I love you Mom!!!

During our Christmas break, both Nicole and I had some very deep encounters with Jesus. In particular, at a church service we both said that we were open to God sending us wherever he wanted us. My thought at the time was, “Hey, were in India, where could he possibly send us?” The next day we found out that there was a possibility that would have financially allowed us to stay. I was terrified! My excuse to leave was being taken away. I had never thought that Jesus might ask us to stay where we were! Nicole and I talked through all sorts of things and it didn’t make me feel any better.
Over the next several weeks and months I felt closer to the Lord than I had for years. I listened to a daily audio bible podcast everyday on my walk to and from the school. I prayed almost constantly about it, mostly because I constantly had a knot in my stomach. Slowly I started not only to feel peace about staying, but I started to get excited. I was feeling more fulfilled in my job and in my spiritual life than I could remember. The same concerns were still there, but they just didn’t seem as concerning as they did. Add to that they very unhappy reactions of our family, who had thought we were for sure coming home. Now, depending on what I chose to focus on, I would get excited about that decision. In Iowa, I was excited to be near family, to go to Iowa Football games and to have our dogs back. In India, I was excited to get really invested in the house church we had started going to, for the morning prayer time with co-workers, and for starting to invest in the students.

I still didn’t feel like I had a clear direction one way or the other, but last Friday Nicole got a job offer. All of the sudden we had to make a decision. For the first time, I really closely crunched the numbers on our finances in India with our new possibility. It looked like we could scrap by, really only paying our bills. We couldn’t start to build back up the savings we had before we had come to India. Even as I type this now, I feel like maybe that should have been enough to stay, but there are a few other things that payed into consideration. Back when Nicole and I were engaged we set a goal to pay off my student loans as fast a possible. We especially wanted to pay them off before we started our family. We didn’t want to have the burden of those payments when we started to have more and more financial responsibility. Anyway, if we stayed, all that time would just keep us at the same point with our debt.
So we decided to ask for a raise to my salary so we could at least make a little headway on those loans. If it couldn’t be done, Nicole would accept the job and we would be headed back to Iowa. I felt great peace about either way and was just excited to be near a decision. Before I spoke with the principle a verse that I hadn’t read for years came into my head(Nehemiah 1:11). The part that I remembered says, “… Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.” I thought that seemed fitting, and so I went into my meeting. The principle was quite positive about he possibilities, and brought up one that would keep us at the school for 2 more years and also put us right where we wanted to be financially. (sidenote: a similar thing happened to Nehemiah) Nicole and I were both floored. It felt like God was doing more than we could have asked or imagined. The principle said me was almost sure he could make everything come together, but that he just needed to confirm that over the weekend.

I felt overjoyed, like I was exactly at the place where God wanted me and that he was making perfectly clear. Well come Monday, when I met with the principle the bottom line was that he couldn’t do anything more than the first option where we would just scrap by. In a little bit of a daze, we accepted the job for Nicole and told our families (who were shocked and overjoyed). Right now, I’m a boiling-pot of emotions. There are a job possibilities that I’m excited about in Iowa, but overall I’m scared of sliding back into the mediocre daily life I was living before we came here. This weekend I started to make plans for the next two years of our lives in India. I could see how we would both grow in our faith and character. I saw the challenges before us and was excited to conquer them. I’m not sure what to make of all this right now. Was it just a test to see if we would be willing to stay? Was it to change our hearts, to make us willing to go wherever He calls us? I don’t know, and probably won’t for a while.

What do I know? The God I serve can do anything. He loves me more than I can understand and the more I know about Him the more I want to know. He has my heart and I will follow where he calls. What he has for me is better than the plans I make for myself. Here is my life Lord.

Chris

This one might be worth watching in HD. Just click the little HD icon in the bottom right corner of the video. Then click the full screen button. It might load slow, but looks a lot better.

I put the 2-Wheeler (Indian name for motorcycle) ride first:

What an amazing view:

The next video is driving down the mountain back towards Dehradun. Notice the Indianisms.

Now we start to get into mass population areas. The next video is of a field hockey tournament in Mussoorie.

This is a quick drive through the bizarre in Mussoorie on a Friday afternoon. The buzz isn’t very busy but you get an idea of what it is like.

This video was taken on our way through Dehradun the very first day. It’s still not the crazy overwhelming India I’ve experinced from time to time, but it does give you a taste. You also get to see the general cleanliness level. Not quite the same as the US.

I hope you enjoy these. Please leave comments to let me know what you think.

PS - All of these videos are in HD, but you have to go to watch them on youtube’s site to see them in HD. Just double click the video and it should open in a new window. Then click the HD button!

I also wanted to give a quick link to a short video of a monkey shot from our bedroom.
Rhesus Monkey Playing

507-316-0554

Here’s a picture of a Languor:

Here’s a picture of a Rhesus:

And the video:

What you have to understand about living here is that even at this very forward thinking school, there is a class system. The “employees” are Indian staff who do the manual labor type jobs around the school. The “staff” are a mix of all different nationalities (including Indian) who do the teaching, support staff, and administration. There are many differences between these two groups, including: housing (some seem like poverty level), pay(although it seems better than much of the community), and general social status. I don’t like the double standard, and I don’t want to conform to it, but I don’t feel like I have another choice.

Most of the employees speak very little English so it is very hard to communicate. So how do you break a mold when you can’t even talk to someone? Thinking back to my example today. If I would have refused to let him clean my desk, I think I would have insulted him more than showed that I wasn’t above cleaning my own desk. And another question I ask is, would this guys be any better off if I didn’t let him clean? The school employs almost twice the number of employees and staff. If they paid more would less people benefit from what must be a good paying job in this area? Anyway I need to run to lunch (that more guys made and will serve to me). Just curious if anyway has any thoughts on this?