After getting home from a missions trip to Trinidad in 2010, Trelawney Erwin knew she wanted to go to India next, although she wasn’t exactly sure why.
Two years later, after she had saved up her money, the 19-year-old was on her way to Texas for a week of training before heading to India for just over three weeks.
“Global Expeditions,” a division of “Teen Mania,” a Texas-based organization that planned the trip, kept the teens and young adults very busy.
“I spent just under a week in Texas, first doing M.A. [Missionary Advisor] training because I’m over 18,” noted Erwin.
“They give us extra leadership training so we could lead the younger kids and were put in charge of smaller groups of them at times.
“The 17-and-younger students came a couple days after we did and then we all trained together,” she added.
“We learned how to write and say our testimonies, did drama training, and cultural training on the things we’d be up against, as far as culture shock, and how to be culturally-sensitive,” Erwin recalled.
With their training complete, they flew to India.
“Every morning we’d have ‘team time’ because we couldn’t go into the villages in the morning because everyone was working,” Erwin explained.
“We would play games and get to know each other better, and we’d work on our children’s ministry [such as organizing a Bible school camp day].
“We would usually leave our place around noon, and then it was a two-hour bus ride to anywhere we went,” she added, noting most of the villages they visited were in remote areas.
“We would go to schools first for a couple of hours, and sometimes do the main drama for them, or we’d do children’s ministry,” Erwin said.
“Or sometimes we’d talk to them about being a good student because it was a government-run school and we wouldn’t be able to do missionary-related things with them.
“Sometimes we’d break off into small groups and talk with them, or play games and teach them songs.”
In addition to the culture being different, the group sometimes had language barriers to contend with.
“Sometimes they spoke English, and the kids spoke more English than the adults did, so we also had a translator,” Erwin noted.
After going to the schools, the group would perform their drama presentation to the villages, then go out into the community and talk to people about the Gospel.
Erwin said the drama presentation was called the “Journeyman” skit, and was about 15 minutes long.
“We do it in their language [Tamil],” she noted. “It’s a recording so we don’t have to speak [they act out the story].
“It [tells] the story of a man trying to find who he is and why he’s on Earth, and it gradually presents the Gospel and Jesus and how he died for us.
“It breaks it down really basically because some of the people there have never even heard of Jesus before,” added Erwin.
“As Hindus, they serve over 300 million different gods, so sometimes they’ll accept what you say, but they’ll say, ‘Yes, okay, I’ll accept Jesus along with my other gods.’”
The Hindus found it difficult to understand Christianity’s concept of serving only one god.
“My favourite part was just really connecting with the people there,” said Erwin. “They are really, really friendly and really open to listening to you.
“They just let you in their house all the time,” she recalled.
“I would go back in a heartbeat.”
Another memorable experience, said Erwin, was when they “got to go to a leper colony, which was really cool because these are people who have been deemed untouchable so they’re not used to people wanting to come in and visit and talk with them.”
“It was really cool to be a part of that,” she enthused.
The group did enjoy a few free days in India.
“One day, we went to the hill where St. Thomas was martyred,” Erwin recalled. “One day we went shopping, and one afternoon we got to hang out at our hotel and go swimming.”
She also reiterated that “the culture is a lot different.”
“It’s a lot dirtier,” she said. “It’s a beautiful landscape, but there is garbage everywhere.
“You have to watch where you step because sometimes the bathroom is the side of the road.”
In addition, “there’s a lot of cows absolutely everywhere,” she laughed.
The females on the team had to dress culturally-appropriate, in long pants and tunics, and all the participants had to follow the customs of the area they were in.
“Men and women do not touch in public, so you couldn’t shake hands with a guy, or I couldn’t give a guy on my team a hug because that would be culturally inappropriate,” Erwin explained.
She admitted the three weeks were “hard,” but that “it was worth every minute of sweating and wanting normal food.”
“I think all I survived on was rice and bread. I didn’t really like any of the curries,” she remarked.
“No beef—that’s illegal in some parts of India because they consider cows sacred and holy, so you cannot kill cows, much less eat them.”
Luckily for Erwin, the program has a tradition in which participants all pack peanut butter and jelly for sandwiches every day for lunch.
“We stayed at a hotel. We were surprised because we actually had beds, and we weren’t supposed to have beds,” she laughed.
She added the showers were broken, so they had “bucket showers,” which were fun.
Overall, Erwin said, “I learned a lot about how to share the Gospel and I made an amazing new family [her team],”
“If anyone is thinking about it, just do it,” she urged. “It changes your perspective.
“Even if you don’t go on a missions trip, even just a volunteer trip to experience a different culture and get that different perspective on life,” she reasoned.
“I know I will go somewhere again, but I don’t know when and I don’t know where,” Erwin added.
“I’m going to start saving as soon as I can.
“I’m thinking of either Panama, Africa, or the Nepal-India trip next time,” she said.
Erwin currently is blogging about her trip at http://indiab2012.tumblr.com
