momma's birthday

Mostly the days here have been very similar since I last posted, except for mom’s birthday… that night at the CDC they totally surprised me with a birthday cake for mom and I got to serve it to each one of the kids!! It was so sweet and so many people told me to “send your mother my birthday greetings!”
We don’t do a lot during the day except “take rest”, and the other day the 4 of us were exploring what God was doing through that. One thing that was mentioned was for prayer, because if we were at home, we would never make the time for it like we do here. Still, I had been feeling guilty, because I don’t think I’ve ever in my life felt like I prayed enough for others, or that it was good enough, but I had no idea what was “good enough”. Yesterday during the 1 ½ hour sermon entirely in Tamil (it was for pastor’s appreciation day… what a way to be appreciated) I had a lot of time to think and read my Bible though, and I came to Luke 11:1-13. This passage contains the Lord’s prayer, which is so simple and straight to the point. It made me think of the verse that talks about not babbling on and on like the pagans do. This passage also says to approach the throne with boldness, believing in what you ask. I think a lot of the time we don’t ask things, because we’re afraid of not receiving the answer we want. However, we know that if we do ask, God will answer, maybe not the way we had hoped, but he will answer. And we need to ask specifically, rather than just generalizing. Just because I pray “please bless Peter”, once more, does not make it happen. If we ask over and and over it’s almost like we’re not trusting that God actually hears and answers. And this frees me to pray for other people, rather than worrying that I did not pray for my mother to be blessed one more time. As for praying without ceasing, it’s more of just being aware that God is constantly there, and keeping Him present in every aspect of your life. Prayer is really about keeping the lines of communication with God open, something that is absolutely critical in every relationship. If I don’t talk to one of my friends for awhile, they’re still my friend, but we’ve lost something in that time we don’t talk. We can catch up, but we still missed out on a part of each others’ lives. I would really like to hear each of your thoughts on prayer and what it means in your lives!
In the CDC the kids get hit with rulers when their grades aren’t up to what the headmaster thinks they should be. At first I thought it was just their culture, a form of discipline I had to accept. But then the 6th standard kids took a test, and the average was 12 out of 50. Each one of them was hit and yelled at, and this I could not just accept, because somewhere the teaching had to have been wrong. If everyone was doing poorly, it could not just be the kids’ fault. This school is the only place most of these kids hear about God, and how is that showing God’s love at all? I don’t have the answers; this is just something all four of us have been struggling with here. I won’t be on for awhile probably… on Monday we embark on a 31 hour journey (3 hour car ride to the train, 27 hour train ride, and 1 hour ride to our hotel) to Mumbai. After we leave there we’re going to Karela, then to the mountain where Kingsley lives most of the year! We’ll be gone for 2 weeks and I may or may not have internet during that time. I love you all though, and will post again as soon as I can!