Culture Shock?

I can scarcely believe that there are only 21 days left before I leave for India! It's seems surreal right now -- I can't wrap my mind around it. One thought that keeps going through my head is, "How do you prepare for something like this?" Sure, you can do research about the culture and learn lots of generalized information, but that can't really ready you for the shock of being in a foreign country, one so completely different from your own! 

The only poverty I've ever seen are people living on the streets in downtown Toronto -- sitting in cardboard boxes on the sidewalks or sleeping in corners with all their possessions tied to them. India is a heavily populated country with extreme dichotomies of rich and poor. Street children roam everywhere, the problem of AIDS is increasingly rampant and forced prostitution is a fact of life for many. (These are just some of the many issues). What will it be like to actually see poverty with my own eyes, to hold in my arms a child whose limbs are frail and thin, to be at the bedside of someone dying of AIDS? I can't understand it all right now.

The only answer is prayer. Only God can truly equip us as believers to respond in love to the sick, the needy, the orphaned, the widowed. It says in Psalm 146:7-8: "He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but He frustrates the way of the wicked." It is the Lord who does all these things.

Amy Carmichael, who worked for more than 50 years in India, rescuing children from temple prostitution and other dangers, wrote a letter to a young woman who was a missionary candidate. She said to her: "Dear, you are coming to a battlefield. You cannot spend too much time with Him alone." 

This is a poignant reminder for me. Unless we're filled with the Spirit of God, unless God Himself has placed in us His heart, His perfect love, we are nothing. The best way to truly prepare for overseas missions is to spend much time in His presence, seeking His heart and becoming more and more like Jesus Himself.