Who would have guessed?

For those of you that know Adam and/or Sara well, we are a rather unlikely pair to be jet-setting across the globe. Until we were dating, Adam had never been on a plane, and as Fred likes to report, Adam went all the way to India to dip his toes in an ocean. :) 

As for me (Sara), I am not exactly known as "laid back" so traveling presents all sorts of challenges for my Type-A planner nature, and while I have no doubt that I will easily and immediately fall in love with the girls and the Anthony family, some of the other aspects of traveling (flights, time changes, different food, etc.) can leave me a bit anxious.

...And did I mention that neither of us have a good sense of direction?

It can be hard sometimes to explain to people why we are making this trip.  And people understandably want to know. After all, taking a trip like this isn't exactly on everyone's life to-do list!

For me (Sara), it can be hard to articulate why we are going partly because I want to be careful to explain why we are not going.  That is, we are not going to change the world or because we think that in two weeks we can take on a social issue in another country and solve it or because we hold some sort of ultimate answer. We are just two twenty-somethings from Kansas. What do we know?

We are also not going to (to put it bluntly) throw money at something and walk away patting each other on the back, not knowing whether or not it actually helped anyone.

I hope you will forgive my frankness, but it is really an important distinction for both of us to make and quite honestly, it is extremely easy to fall into these thought processes.

With a typical Robertson preface out of the way :) here is my best attempt at why we are going and why we are so very excited to step on that plane in a few weeks:

Basically, for us, it all comes back to relationships.

We are building on relationships Adam began in 2009 when he first visited Love in Action. We are supporting the work of the Anthony family and the beautiful girls that join their home. We are encouraging them in their daily ministry to their family, to their neighborhood, to their city, to their world. We believe in what they are doing--loving each other, fighting for justice, bringing Hope into dark places--and we believe that they are doing it well.

We willingly support their work financially because we believe that to those who have been given much, much is expected. We believe that we are a global family and we are excited to share our resources with them just as our generous community has shared resources with us.

For us, this trip is about saying yes to something that we don't fully understand. We are saying yes to the homemade stenciled invitation we received on pink construction paper last fall addressed to Auntie Sara and Uncle Adam that now hangs in our kitchen. We are saying yes to the call God has placed on us and our marriage from the very start. We are saying yes to something challenging, something stretching, something we expect will cause growth, something that has already caused growth.

Thank you for joining our journey.

How India stole Adam's heart.

As we mentioned before, Adam spent about six weeks back in 2009 interning at Love in Action.

Adam was a first-year teacher and decided back in December to begin planning his summer. He got in touch with Fred from Heartland International Ministries, who is connected with Love in Action in Bangalore.  Before he knew it, his bags were packed and his journey had begun!

Here are a few of his thoughts from that trip taken from various journal entries:

"...I have not been the same since my visit to India. I had the privilege of staying at an orphanage filled to capacity with about twenty children. It is a very humble space in the outskirts of Bangalore, about the size of a typical two-story house in America... but without the luxuries. Yet, I can say with confidence, that the children there have a wealth unmatched in the prosperous homes of America. They possess true freedom through discipline, daily prayer, regular labor, and most importantly, loving fellowship. The name of the orphanage—Love in Action—describes the place as precisely as words are able..." 

"...The family that started this ministry and who welcomed me into their home (which is the orphanage itself), is truly one of the most loving groups of people I have met. Please allow me to take a moment to introduce them: 


Enoch, the patriarch I suppose, is an elderly and vibrant man who is full of wisdom and humility, someone I already deeply respect. His wife Carunia, who I called Auntie, is a frail woman in her frame, but her strength as a mother and wife over the years is astonishing. And finally, their daughter Nancy, who displays such tenderness to all twenty children—she is the essence of motherhood..." 

"...Shortly after I arrived, I had the opportunity to celebrate Father’s Day with the children. I felt a little awkward honestly… Father’s Day in an orphanage… I did not know what to expect. After breakfast, the children announced that they would be hosting an event that evening and would like for us to attend… upstairs. Of course we went, arriving upstairs at the specified time. The children put together an elaborate performance of song and traditional dance, praising their Heavenly Father. At the end, the children also honored Enoch for providing for them and protecting them. I cried the entire time. I kept remembering all the verses I have read about justice—many of which are related to orphans—and felt as though all my recent clumsy efforts to grasp a Biblical vision for social justice were radically challenged by the simplicity and humility of love in action..." 

"...I do not dance. Most people who know me at least know that. Unfortunately, the little girls at Love in Action did not know this about me when I suggested that we celebrate one of our last evenings together. They innocently insisted that I join them on the roof-top where they intended to teach me some traditional Indian dancing. I explained that my body is not capable of such things... that someone might get hurt... that dancing is not Christian... that no human should ever be so undignified. 

Thankfully, it was late enough at night that there was very little light shed on my complete loss of dignity. I could not turn down twenty orphan girls. It was humiliating, it was ugly, and it was dangerous for those who got too close. The girls were overtaken by laughter as they watched me hop and stumble and bow and twirl and kick and... I don't know what I was doing. We all stopped to catch our breath after each song--the girls were laughing too hard, I was simply out of shape. 

But ultimately, I believe this experience was one of the more beautiful of my many lovely experiences in India. The beauty was in forgetting myself; it was a rare moment when I was totally free from my pride. That night we celebrated God: the One who saves us from evil, hunger, poverty, and ourselves..."