India - The Team

The best part of our India missions trip were the incredible people that we were able to work with.  While we were there with a large group of Americans, we were broken into teams of three and we spent the majority of our time working in those teams.  Our fellow American was a fabulous young lady named Kaylee.  Kaylee is from California (but we didn't hold that against her) and was actually on her second e3 missions trip.  We leaned very heavily on Kaylee and learned a lot from her.

I especially appreciated Kaylee when she pushed me into sharing with someone on our first day of ministry.  I, being an introvert, was terrified.  She had gotten the conversation started with someone and when she saw me walk up, she handed it over to me.  I tried to turn her down but she was having none of it.  Forced into the situation, I forged ahead and realized it was a piece of cake.  It was so much easier from that point forward.  I owe that to Kaylee!  Here is the amazing Kaylee:

e3 insists that everyone going on a missions trip be paired up with their own translator so we had three translators assigned to our team but we were fortunate enough to work with a total of five translators.  We grew extremely close to these men and were inspired by their faith and commitment to Christ.  God is using these guys mightily for His cause and we were honored to be able to work side by side with them.

Here are three translators we worked with the most (they also happen to be the ones there for picture day).

Elisha:



Godson:

Sunil:

We were also incredibly blessed to have the best driver on the trip.  The drivers were paid to simply take us from the hotel to the village.  They could then sit and sleep in their jeeps until we were ready to be driven back to the hotel.  Our driver went so far above and beyond that duty.  He escorted us everywhere, carried stuff for us, helped us with translation, and worked as our photographer (which he was quite good at, I might add).  We fell in love with Taj and know that he also fell in love with us.  We all teared up when we had to leave.  Here we are with Taj:

Here are some additional pictures of our team:

Our last day just happened to also be Taj's birthday.  We celebrated with cake and presents.  The translators went together and got him a Bible in the local language.  We also gave him Am's Bible, an Evangecube, and an I am Second bracelet.  One of the traditions in India is feeding each other cake so there are also some lovely pictures of me getting my face stuffed!  We had a great time!



Our team truly was spectacular and made our experience in India one that we will never forget.  Thanks to modern technology, we have been able to keep in touch with many of these guys on Facebook.  Thank you Mark Zuckerberg!