one moment at a time

It's almost the end, and yet we're still learning. This last Sabbath we experienced an Indian communion service with foot washing. It was very different from the ones we have a home. It felt like a ritual ceremony and it may have been the most uncomfortable foot washing I've ever done... If I was not a christian and I attended this service for the first time, I'm not sure what I would have thought... I have always wondered why the services in India are so formal and always follow a strict protocol so to speak. Things are done in a specific order and the song must begin at a certain part of the service, the sermon and prayers have to be a certain length etc. It's somewhat awkward and sometimes it feels very staged. I wonder if it's because there is so much Hindu and Muslim influence in India, and those religious and worship practices follow a specific routine? I always feel like worship should be more flexible than this. God isn't expecting us to follow someone's made up rules about how long our prayers or sermons should be because usually the same words end up being repeated and everyone in the audience becomes uncomfortable kneeling or standing and lose focus of the thought anyway. God wants us to worship. That's it. He made us differently, and I believe he expects us each to have a different way of worshiping him. That includes Indian people! For us, their services feel awkward and too long, but for them, it is worship, and I respect that.

This week the 10th class students go to a nearby town everyday to write their government exams. You could feel the nervous excitement exuding from each one of them as we gathered to pray for them in the staff room this morning. It reminds me that the end is near and we now have less than a month in India. And I can join the 10th graders in nervous excitement. I find myself becoming more and more anxious everyday. Usually time goes by so fast, but the closer it gets to the end, the slower it seems to go. I have to keep telling myself to slow down! Enjoy the last precious moments I have and don't take them for granted.

Another thing that I see happening the closer we get to the end is that I am becoming less and less tolerable of the little things that get on my nerves. I'm thinking too much about how soon I get to be home and focusing less on how I should be living in this moment, being thoughtful towards people who sometimes drive me crazy. There are times when Sid, Trevor and I all look at each other knowing exactly how the other person is feeling because we are being asked to do something that seems so meaningless and time consuming. But life is different here. People worship differently. Not everyone has a computer or camera. Technology is foreign. When church drags on for too long and I can't understand the speakers English--I should use that time to meditate in my own way of worship. When someone wants to borrow my camera to take 2000 pictures of the same person feeding cake to every one in the school, then so be it! When I'm invited to a last minute birthday party and then expected to give a worship talk on the spot, I'll do it. We aren't full time teachers. We aren't necessarily teaching these kids all they need to know about English and other subjects in school, but what we can do to give someone joy, we should be happy to do. India has taught me to relax. To live in the moment. My job is to love and to show love I'm not always going to be comfortable, it might actually be pretty inconvenient and irritating. A friend of mine wrote a blog post that reminded me how there is no joy without sorrow and no gain without pain. I have to constantly remind myself of this, I can't always show love without hardship.

It is so hard to see the good in some situations. In addition to the little issues, it's even harder to fix problems that come from deep in your soul, from your childhood or your genes, from life experiences that bend and shape you as a person. Some things you can't just fix one time, there is no one time fix. You have to go on this life journey fighting the same issue the whole way through and its not possible without higher help. Living in this moment is what matters. I am still here. Fighting the small issues and the larger ones one day at a time. We just have to keep going, one revelation, one faithful prayer for a forgiving heart, and one prayer of thanks at a time.

cherishing every moment of this face...

Uncomplicate your life

http://www.marcandangel.com/2012/03/08/11-easy-ways-to-uncomplicate-your-life/

Let things be less than perfect. – Smile every chance you get; not because life has been easy, perfect, or exactly as you had anticipated, but because you choose to be happy and grateful for all the good things you do have, and all the problems you have too.  You must accept the fact that life is not perfect, that people are not perfect, and that you are not perfect.  And that’s okay, because the real world doesn’t reward perfection.  It rewards people who get GOOD things done. We get GOOD things done when we are imperfect 99% of the time.


Good thoughts... 

Dance!

"David danced before the Lord with all of his might..." -2 Samuel 6:14

When I read this, I can't help but picture a lanky Indian boy with a huge white smile, dancing with his arms and shoulders moving up and down and hands unscrewing invisible lightbulbs in the air. Just like I've seen some of our 10th standard boys do!

We're supposed to become undignified and dance before the Lord--show the rest of the world our love for him shamelessly.

Last night, we got Nancy on film doing some little dances. Sid and I danced around on either side of her, encouraging her to join in and go for it!!! And she finally did, after she saw us looking silly, jumping from foot to foot and snapping our fingers, she went for it! She clapped her hands and sang a little song too.

Sometimes a person just needs a little encouragement, or a good example, to let loose and become undignified with love for other people and God. Eventually you will stop following the example and become one yourself.

Creativity

It’s amazing what can happen when you get creative!

Today you can learn how to bake with only a stove... :)

First go outside with a container and spoon and shovel some sand. Make sure you have enough to fill the bottom of whatever pot you decide to use! Some kids will think you’re crazy, but it’s not a problem.

After you make a nice, smooth layer of sand on the bottom of your pan or skillet, place it on the stove and cover, allowing it to warm up for 5-10 minutes (depending on the size of your makeshift oven).

