I suppose I’ve made you good people wait long enough for the story of India. I have sat down to write about it many times but have just been too distracted or too grumpy or too something-or-other to get it all out.  I wasn’t really sure what was keeping me from telling the details of what I experienced while I was there. But one of my fellow India team members said something the other day that made me realize that I’m having a hard time not taking my feelings on everyone around me. You know, all of the fine folks who are interested in hearing about the trip, but who aren’t able to feel exactly the same things I’m feeling. All my friends and family who really want to see the pictures but who can’t really grasp the whole view, through no fault of their own. Today I spoke with a lady at church who has been on several mission trips internationally and she said that when people ask how your trip was, they don’t really want to know the whole story. All they really want to hear is a couple of highlights, so just think of a couple of things you want to say, and give them that. Well, I am a girl of many words (probably an understatement) so that is really difficult for me to do. And I’m not entirely sure that people don’t want to hear the whole story, but I am pretty sure they don’t want me to expect them to understand the full-on impact and feel the magnitude of the thing the same way I do. I’m pretty darn sure no one wants that heavy load being dumped on them by someone who is still wide-eyed from being in the middle of the stuff. So please forgive me if I’ve already done that to you. I truly didn’t mean to in any way make you feel overwhelmed or depressed or bewildered or bummed or guilty or burdened in a bad way.

I do want to share the details of what I saw and felt. I do want your heart to ache for the children and broken people there, but I can’t expect you to feel exactly the same as I do and then be all salty when you go out and buy another new X-Box instead of sponsoring a child to get them off the street.

Well…

No, seriously…I can’t. And I won’t. Well, I’ll try not to. Or at least I promise that I’ll commit to trying to rip the plank out of my own eye before going after that little speck I think I may have seen in yours. So with that disclaimer in place, I’ll try to tell you the story of India in bite-sized chunks, and hope you don’t hate me a little bit later. Deal?

Okay then.