"There's a first time for everything" ... The many new ones we've experienced

When you move to a new country (especially one literally half way around the world), countless new experiences hit you in the face rather abruptly. Some events are exhilarating and others are downright terrifying.  One day a new experience will make you want to stand in a corner and cry, and then the very next day, something new will happen that will make you take a step back and say, “Wow, I live in such a magical, neat place.”

Coming up on a year tomorrow, we look back on our time and say, “That was the first time I’ve ever done ‘that’ … or ‘that’ … or ‘that’.” Needless to say, we have experienced and been stretched so much more in the past year than we have from many years of our lives combined. I say this with the intention of understanding the importance of every year in our life but also recognizing that the amount of new things that have fallen into our unexpected laps is something hardly forgettable.

Cheers to the pictures that remind us of the many “firsts” we’ve experienced in our first year here!

 

The first time to enjoy nightly sunsets from the roof (unfortunately setting into the smog..).

My first time to ride on a bicycle rickshaw. As you can tell by my arm tightly gripped around G's, I was terrified the entire time that I was going to fall off the side.

First time to celebrate a major festival feast with our friends.

First time to share my traveling space with so many creatures!

First time to visit a South Asian carnival. Very scary standard of rules might I add, AKA there are generally no rules or regulations to riding the rides--Imagine people standing on the ends of the swinging pirate ship...

First time to ride a passenger train to visit a friend outside the city for a baby shower. This is the kind of train where you stuff into an uncomfortable train with tons of other people, meet/sit next to men who drop of empty milk cans and pick up full ones at every train stop along the way, and have about a minute and a half to exit the train with the many others pushing on and off too!

First time to celebrate Holi! By throwing water balloons off our balcony and trying to dodge the ones coming at us that are filled with color! (As you can see, G was too busy aiming at our neighbors to worry about getting "colored".

First time not only learning to speak and to understand a language but also to read it! Granted we can only read (and comprehend) at Kindergarten level. Shout out to all the kindergarten kiddos who are working so hard to sound out words and comprehend a story at the same time! How did we ever do that as children?

First time to depend on trains as our main way of traveling to other cities. We have become quite good friends with these sometimes smelly vehicles where you get to know your fellow passengers REALLY well (i.e. wake up on your sleeper bunk to find a man bouncing his baby by your head in "your" bunk..).

First time for G to drive a motorcycle on some of the world's craziest roads. And just recently, my first time to fall off the bike.. in the middle of a busy intersection.. Luckily just fell on my bum when we were going approximately 0.5 mph. No harm done, just another hit with the oh-so-familiar humility hammer.

FIRST TIME TO SEE ONE OF THE WORLD'S WONDERS!

First time to enjoy getting Henna done in a friends home!

First time for me to have my clothes tailor-made. Most of the clothes I own now come from cloth and ribbon I pick out and based on the fitting I tell the tailor. For weddings and other occasions, we both are excited to wear even more cultural clothes.

First time for the both of us to celebrate the 4th of July outside of the U.S.

First time to be inundated by torrential downpours. And learning how to function with so much rain and flooding.

First time to have a friendly neighborhood cow! :) This fellow walked through the park outside our house (with the human in the background alongside him) everyday.

This is a crazy one. First time to have a human dishwasher instead of a machine one. After some time I'm starting to get used to people being used more than machines here, and I kinda like it. It's fun to have a familiar face everyday in your home and get to make a new friend. Luckily our counters were more her height than mine! :)

First time to see the Himalayas. (Look closely at the white capped beauties in the background.)

We are thankful for all the new things we are learning and adjusting to, even when sometimes those very things really challenge us and the people we thought we were. There is still so much for us to learn about our true selves when put in situations so different then what we're accustomed to. Thankfulness to the Lord abounds when we see the ways we've grown when faced with new challenges as well as when we look at the wonderful new experiences in our lives.

-Rachel

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Sheep Among Wolves - Shrewd And Innocent

“I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore, you must be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” – Jesus

These instructions from Jesus didn’t really hit home with me until last week.  We read them that day, after being here in South Asia for almost a year now, and they had so much more meaning than they had before. 

I feel like I have learned a lot about being a sheep among wolves over the past year. 

As for wolves, they are on the prowl, looking for a meal, and looking for a weaker animal to take advantage of.  Many people around us see us as a golden ticket and as people with money growing out of our ears. In a land where resources (food, money, space, etc.) are scarce, we often look like a lone lamb that has wandered from its flock.

Some of the words I have heard as characteristics of sheep are timid, gullible, fearful, needy, and defenseless. They often don’t know where to go or how to take care of themselves. Most, if not all, of those words have described us at some point over the past year. 

We have been those sheep here wandering not knowing where to go, how to do things, how to find the things we need, how to decide which people are our friends and which are our enemies. Often times clinging to the few people that we are only pretty sure are for us and not against us. 

And although I have acknowledged myself as a sheep spiritually and mentally many times, it has driven the point home all the more as we walk as sheep in the physical as well. Praise the Lord though, we have a good Shepherd who has been watching over us guiding, protecting, and providing for us. And what’s more our Shepherd wants all of these wolves (who are really just sheep without a shepherd) to be a part of His flock as well.

SO, I am trying to learn how to be as wise and cunning and shrewd as a snake, yet as gentle and harmless and innocent as a dove. How to be watchful and mindful of the wolves around me. How to make decisions that keep us close to the Shepherd, instead of wandering alone. How, as Matthew Henry says, “to avoid all things which give advantage to our enemies, all meddling with worldly or political concerns, all appearance of evil or selfishness, and all underhand measures.” 

And at the same time, how to steer clear of the arguments and fights that wolves often try to create. How to walk in righteousness instead of retaliation. How to leave my defense and protection in the more than able hands of my Good Shepherd.

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