By Carol Fischer

INDIA is no longer across the world. India is here at FCC. If you doubt that, then just talk to any one of the team that just returned from India. They will all tell you that India is in their hearts and on their minds. For the rest of their lives they will never forget this journey to the far side of the world. They will never forget the look of the faces of children and families who found out for the first time ever, that they were special, that God loved them, and someone cared for them.

We can send money and supplies to places like India but the real mission happens when we send people from our church to touch the lives of the Indian people. Words and paper and gifts and money will fade with time. However, the smiles, the tears, the hugs, the love that our team took to India will never ever be forgotten.

For one moment in time the untouchables of India were touched. Someone thought it was okay to reach out and hug those people. Someone thought it was all right to walk into their lives with caring and love. Across the world there was a place called America and the people in America cared about them, came to India to tell them, and left them with full hearts.

We cannot imagine for a moment what life would be like if no one would speak to us, help us, let us live next door to them, be shunned every single day. The class system is supposed to be gone in India but it is not. It is real and it is unloving and uncaring and brutal. It shows no mercy, no love, and no compassion. That is why FCC sent the Mission Team.

That is why we were willing to do whatever was necessary to get these people to India. We wanted the Indian people to know that Jesus is real. We wanted them to know that because of Jesus they could know personal and up close the love of a heavenly Father. We could not have given these people anything more wonderful.

Every one of the team that went to India gave up his or her comfort zones to serve the Lord. Every one of the team looked beyond what their eyes saw and looked with the hearts that God gave them for India. They will dream of those haunting eyes and desperate people for months to come. They will know they did the very best they could, reached as many Indians as God could send them, heard the call to serve and went forth with faith that God would bless these people because of this team from FCC. This is only the beginning. This is the start of what God wants for our church body. Every single family and every single person that walks through these doors should have that chance. We should all be looking forward to where God wants to send us, each one, in the coming years.

Where will God send you? Where will God use your family to tell the world that Jesus Christ is real, that someone loves them and cares for them? In the coming months and years you will read of endless opportunities to serve the Lord through Missions. You may be asked to give of your time or your money or maybe supplies that are needed in faraway villages that have no electricity or running water. You may be asked to help send doctors or dentists to minister to people who have never seen a doctor and who cannot afford even a small bottle of aspirin.

The team from India brought us the people of India through their eyes. They helped us to see how important our reaching out means to third world countries. Where will God use you? Open your hearts and your eyes and your resources to what God is asking us here at FCC to do. This is in the name of Jesus. This is the beginning of our journey to reach the far corners of the earth. Will you listen? Will you be ready? Ask the team from India. They are all ready to go again wherever God sends them. Thank you India team for going for us, loving for us, reaching out for us, showing the lost a way. We couldn't go, so we sent you.