Moment:
September 7th at 10:47 AM IST
”How many of you are ready to take a quiz?!”
*actual crickets chirp*
This weekend consisted of water balloon fights, walks through nature, poster-making contests, and pushing a car out of the mud. It also included learning about the gospel and meeting awesome musicians who are passionate about worship. Yep, I went to church camp!
It was a UESI (Union of Evangelical Students of India) camp, and this ministry holds a very special place in my heart because my parents were very involved in the organization in college. Then, when my parents moved to the US, they started serving in OF-UESI, the “Overseas Friends” of UESI, so I have been going to OFUESI conferences and bible studies for as long as I can remember. The OFUESI conference back home is always during my birthday weekend, and I was really disappointed that I had to miss it, but instead I got to go to the UESI camp in India!
I went with Jose Uncle and Keren Aunty, who are both English Bible study leaders at the University of Hyderabad. I got connected with them back in June when my dad took me to a Bible study near campus. My dad became a Christian through a UESI bible study at the University of Hyderabad, so he wanted to introduce me to some of the people he knew in the area before I started my study abroad experience. I didn’t think I’d know anyone, but when we walked into that bible study, we saw Jose Uncle in the front leading the discussion.
It was such a crazy moment for me because Jose Uncle actually used to live in Austin about 13 years ago, and he used to spend every single weekend with our family. We went on road trips, played Brain Quest, celebrated birthdays and holidays, and when he was leaving, my 6-year-old self made him a collage of all of the memories we shared. We gradually lost touch over the years, during which he got married, had twin girls (Shipra and Jedida), moved to Hyderabad, and got involved with the ministry of UESI. When we reunited, Jose Uncle told my dad that we took care of him when he was in a foreign country away from his family, so now it is his family’s turn to take care of me. They have been such a source of love and encouragement during my time here, and I’m so grateful that we crossed paths again.
They picked me up from campus early on Saturday morning, and we drove about an hour out to the UESI - Telangana campsite. There were about 100 students and mentors who came out to this beautiful village, which had such a fun and relaxing atmosphere. We played a bunch of games, and one of them involved passing water down a line using cups to pour it over our heads, and most of the water wound up all over us. It was refreshing in the heat at the time, until we moved on to the next game, which consisted of finding candies in a giant bowl of flour...with our faces. The water and flour mixed together, and by the end of it, we were all basically covered in chapati dough.
Most of our time at the camp was spent attending sessions revolving around the theme of “Shaking Off Shackles.” We learned about how a once-perfect world got to be so broken now, and how we can have hope in the fact that God plans to one day restore order on Earth. We talked about how even now, He has the power to restore our own lives, and we had a group discussion about stress and depression, which tend to result from a lot of the struggles that we face in our day-to-day lives. It was valuable to have conversations about the horrible things that happen in the world and our personal lives, as well as how to deal with those things, because more often than not, society tends to stigmatize the depression and stress that so many people experience in this increasingly conflicted and violent world.
One way we were encouraged to cope with the stresses of the world is to find a supportive community, which I think I’ve definitely found in UESI. Everyone is so kind and servant-hearted, and they exemplify what it means to love your neighbor before yourself. I witnessed this in something as simple as the meals, as everyone pitched in to cut vegetables, go on grocery story runs, make chai, wash dishes, and serve food to everyone. Even Jose Uncle’s daughters were peeling eggs or stirring pots of curry (those pots are giant!).
This whole weekend was a beautiful picture of people coming together as a family and simply seeking to edify each other. It was amazing to have this shared experience not only with the other students at the camp, but also with my parents, who attended these camps decades ago. It’s been almost a week now and I’m still talking about camp to literally everyone who will listen, including my parents, who patiently endured my 3.5-hour long phone call about it. But lucky for you all, I just put it in a post :)
