Day One: Fireworks Welcome You Home

In order for this story to make sense we need to jump in our time machines and go back a little farther than this trip. The two weeks leading up to our departure were really difficult for me. I started feeling like I had made up all the confirmation I had been given that encouraged me to say yes to going on this trip.

The week before the trip one of my teammates planned a prayer night for the team at his house. We gathered together talked about why we were going on the trip, worshiped together and friends prayed over us. As we were worshipping Joy started talking about how our God gives His children good gifts, saying it was okay to ask Him for things expecting a response. She encouraged us to keep asking even if we weren't getting answers, so I decided to ask God for one more confirmation that I was meant to be going on this trip. I told Him that I would not go if He did not say it was okay. 

I have this thing with fireworks, so I asked God to give someone who was praying for us a picture of a firework. No one got anything. I left feeling very disappointed, but decided to be stubborn in my request, so I kept asking all week long. Nothing. 

Christmas Eve, two days before we were suppose to leave, I received the last bit of funding needed to go on the trip but I was still not convinced I should go. I was very close to calling Lauri, one of our trip leaders, and telling her I would be staying in America. As I was thinking all of this, sitting with my family watching Duck Dynasty (a real american moment right there), loud popping noises started going off in my neighborhood. I look out the window and some kid is lighting off fireworks in the street. Needless to say, I got on the plane to India.

Flash forward: After two plane rides, and a ten hour drive from the Hyderabad airport to Tenali, I was starting to forget the Christmas Eve firework show God gifted me with. It's amazing how easily we forget God's goodness and provision. I was again feeling like I shouldn't have come and felt segregated  from the team because I was not excited to be there like everyone else was. 

We reached the house Harvest India had for us to stay at and gathered on the roof so the girls could pick out fabrics for our saris and punjabis. As I am sitting there, rather out of it,  familiar popping noises started coming from the streets. 

I go to Christina, Suresh Kumar the president of Harvest India's wife, and ask her what that popping noise was. She responds "Fireworks." I may have started squeaking a little bit, and made her repeat herself. She probably thought I was crazy, but she graciously explained that there was a Hindu festival happening in the streets and they were lighting fireworks off. In the middle of the afternoon. 

So, naturally, I have to explain to her why I am losing it, since I'm almost crying, and she simply responds "God is good." Yes, yes He is Christina. And He gives good gifts to His children.