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India
A Land of People Longing for Love and Hope
by Carol
Having recently returned from living in India for one year, I am still in awe at how the Lord is
at work in India. His light of love is shining through. I went to India to serve a Healthcare Initiative. My primary focus was training Community Healthcare Workers who care for the children in Good Shepherd Schools (DEC or Dalit Education Centers) and for the villages that surround the schools. I have been incredibly blessed as I trained these men and women and they taught me about the physical, emotional, spiritual, and economical needs of the dear people of India. Their dedication to caring for the schoolchildren and families and their willingness to be persecuted if necessary is an inspiration. As I walked in their rural villages and experienced the reality of village-living in India my admiration for them deepened. They trust in the Lord with all of their heart. In the oppression that is clearly evident they move forward with a goal of better health for all. They bring Hope by sharing God’s love and providing healthcare.
While caring for families in a clinic, God has shown me the power of His healing through medicine and love. My desire to share love in India in a way that is appropriate for their culture has opened my eyes and heart to the marvelous way the Lord works. Even though many times I have been prohibited from mentioning God’s Word verbally or praying out loud, I have seen miracles of healing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Simply by sitting next to a dear woman who was suffering from burns from abuse and silently praying for her, God touched her heart. Months later she ran to me and hugged me with tears in her eyes. Through a translator she told me that she longed to see me again to tell me that she and her entire family knew the Lord now. She wanted to tell me that she knew I had prayed for her daily while I sat by her in the clinic. My heart leaped with joy to know that only the Holy Spirit could have revealed this to her. As we parted, I longed to hold her in my arms much longer. While I could not speak aloud of the Lord to her, the Indian teams had the freedom to visit in her village and continue with the message of God’s love and His salvation.
I also visited and taught about health in some of the Good Shepherd DEC Schools. Seeing the
children so eager to learn touched my heart. In spite of meager school supplies, crowded classrooms and often resistance from outsiders, they press on toward the goal of a new generation of educated children. They experience the love of Christ every day through their dedicated teachers. The teachers also help the Healthcare Initiative with village medical camps; provide guidance to self-help groups and adult education classes. The entire community benefits from the school's presence. One of the highlights was to spend time with the child I sponsor at a northern India school. She shares her new knowledge of English and hope to her family and educates them!
As I prepare to return to India for two more years, I reflect on what a blessing it has been to me to live in India. As a team, God has allowed us to bring the light and hope of Christ to many downtrodden people. I have experienced the truth in God’s Word in Acts 20:3: "it is more blessed to give than to receive." Following God’s commandment to love and world and His commission to go into the world causes my heart to leap with joy. My prayer, as this next journey of faith begins, is that I may go in His strength, His grace and His peace that passes all understanding.
Redemption and Recovery
January 12, 2010. The day of the earthquake in Haiti. A day when the world turned its eyes on this little Caribbean nation. It was this day that Chapel member Jason Kolb, a physician of emergency medicine, considered whether God would want him to go to help out. But before we go any further, Jason wants to be clear. “This trip is not a story about me,” he said. “This is about God’s redemption and recovery work in Haiti and He asked me to be a part of it and I was amazed at how He did that.”
It started with an email to a friend from high school, Art McMahon, Jr., who had been working as a teacher in Port-au-Prince for the past two years. Art replied that the school had become an impromptu staging ground for medical teams, and he begged Jason to come if there was 
any way possible. “I already had a planned vacation and I asked my wife, Amy, if she would be willing to give that up so I could go, and she was all for it,” he said. “I told God I would do my best, but He would have to be the one to put this trip together. God raised up a team of eight people for the trip and brought together many others to make it happen.”
They landed in Haiti on January 28, spent a couple of days in Port-au-Prince, then went to Petit Goâve to meet up with another medical team in a makeshift clinic at a school. The next day, half the team went to one of the “tent” cities and the other half went to a hospital. At the hospital, the team changed the bandages of 60 patients. Jason said that one of the most painful parts of an injury is the first dressing change, so they were able to bring along medications to sedate the patients first. “What was interesting was a minute or two after the patient got the sedative, almost every single one of them started singing as they went off to sleep,” he said. “And the song was in Creole, and translated they were singing ‘Jesus saves me.’”
The team spent a lot of time in a town called Jérémie, located on the far western tip of Haiti. While this town was not affected by the earthquake, 15,000-20,000 refugees had been ferried there. One thing you learn very quickly about the Haitian people is that they are very stoic and patient. Jason was continually impressed by how patiently they would wait for medical care. He said, “At the outdoor clinics, it was not uncommon for several hundred people to be there at the beginning of the day, and with remarkable patience, they would each wait their turn.”
One of Jason’s more difficult memories came from an incident that wasn’t an injury from the earthquake. The medical team was wrapping up the day at the hospital on the last day there, and a man was rushed in, lying on a wooden door. Apparently in helping to demolish a house, a wall fell on him and crushed his head. His injuries were so severe that they knew he wasn’t going to survive. “It was very surreal. It was this very small room that was our ER. And there were other patients in the room and medical personnel and there’s this man on the door dying,” Jason recalled. “To me it was just a profound moment. This guy didn’t wake up that day and put on his pants and shirt, and say, ‘This is the last day of my life.’ But it was. And it was just a reminder that one day will be the last day of my life. It just had a profound effect on me as we wrapped up our medical ministry.”
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