and have a little dance party.  What did we dance to?  None other than the Rebecca Black friday song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0

Granted, I only showed her the beginning of the video, stopping at the part where she sings about "partyin'!"  haha!  Tonight when I overheard her teaching Sammy the song before they went to sleep, I couldn't help but crack up...especially when Kari (her mom) said she'd been singing it all day!  Kari loves all the things I teach Hannah because she repeats everything over and over :)  Ok, maybe it's me who loves torturing Kari with all those things...

Anyway, she gave me permission to teach Hannah more of the song so she wouldn't just keep repeating "Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday"  over and over and over :)  Get ready, Hannah, next Friday you're gonna be "partyin', partyin', YEAH!"  I can't wait!  I'll have to get a video of it fo sho!

Here's some pics from this week with the kids before bedtime...I've spent the night all week with them while their dad was out of town.  I learn so much from Kari and the way she loves her kids, from singing and talking about Jesus during bath time to being consistent in disciplining them to taking the time to just be with them (reading, tickling, playing).  What a gem she is!  I hope I am half the mom someday to my kids that she is to those sweet "birds," as she calls them :)

this is what sammy does when you tell him to smile!  love it!

this perfectly captures little phoebe!

bedtime stories with hannah and mama kari!

jolly :)

Shanti

Yesterday I went with one of our YL leaders to her college.  I got to hang out with all of her awesome friends and endure a long college program...but SO worth it for the jolly time I spent with her and her friends.  One of the girls was so sweet.  I sat next to her on the way back...an hour bus ride on the most horrendous roads known to modern man.  These should not be called roads, but mountains and valleys made of rocks and dust.  It is like an unnecessary and obnoxious rollercoaster for which you need a chiropractic adjustment afterwards. But what to do!  This is India.  You just have to laugh to keep from crying :)


Anyway, I digress.


3 things she said that day stood out to me:


"I love going to church.  It feels so peaceful, not like Hindu worship at temples which is just loud and annoying."
So many Indians have expressed this to me.  I think it's such a reflection of the longing for meaning, rest, forgiveness, true worship, joy, and longing to be a part of a good thing bigger than themselves.  I shared with her Matthew 11:28 (Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest) and said I thought the reason she felt peace was because Jesus invites us to find rest in Him by being what we cannot be.

"Jesus said while he was dying, 'Forgive them, for they don't know what they do.'  Why did Jesus willingly suffer and why did God allow him to suffer on the cross?"

I had a random, half torn, wee Bible in my purse.  So I pulled it out and turned to John 3:16 to let her read it.  Unfortunately we were just getting off the bus so we couldn't really talk about it.  But I just said the easiest way to answer that question is love.

"I need some shanti (means peace or rest in Hindi)"
We went to the mall and just sat for awhile because we'd been traveling all day.  I couldn't help but think how all of us need, desire, and even long for spiritual peace/rest.  Made me think again of that verse, Matthew 11:28.  Just silently prayed my new friend would find peace in the One who can carry her burdens.

What a privilege to share some things about Jesus with this new friend.  It is good news.  I'm hoping to have more conversations with her, but so thankful for the opportunity yesterday.  I hope you'll pray for her with me, that she and her family will know Jesus one day as loving Savior.

Foolishness for His Sake

These past few weeks I've been learning a lot about foolishness and weakness.  It is what the world despises.  It is not praised...it is avoided.  It is disgusting to us.  It embarrasses us.

Yet it is what Christ calls us to be.  So that Christ's power might rest on us.  That His grace and glory would be on display for a dying world to see.

I hate to be weak.  I hate not knowing everything.  Having little to no control.

But it's in the weak moments of our lives that we realize the sufficiency and satisfaction of His grace.  Of His unfailing love.  Over our circumstances.  Over our own screw-ups.

At our house church on Sunday we sang the song "Here I am to Worship."  The bridge repeats the phrase "we'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross!"  And that's the beauty of the gospel.  It doesn't bring us guilt but it's an exclamation and a shout of praise that by His grace we will never have to know what we have been spared from...eternal separation from God.  Oh what love!  That doesn't ask for penance or anything in exchange for our salvation except our whole heart.

Oh how He loves us, friends!  Because of this profound and sacrificial love, we are able to say, like Paul...

"That is why, for Christ's sake (so His power may rest on us), I DELIGHT IN WEAKNESES, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."  2 Corinthians 12:10

Abraham looked foolish to probably everyone around him when he told them what God had promised...that His offspring would outnumber all the grains of sand.  Because the guy was 99 years old!  He looked utterly foolish and weak to be able to bring about the promise of God.  He couldn't even have one child, let alone more than the number of stars in the sky!

But He trusted God for it.  Even when God wanted him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.  His faith did not waver.  BECAUSE HE KNEW THE PROMISE WOULD COME FROM THE PROMISER NOT THE PROMISEE.  Only the Promiser can bring about the promise.  We are not called to bring it about, only to be obedient to whatever He calls us to do.

So I take courage in being weak and foolish because I know that His power will be made perfect in my weakness.  Praise Him!  May He get so much glory for what He has done and will do through this weak vessel!

Romans 4:18-21...LOOK IT UP!

Things I will Miss about India...#1

Afternoon Tea...

Boys are so STINGY!

Yesterday, I participated in a plethora of Valentine's Day activities, which included making these cookies that looked like poo but tasted like heaven, meeting the principal of one of the high schools where we're doing YL, giving away chocolates to 11th grade girls with one of our YL leaders Munnu, hanging out with the seminary students I teach, eating baked spaghetti with Shay and the Roberts (the American family upstairs), and watching a sappy teenage movie with Victoria and Trish (lesson from that movie...don't kiss in the stacks, it never turns out well...).  OH, and my sweet Valentine gave me a rose :)  Glad we have each other, Shay!

The comment of the day was from a girl named Alivi, who was very outspoken about how none of the boys at the seminary bought the girls anything.  We were sitting in a circle of about 10 students, and she went on and on about them being lazy and stingy :)  haha!  One of the guys said, "Ok...next year then."  Another, more wise, fellow said, "Ok, guys, well maybe we should prove them wrong!"  However, none of the guys took his side so I think he will go down as being stingy, too.  Sorry, guys, intentions don't really count for much...us girls can't read your minds.  Anyway, that was a fun, light-hearted convo to be a part of and hear Indians' thoughts about love :)

Oh yeah!  Rebecca rocked those sunglasses!  Me and Shay...not so much :)

Supposed to be Heath Bar Cookies but just made em Peanut Butter, Brown Sugar, Chocolate Chunk instead b/c Siliguri doesn't have such luxurious things as Heath Bars

Thanks Shay!

Sweet girls!