6 days. 144 hours. 8,640 minutes. 518,400 seconds. Roughly. It's so close, I can almost taste it!! :) This time next week I'll be on a plane on my way to Darjeeling, India. Yesterday, I went through the clothes I have here and figured out all that I'm going to take with me. haha I don't think I'll be bringing much! I really only have a pile of clothes about a foot high. Everything we wear in India has to cover both our ankles and shoulders. Considering I packed for six months in toasty Australia, I'm not exactly prepared. Luckily, things in India are very cheap and it's ok if I wear my clothes multiple times.
Two weeks ago, Joy Allen spoke on Fear of the Lord. It was an awesome week. haha I love Joy. I kept thinking about how good of friends she would be with my mom. She did an awesome job having us process in class about the stuff she was presenting us with. Last week, her husband, Jordan, spoke on Missions. I liked that he presented it as a way to live your everyday life in a missional way. Right now, I'm fully convicted of the fact that I need to fully invest in the place I am here and now. At this point, it's really difficult for me to live in the moment. It's good for me to feel passionate about effecting the people that are directly in contact with me. I think it will be really important as I'm both in India, but also when I get home, even if it's just for the summer. Then both of them spoke on the Unity and Body of Christ for a day. God created the church for a reason. We need one another. So often we get caught up in our petty differences. I love that there are lots of different types of christians and denominations here. Even if we like these different ways, we all understand that God has called all of us. This bond alone is strong enough to create amazing relationships and in the end enough to impact the world. Then Mable, one of our staff members, spoke on Stewardship for a day. She's amazing. Wow, she truly speaks it as it is. I loved how she made me passionate about being responsible. haha Is that even possible? This week we have a guest speaker from the Sunshine Coast here speaking on Bible Study. Even though we've only had one day I know I'm going to learn so much... haha as always. He's pretty hysterical.
During Joy's week of teaching we had this thing called "Missions Sim." Basically, it was a mock outreach prep, in which we had two days of every rough thing that we may come across during outreach. haha It was intense, to say the least. We had fifteen minutes to pack and weren't allowed to pack anything not on the list. After which we went through a mock airport experience. Almost everyone lost things from their bags, including most sleeping bags. There were beggars waiting outside the airport (note: all of this was a simulation done by other staff around our base). We went to the market, where we bought all of our food and shelter stuff (a tarp and three poles). We cooked lunch and created our tarp tent in one of the staff house's backyard. It was pretty quality if I do say so myself. That afternoon we did door-to-door ministry where we drank tea made of weak tea, butter and pepper. Then we did training and evangelism. For dinner we went to a host house, where we had to eat everything put in front of us. I ate A LOT and my lips almost fell off because of the spicy curry, but some of the other teams had it worse. That night was an adventure. haha It ended up raining, of course. Let me say, it is difficult to fit 13 people under one tarp! I didn't sleep much at all that night, but our team bonded a lot and laughed tons! We were woke up bright and early for an Indian prayer session. Then had breakfast and did a couple other ministry things. We had some more team bonding time when we had to have bucket showers. By the time we finished the whole simulation we were absolutely exhausted. haha But it was really good for our team. We learned a lot and feel better prepared for what lies ahead of us.
I got to record some with my band, which was a blast! Time has flown by. I can't believe lecture phase is just about over. At this point I feel like I have a million things to get finished before I leave, but it'll all be good. But dang it, I still haven't seen a kangaroo! And I've lived here for three and a half months! What the heck! haha Maybe it's just not in books for me. :( I think I'll live.
