Wednesday, April 22, 2009
delhi heat
Delhi is beginning to turn up the heat lol today it was 104.F degrees or 40.C. All of the local people are telling us that we are getting to experience the true Delhi heat.... haha woo hoo as we melt away.
Any ways I thought I would explain a little bit about what ministries we are helping with. So the first week and a half I did Campus ministry and taught children in slum schools, the second 2 weeks I did ESL and Coffee ministry and now for the last 3 or more weeks I am doing medical ministry in the slums.
During Campus we go and make friends minister to them, talk with them, and find out more about Indian culture. We aks them if they need help in anything and really just reach out to the students. During Coffee house we make coffee lol and serve. We basically just work there and hang out with people, we also teach Esl classes for locals and foreigners, which are so much fun. The slum schools are schools that we teach at for the extremely poor people. We get to teach the children English and other subjects. Its such a joy and honor to poor love into their lives. Its crazy how small the rooms are we teach in they are smaller then my kitchen and 70-100 kids are in them. The medical ministry I am doing now is also in the slums, we feed children who are extremely skinny and also weigh every child in the slum to check and make sure they are healthy weights. There are about 1600 families in the slum we work at so that's a lot of kids hahah. We also do door to door visits and have a clinic that is open 3days a week. I really have found the ministry I love and it is working with the families in the slums!
There are so many challenges living here, but I am finally adjusting. God is so good and really has been so faithful :) Im sorry my up-dates are so few but know that I will definitely up-date and take time to tell everyone all of my stories and the crazy things that have happened.
I miss you all
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Site seeing + prayer walk 4/3/09
Our base took us to see the Red fort and to two of the biggest temples in Delhi and the 2nd biggest Hindi temple in the world. Our adventure started when we got on the rented bus and my friend had a rat run over her foot. Needless to say the entire hour tour there and back I did not put my feet on the ground. Ha ha the rat we so gross I wanted to cry, once again it is one of those experiences where I can laugh about it now but in the moment it was awful. We arrived at the temple and walked around, but the feeling was so depressing and dead. We had a chance to go inside and pray, and after that I am even more sure that Jesus Christ is the one true God. While being in India I have felt and seen and experienced Buddhism, Hinduism and many other idol worship and I can say that it truly is just pieces of man made metal. It broke my heart to see so many people just going through the ritual of it all and finding out truly what the religion stands for.All the gods they worship our because they are in fear of them. In America we truly do get a watered down version of these religions but now seeing it with my own eyes, I see the disgusting lies that are involved in it and the torment some people cause on others because of it.
It was awesome to go and pray for them thought and to yet again see how good Jesus is. I also got to use my first public Indian toilet :) it was awesome haha ha although the challenge was where to put our toilet paper after we were done. Next time we will bring zip locks hahaha..... on the way home we also stopped at the Lotus temple which was again so disturbing because it is a place where every religion can worship there own God but when you walk in the tension and aggressive feeling of the place was overwhelming. The one girl named Sammy who is only 14 brought up the good point of how impossible it is for so many religions who contradicted one another worship in one room. The Lotus temple was not a peaceful place and a bit eerie, however I am glad I got to go and experience it. Our site seeing trip was soon over and we arrived back to our home sweet home.
I got to take a "bucket" when we got home which was awesome since we had to walk bare foot almost all day out of respect for the temples. We call our showers here "Buckets" because that is really what they are, we dont have running water for showers so we bath we buckets of water which we bath with in the bathroom. Its hillariouse the entire bathroom just turns into the shower since the floors have the drains right in them. I have my buckets showers now and I kinda feel cleaner after them than real showers! It is the best when you get to shower in the evening since the water then has time to warm up all day in the holding tank ontop of the roof, and if you take one the the morning than you are totally refreshed and awake afterwards lol.
wow I am totally begining to fall in love the India, I will admit at first it was such a changed and as far as higene goes I was really freaked out but now its so chill. There are certain things that still are a bit of mind over matter but for the most part I enjoy all we have to do.
Until next time I love you alll and I am having a blast thatnk you for all your prayers they have helped me get through ruff times!
TADA !
Monday, April 6, 2009
DELHI woot woot
After our eventful bus trip we unloaded our luggage in a main street because the bus could not fit down the tiny street we live off of. As we walked down this street i had my first run in with the auto traffic in Delhi. Literally it was a "Run In" the car just beeped its horn and proceeded to squish its way between me and the other parked cars hitting my luggage and squishing it against the other parked car. Honestly now I am grateful that the driver decided to go slowly or else i might have lost my luggage ha ha... I can now laugh at it, but in the moment I was so shocked and a bit outraged. After that we we shown our living quarters... (God answered my prayers) we are definitely living with true India accommodations. I have come to love our room, however the first night was a bit of an overwhelming adjustment.It dose totally remind me of the orphanage in Annie ha ha ill post pictures of it soon! God is totally awesome though and I am so grateful we have beds and a door that locks :) But seriously it has now become our home and we love it and it makes me so humbled to think of all I have back in the states.
