GFA Youth Trip to India

What happens when 10 teenage girls swap their blue jeans for two-piece punjabi dresses and set off for their first-ever excursion to India? They take the jet lag in stride, remind each other about the cultural no-nos, and learn to smile (and smile again) when they can't speak the language.

Such little inconveniences were well worth the chance to see India for themselves. Led by a GFA staff couple, the team of girls ranged in age from 14 to 19. All but one are the daughters of staff who serve at the home office near Dallas, Texas.

As part of the GFA family, they can recite in their sleep the statistic that nearly 3 billion people in the world have yet to hear the name of Jesus. But by looking into the faces of Dalit children at a GFA school or putting a Gospel tract in someone's hand, it all came home to them in living color.

“You could see the lostness in people's eyes,” said one.

Two team members were passing out tracts with a GFA native missionary when some villagers brought a 14-year-old girl to them for prayer. Sukana was suffering from advanced diabetes and had lost half her body weight.

“She looked like a skeleton with skin on,” said one from the team. “We prayed for her, and then continued passing out tracts. Later, I saw Sukana sitting at the end of a cement block with other villagers and sat down next to her. She motioned for me to pray, and I did. I noticed that she kept pulling her cloak tighter, like she was cold, so I put my arms around her. She laid her head against mine and we sat like that for about 10 minutes. I took her hand as I stood to leave. She clung to it tightly and did not let go for a minute or two.

"I will never forget Sukana or her hunger for love."

In sharing a Gospel tract with an elderly woman, one team member saw the wisdom of Indians reaching their own people. "Of course I don't speak Banjera, but I prayed silently while [the interpreter] led her to Jesus. It is so cool to think that she is going to heaven and not to hell—and we were part of that! Also, it reaffirmed in my heart that native missions is the best way because I don't know the language or culture and would not have been able to lead her to Christ."

Haryana:"I'm Standing in a Leper Colony"

In North India, the team visited a leper colony (community) where a team of GFA Bible women were working. GFA began ministering to lepers in 2002. While leprosy is a treatable disease, there is still much stigma associated with it in India, which has 64 percent of the world's leprosy cases.

As several from the team gave out sweaters and candy, they were met with smiles and wishes for a "Happy Christmas."

"I'm standing in a leper colony," wrote one in her journal, "thinking how these people, starving for love, are now being given the knowledge of the incomparable love of Jesus. I stepped up and placed a sweet in each disfigured hand, overwhelmed to be touching the limbs of these suffering people."

"Aside from having leprosy, these people are just like me," noted another. "They have feelings and emotions and a soul. My mind was racing with thoughts like, What we do at the U.S. office really makes a difference.

"Native missionaries were able to reach this colony because of the support given by Christians around the world. That was an extraordinary thing to realize."

When the team prepared to leave, one of them noticed an elderly woman in a dirty, green sari standing nearby. "She was trying to do the namaste greeting, but she had no hands. [Indians commonly greet each other in this way, with palms pressed together in prayer fashion and a bow of the head.] She was putting her two limbs together, saying ‘Namaste.' It made me feel both sad and blessed."

On a tour of GFA's headquarters in southern India, the girls saw the web press that produces 300,000 Scriptures each month for the mission field. The pressmen regularly rotate the languages printed and also operate several other presses printing Gospel literature.

"These [rolls of] paper I'm seeing, these words I'm reading, these Bibles I'm touching will bring hundreds into heaven," said one team member. She was inspired to pray more for the literature outreach when someone offered her a freshly printed New Testament in Bengali. "At first I felt guilty for taking it, since I can't read it. But then I decided that if I pray for the Bible ministry every time I see it, it's worth it."

The team also spent time visiting with students at Gospel for Asia Biblical Seminary and saw where GFA broadcasters record radio programs. And they loved sailing on the Servant boat, which our missionaries use to reach coastal villages with the Gospel. Surrounded by palm trees and rice fields, it was a moment to relax.

"He is Allowing Me to See His Beauty"

"Psalm 27:4 ‘...to behold the beauty of the Lord.' As I am here [at a GFA Bible school], He is allowing me to see His beauty in all of these girls I am seeing." –journal entry

"All of these girls" refers to the Bible school students—future missionary Bible women—who welcomed the team with flower leis, song and cultural dance. "What they did next I was totally unprepared for," recalled one. "They poured water into a large bowl and washed our feet. It was overwhelming. I was challenged by their incredible humility and servanthood. Who am I?"

The next morning, the girls worshipped Indian-style with their new friends, sitting on the floor, separate from the men. With prayer shawls covering their heads, they clapped along to Hindi worship songs. "When the [Indian] girls sang in Hindi, their faces lit up," recalled one. "They just worshipped God."

On a visit to a Dalit school, where students put on a program for them, the girls were deeply moved by the principal's testimony. At 14 she was turned out of her home for becoming a Christian. Barely getting by on her own, she wore the same punjabi dress for two years. Through her, the team saw what beauty of character such testings can fashion.

"When I'm in heaven," said one team member, "who will care if I had name brand clothes? What matters is what will last for eternity, like my relationship with God and reaching the lost with the Gospel."

"I want to weep over what breaks God's heart. I want to be completely changed."

For now they are looking at their own hearts, courageous enough to confront what's there. "I realized how much I am consumed with self, how much I take things for granted. I was kind of disgusted in a way."

The longing to be changed—to have their hearts enlarged to love the nearly 3 billion unreached, to weep over a Sukana—was unanimous.