My head is spinning in India

Wow. My head is spinning from our first full day in India. What a day. After a long time of wanting to come to India, I'm so excited that God has finally made a way for me to be here. It is incredible. The country is beautiful. Even in its confused traffic, dirtiness, and crowded streets, it is somehow just beautiful. The people are so warm and welcoming. I came here thinking I really like Indian culture. And I'm growing to really love India.

We started the day with a worship service at the OM campus in Banglore. What an incredible place. It used to be a chicken farm, but now it is a ministry center. So we worshipped in what used to be a chicken coop but now works just fine for a worship center.

It was such a privilege to worship with Christians from a completely different culture, in a completely different place, and yet feel this incredible bond of communion with them because we worship the same God. It's the excitement of when you meet someone from New York and ask them if they know the one person in New York that you know and it turns out randomly that they do. And it's just so cool to find someone that knows someone you know. You want to grab the person next to you and tell them what a coincidence that the New Yorker knows your old friend. It feels like that to worship with a bunch of Indians you've never met and realize they know the same God you do. I was so thankful to be among them this morning.

OM India is doing some amazing work here. They are one extremely organized group of people, with a pretty mature system of ministry and leadership development. We heard about ministry to muslims, schools for under-privileged kids, ministry in the urban poor, reaching out to temple prostitutes, and church planting efforts by OM in India.

That last one is interesting because it represents a huge shift in OM's strategy in India. They used to reach out to Dalits (the lowest "untouchable" social group) and after they came to know Jesus, they would send them to local churches. But after years of churches rejecting these new believers because of their social class, they realized that they needed to provide a church that would accept them. So now after only six years, they have an extensive network of 2000 churches ministering to Dalits, mostly in rural village settings. And most of the leadership are Dalits themselves, mostly from Hindu backgrounds. And these are the pastors that we will start teaching tomorrow.

During a visit to town, I learned about Indian bargaining today. Or at least, I started to learn. The first time I bargained the price down 30%. The second time I bargained the price down 60%. But still my new India friends told me I paid too much. I should have stuck to 80% discount from asking price. Maybe I'll get there...

Over dinner I learned more about the Indian marriage system, how dowries work, how hard these Indians who minister under OM work in incredibly difficult ministry conditions, and thought about what it means to be a Westerner in the midst of this culture. And what my responsibility is as a member of the same body of Christ.

My privileged place in life must be something God wants to use. But how? And when? Being here is definitely a start for me. And maybe it'll be the end. But maybe there's more? As I said, my head is spinning.