On the second day in India we had awesome food cooked for us, and we found out that the cook who prepared the food would be out cook for the entire outreach! We are all so excited about that, it was sooo Delicious. It was strange to have left on a sunday and then go to bed and wake up on a tuesday morning. I am greatful though that my body adjusted so quickly. God is good! Jai Mashiki
Ill tty (all) soon!
Nomesta, Tada (goodbye)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Week #7
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
One-ness with Christ !
I said while talking to a friend " I can now understand how God can do miracles and how He can move mountains and that with this new closness He and I have, He could actually use me. To come into this abundant love relationship with Christ being the center is breath taking yet so humbling at the same time. As I come to this place and knowing more clearly about who I am as a woman of God I begin to understand the relevance and the beautiful significance of Jesus prayer "and the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one"( john 17:22). I am so grateful for this time learning and growing my life has been forever changed.
At times like these I could fully express entirely how I feel. However all I can end with is that the one-ness and love relationship I am pursuing with God ,overflows and pours itself into ever area of my life and the peace and constant presence of God . With that closness, everything else He requires is a joy and seems to fall into place its beautiful. This type of Christianity/relationship with my creator is totally epic to say the least.
Be encouraged there is ALWAYS more with JESUS !
Rebekah Contarino
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
INDIA is the place to be
Because of complications our team had to choose one place that we all are going to go and we felt God calling us to India.
I love you all and will up-date again on Thursday!!
Love
Becky
Friday, February 6, 2009
Here we are at week # 3 we were taught by Micheal Berg(who is our base
director) and he spoke biblical on restoration! Little did i know
this would be a life changing week for me : ) we spoke on many topics.
One was the father heart of God which i realized how grateful i truly
am for blessing me with such an amazing father in my life as well as
an amazing mom. As we looked at hurts and such that may have come from
our fathers i quickly saw how i was in the group of about three other
girls who could say their dads had not hurt them drastically tainting
there perception of God. I am so grateful God has blessed me with this gift of amazing parents and family!
As the week went on we covered the topic of restoration and forgiveness, this was so moving because at the end of the week we all went and had a time of confession and forgiveness. We split into group with our small group leaders and began a 6 hour journey of heart wrenching openness and healing. This is one of the best things and the most freeing thing I have done. I was able to confess and forgive things I never thought I would be able to do. I so wanted to just run around yelling I am free because of JESUS and what HE has done for me :) At the end of the time we had a small Bonn fire and burned all our papers with names and times of all these things (as seen in the top picture). It was a week were I started to have a new understanding of what God wants us to live in all the time and how vitally important this is for our function as humans,
My prayer is always make this a practice in my life and that everyone I know also have this as well. I felt washed white as snow after this time and a closeness with God that was like taking a breath of fresh air!
I pray the same for all of you : )
Love
Rebekah (becky) Contarino
I am doing so well here! The first week of lecture but the 2ND week I
was in Orlando, we learned about hearing Gods voice by Dean Sherman. . . I have never
had a teaching like this in my whole life. It has already changed my
life drastically in how I communicate with God. On a daily basis I
hear from God now, which is something I treasure so greatly.
T-Time(Testimony Time)
As we were still in the process for seeking God as to where we were going for our out reach Ben (our school leader) asked us all to go and pray and seek God for guidance in where He wanted us to go. In my mind I realized that I really did want to go to Thailand, mainly because I had thought of it in my mind for so long and had learned all about it and told everyone thats were I was going. well as soon as I went out from our meeting to seek God I already realized that He wanted to change some things ( ha ha ). So I prayed a prayer of surrender and yielding that I would hear from Him and not be influenced by my desires and pre conceptions. So as I walked and prayed I just heard God speaking and then it became silent and then came the words of this simple poem:
"wash their feet as I did"
"change their lives and culture as I lived"
When I saw these words written on my page, they were enough , they gave me a hope and cry of Gods heart. As I walked back to hand my paper in to the leadership of what I felt God telling me. I felt content in what God had spoken to me I had a feeling that India was the place we were going, so when they told us we were going to India it came as no surprise. I was so at peace with what God had said however i must admit it was not the place of out reach I was planning on going lol. The words God had spoken really ministered to me, and this is only one of the examples of the beautiful words, pictures and moments with my loving God!
That was just a short story of the wonderful things God has been doing , I love Him so much ... with all of my heart and soul and mind!
Love
Rebekah (becky) Contarino
Thursday, February 5, 2009
a weekend off in Florida
Thursday, January 29, 2009
I'm so excited to be able to write to you all on here, and for the fact that I FINALLY figured it out!! Yay. I sent out a up-date letter, because I was thinking this would take a bit to get together, being that I am not all that computer savvy. Hopefully from here on out though I will have multiple posts a week on my blog along with pictures : )
I hope you are all well and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I hope to have pictures and more news up by tomorrow.
Also I would like to say a quick thank you to all my supporters and there are letters coming in the mail, but I wanted to thank you from my blog as well.