I am an Uncle!!

Let me explain the title!!! I am an uncle to about 40 or so orphan kiddos that blew me away this week. I heard "Levi Uncle, Levi Uncle" non-stop for a week! These kids have very little to our standards in world, but to these kids are so joyful with what they have. They amaze me with there wants. They want a Bible in English not Hindi, just a little something to remind them of your friendship, but what they really want is to be loved.

That is what the Lord sent our team to do and love on them did we ever. I was taught so much about love through these kids it us unreal. It is hard to put into words how they taught me but I will try. In the states if you told me a kiddo has lice I would leave them alone because I wouldn't want to get. If I would have looked at these kids through my eyes I would have missed an amazing opportunity to share the love and joy of Christ. The Lord allowed me to see these children of God through His eyes and it completely changed my perspective. The Lord taught me unconditional love by this. It never failed that at every meal time, the little girls would ask us to eat their food. They didn't receive much food during the day so this was a huge sacrifice. We didn't eat it, but I tried bits and pieces here and there. It was decent.

These kids also taught me to be joyful with what you have! These kids wore the same clothes for 2 or 3 maybe even 4 days at a time. They don't have the Wii (but had a random controller for some reason) or PlayStation. They didn't have basketball that were aired up (Inez/Chris just a shout out), but these were so grateful for what they had! The joy would beam from their faces constantly and it was because they put their faith in the Lord and knew He would protect them in everything. They trusted He would provide like when we didn't have any water for 2 and 1/2 days. You think they would be panicking nope that was just the Americans there (us). They simply ask for the Lord to provide and did He provide in a mighty way! It rained harder than I have ever seen before! It filled up the well and they even had water out of the tap for a few hours! It was like Christmas for them. This experience from the Lord providing increased my faith.

Some of these kids are here by choice and some are not. One kiddo was telling me his testimony and his parent beat him because he became a Christian. Instead of having hate and malice for his family for that he just asked me to prayer for them to become believers. He at the age of 13 is so firm with his foundation in Christ it blows me away! Another boy came because he wanted to be educated unlike any of his other family members. He hasn't heard from his family except for once to tell him his step-mother passed away in 5 years. He dad would not feed him if he did not worship the idol in the Hindu religion! He is firm in his faith as well at the age of 17. He wants to be an evangelist or a professional soccer player in the States.



Here in India there are several sweet memories and experiences here, but there is a funny one I can share. There is a lady I called "Amma Momma" because she was like the motherly one at the orphanage! I would go and talk to her with her big smile on her face and ask her how she was doing and she would reply "How are you doing" I would answer with "good" and she would reply "good" I then would say things like "Good Morning" and she would respond "Good Morning" I asked her "are you just repeating me?" and she said, "are you just repeating?" so i figure out she was just repeating whatever I was saying and it cracked me up! I would then just start saying random sentences and she would try to repeat them. It was quite funny. She is an amazing lady and has a huge passion for these kids.



Another funny story is after a prayer time we came out and a lab dog had a red mark down the its forehead. It was funny to see a dog like that!



We got to sight see around the Taj Mahal today and it is pretty impressive. Everything is symmetrical except the tombs on the inside. It took 22 years to build it and cost 3 million rubies back in the day. As we were leaving Ronnie Turiaf from the Lakers and Kyle Korver from the Jazz was walking into the Taj Mahal. That was pretty random to see some NBA players.

This experience was great and definitely changing. The Lord is good and He is showing me that in new ways. He is the Ultimate Provider and in Him we need to give thanks.

For His glory and your joy,

Levi Uncle
1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.