Mix up the dough for whatever delectable treat you want to make (for us it was blueberry muffins the first time and chocolate chip cookies the second time!). For muffins, we used our mini tea mugs and for cookies we simply put them on a steel plate…

Place the dish inside your “oven” and cover. Check often, times will vary, ha! Our cookies took only 7 minutes and turned out perfect…

One thing I am glad for is that God is creative… and that he works differently my life than anyone else’s! I often find myself comparing my spirituality with everyone else. I read other SM blogs and about their experiences and find myself thinking about how that compares with my own, whether or not I am doing enough or learning enough. But it doesn’t matter! God will work in a way that is specific for me. And in the same way, I shouldn’t expect him to use the same tactics he uses with me on anyone else! I read this quote in the book Crazy Love,

               

“Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as He is with you.” –Oswald Chamber

It all seems to come back to those expectations. I shouldn’t be thinking about what’s expected of me as an SM, or a roommate, or daughter, or friend. I just need to learn to listen and obey God’s specific instructions for me. And the only way to figure out these instructions is to put myself into uncomfortable situations and give God a chance to show me what he has planned.

Anxieties

You know you are getting comfortable when your Indian neighbor and roommate with rockstar hair decide to start a band together with a street purchased mini drum and guitar that needs tuning! 

Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun and making lots of memories! But sometimes I ask myself if I’m getting too comfortable.

“Most of our thoughts are centered on the money we want to make, the school we want to attend, the body we aspire to have, the spouse we want to marry, the kind of person we want to become… But the fact is that nothing should concern us more than our relationship with God; it’s about eternity, and nothing compares with that.” – Francis Chan, Crazy Love

You would think that being in India, having this experience, living in a much simpler way, would make me realize that my relationship with God is all that matters. But even here, I find myself being stressed out about how much exercise I am doing, if I’m going to be super slow at biking when I go home, whether or not I am really learning something from this experience, or actually helping anyone, and even what is going to be different about home when I return. I feel this strange anxiety when I think about home or picture myself in America. Part of me can see my life carrying on just as it was before I left and it being a simple transition because everything will be left just as I remember it. But the other part of me feels anxious about talking to people, about sharing anything about India, because how to do you explain it without it sounding so repetitive and the same as every other SM story? I’m anxious because I feel like I wont be bale to talk easily with anyone I was ever close to. Even right now, I get this feeling when I log into skype or facebook and someone I know is online… I want to talk to them because I miss them! But I can’t make myself do it, because what am I going to say? It’s strange and I feel like I can’t relate. Like I no longer have anything in common, but how can this be possible when I am the same person. Am I too comfortable here in this mindset to go back to what I thought was 'normal' life? 

But in the end, the anxieties don’t even matter. It’s not about the person I want to become or about the body I want to have or the trendy relationships I want to build. It’s about my relationship with God. He has some plan for my life and I believe my life will work out this way… It doesn’t matter if I’m not as fit as I want to be or that I don’t exactly have as many close relationships with people as I wish I did, because in the end these things don’t matter at all! There’s a time for each of these things and I have my whole life ahead of me to master those. But I don’t have my whole life to begin working hard at my God relationship. That has to happen now…in every part of every day…

Every morning, I sit down with some tea, read some spiritual motivation, write in my journal, promise myself that I will include God in my daily activities, and then move on with my day. Why can't I seem to remember him in the other parts of my day? It's a good question, and I think the answer is hiding right underneath all my anxieties. I remember that my life is already planned, why worry? I simply need to let go.  

Valentines Sugar Cookies - Microwave HOW TO

I love food blogs, so I decided I'm going to start my own India version.

These Valentine cookies are soft and delicious and can make your V-day great no matter how far you are from home!

First, be sure to become a member of a really cool church who will send you a package with Trader Joe's sugar cookie mix. (If you are looking for one currently, I might make a recommendation for www.summitnorthwest.org)

Read the directions thoroughly on the package. Make a journey to the nearest village and go to several different shops to acquire each ingredient.

Return home and locate the nearest microwave oven (if a regular baking oven is unavailable of course). In a large bowl (or a cooking vessel if you don't have a large bowl), combine the cookie mix with butter and egg and mix well. If you don't have quite enough butter, like me, you may have to add a drop of oil to get the right consistency. No problem.

Next, borrow a roller from your neighbor and roll out the dough onto a flat surface. Use a knife or some pointy utensil to cut cool heart shapes into the dough. Or whatever other random shapes you would like. I encourage creativity at this point!

Finally, use a microwave safe plate, place the cookies a half inch apart and stick into the microwave. Cook on high power for 1 minute and 30 seconds (depending on your microwave of course) and VOILA! You have delicious quick baked sugar cookies. After cooling, squeeze on some of the packaged frosting that came in the box and spread on the humidified sprinkles that soaked up lots of moisture for a nice touch.

ENJOY!
Happy Valentines Day

Expectations

Expectations ruin relationships. When I expect something in return for something I’ve given, what does that say about me? That I’m selfish. This is what destroys happiness. A gift is not a gift when you expect something in return.

Christian hands never clasp

And He doesn’t give gifts for gain

Because a gift can never stop being a gift—

It is always meant to be given.

I am supposed to be Christ-like. God gives us gifts—of grace, joy, friendships, love, LIFE—so that we can serve the world and share them. The more thanks we give, the more He gives back to us, and we in turn should continue spreading it around! It’s supposed to be an endless cycle. “The way through the pain is to reach out to others in theirs.” That is how we are healed. We share ourselves and serve someone else, giving to them, and God heals us with happiness.

Why is this so hard? It’s hard for me, and it’s hard for others, which then makes the service even harder for both and THEN it becomes this backwards cycle that is going the opposite way God intended. Expectations kill happiness. It is hard to ignore selfishness because it makes the next person feel selfish, and then the selfishness just keeps multiplying until everyone is sitting around complaining to themselves! I want to make it stop. I can definitely say that I’m surprised by what the hardest part of my seven months in India really is.