Our New Home

David writes:
Our one-month visit to Nepal and India in 2007 was a four-week journey into another world.  I was the wide-eyed traveler enamored with the exotic experience of being in India for the first time.  We have now been in our destination city for two days and already my experience is different.  The things that caught my eye and resulted in 1500 photos on my 2007 trip are no longer new and intoxicating.  This time my thoughts are tumbling as I consider that very soon it will be necessary for us to make our own way in this seemingly chaotic, overwhelming new culture.

We cannot lean on our gracious Indian hosts for too long. They are busy carrying the weight of leadership for a ministry network of 1500+ pastors and churches.  Their home is a revolving door of visitors and staff members seeking their assistance.  Their cell phones ring every five minutes.  Their kindness and patience toward us hour after hour is humbling, but realistically they cannot afford all this time to cook for us, drive us places, and help us shop.  We need to stretch our wings and fly.

I have been experiencing an emotion that barely touched me during my 2007 trip and never once entered my mind during these 18 months of preparation: fear.  Woke up this morning at 3:25am (body clock is wacked), and spent extended time in prayer and Bible reading.  "Who will bring me to the fortified city?" (Psalm 60:9).