Joy. God has given me so much joy for the people I have been ministering to. Our team has been split up into 2 smaller teams for ministry. My team has been assigned to one orphanage, Asha Mission, and the other team to a different one, Asha House.  It proved more difficult than I would have thought at first because I already had such a love for the children at both orphanages, and knowing I would hardly get to visit the other orphanage was hard. However, I was incredibly excited to work at Asha Mission because those children were absolutely precious to me.

            Joy. God has given me so much joy through those children. There are about 20 or so children there. Asha Mission has been around for not much longer than a year. Those children are loved so much, and are growing up to have a love for the Lord. I have NEVER seen children worship the Lord the way these children do. Praise God for the environment they are in. One day they won't be there anymore though, and our job is to pour the love of Jesus into them so that they may hold on to the truth of Him for the rest of their lives. Once they leave the orphanage, many other religious influences will be pressing in on them, and our job is to increase their love of Jesus so much that they will never turn away.

            Joy. I look at these children, and I truly experience joy in my life. I love them all so much. Holding them. Talking to them. Playing with them. Teaching them. Singing with them. Praying with them. I cannot even imagine how hard it will be to leave them in a little over 2 months. These children are absolutely precious. I cannot express how much joy it brings to my life to have a little boy come up to me with a card saying, "Megan I Love You Very Good Didi (Didi means sister)."  All of the children are absolutely precious. I cannot say that enough. One girl in particular, Coman, has a big piece of my heart. She doesn't speak any English, she has a crazy amount of energy, and she is quite a handful, but I love her to death. Every time I hold her, every time she smiles at me.....I experience so much joy. She and her sister are very new to the orphanage. They arrived around the same time we did. I love watching how well she takes care of her sister. I've never seen such a young girl play mom so well. Coman truly does have a big piece of my heart, and I would take her home with me if I could. The thought of ever leaving her is a hard one to handle, but for now I will use the time I have to pour the love of Jesus into her and invest into her life as much as I am able to. Pray for me as I continue to minister to her and to the rest of the orphans that I love so much.

            Love. God continues to show me His love for India and for the people here. Despite the dirt, the chaos, the inability to experience much comfort, the heat, the rude and just mean people.......despite all of that and more....God has given me so much love for this place and these people. The orphans, the lepers, and the people on the streets.....I love them. Truly. Some of my team had/has a hard time going to the leper colony, but mayhaps God has blessed me in the fact that I haven't. I fell in love with the lepers the first visit I had there. They are some of the most lovely and beautiful people I have ever met. Despite the deformities, they are beautiful...because Jesus made them. He made them lovely. He made them in His image. The leper colonies are a hard place in the sense that Satan has a strong grip there, but I am determined to bring Jesus there. Satan thinks He's winning, but that won't last.

            Love. God is showing me more and more to love the person He created me to be, and to love my team. I will admit that I have has frustration towards my team at times. It's just what happens when you're with people 24/7, but God is teaching me to love them more. Love is patient....and He is teaching me to live that out more and more. Pray for me as I continue to work on this.

            Surrender. Surrender is something I can speak my thoughts on for hours, but I will attempt to keep this short. God is showing me daily what it means to surrender. To surrender my wants...my needs...my desires...my plans....my attitude...to surrender everything to Him. Surrendering is HARD. It's hard to fully trust God with everything. It's hard because I'm scared. I'm scared to give Him my wants and my needs, because what if He doesn't meet them? I'm scared to give Him my desires, because what if they aren't fulfilled? I'm scared to give him my plans because what if people think I'm crazy? What if He takes me places I can't handle? I'm scared to give Him my attitude, because I'm prideful. But here's what I'm learning more and more: God will meet my needs. God will fulfill my desires. People may think I'm crazy, but so what? God won't give me more than I can handle because He said He won't. And concerning pride, God hates pride. Pride is the opposite of love. So I need to get rid of my pride ASAP.

            Surrender. God is working so much in my life concerning this. It is hard. Let me tell ya...but God IS faithful. I read all these stories of people doing crazy things for Jesus. I want to be one of those people. But there is one thing that all these people have in common: they gave up EVERYTHING for Jesus. I cannot say I am at the point of being able to give up everything for Him, but I want to get to that point. I want to get to the point of complete surrender. God desires me to be there, and I desire me to be there. Pray for me as I struggle with surrender in my life.

            I want to share with you something that's been on my heart lately. This thought goes through my head everyday now..."I too, go up to Jerusalem." Let me start by quoting some Oswald.

            "In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz., our Lord Himself. We start with Christ as we end with Him-‘until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus,' not to our idea of what the Christian life should be. The aim of [a disciple] is to do God's will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen, he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.

            In Our Lord's life Jerusalem was the place where He reached the climax of His Father's will upon the Cross, and unless e go with Jesus there we will have no companionship with Him. Nothing ever discouraged Our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned Our Lord one hair's breadth away from His purpose to go up to Jerusalem.

            ‘The disciple is not above his Master.' The same things will happen to us on our way to our Jerusalem. There will be the works of God manifested through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude and the rest will show gross ingratitude, but nothing must deflect us form going up to our Jerusalem.

            ‘There they crucified Him." That is what happened when Our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that happening is the gateway to our salvation. The saints do not end in crucifixion: by the Lord's grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword is-I too, go up to Jerusalem." (Oswald Chambers)

I also want to quote a couple verses from Romans 8:

            "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, the heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." (Romans 8:16-7 ESV)

            My life is my walk up to Jerusalem. I will have good times, but I cannot disobey God's will to continue on just because I like the point in life that I am at. I will have hard times, but I cannot disobey God's will and be passive during those times or try to escape them. My life will NOT end in crucifixion. My life will end in glory. However, I must suffer with Christ in order to be glorified with Him. I too, go up to Jerusalem.

I want to end with one more thought. Right now I'm reading Under the Overpass. It is an amazing book about two college men who decided to live homeless for 5 months. One of the men decided to write a book about the experience. This is what he said he came out of his experience with, and this is also what I am learning while I am living here in India.

"We decided to go past the edge with God. One day soon, I pray you will, too. And when you do, I think you'll find what we did...

A bigger world, and more reason to care for it.

More forgotten, ruined, beautiful people than we ever imagined existed, and more reason to hope in their redemption.

A greater God, and more reason to journey with Him anywhere."

God has given me joy, love, and a desire to surrender.

I am taking up my cross. I am fighting for joy. I am loving. I am striving for surrender.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." (Isa. 61:1)

Broken. Desiring. Loving. Surrendering.