l.a.

we landed in l.a. on saturday morning and flew out on monday night. i had no idea that my mind could be blown in only 3ish days. our hosts were aaron and stephanie glenn, 2 truett alums that went on this same trip to india with dr. stroope 6 years ago. now they live in l.a. and work with hindu students on the campus of usc.

if i write in paragraph form, i'll end up writing a novel, so let's bullet point the highlights:

• aaron and stephanie are phenomenal. they truly live out romans 12, loving genuinely and outdoing others in showing honor. i pray i can develop such a gift of hospitality. they love their students deeply and want them to know what it means to love jesus.
• some of their hindu students showed us around a hindu temple one morning, then hung out with us at the beach and for a pizza/LOST finale party that night. just asking the right questions and being willing to listen can lead to some pretty fascinating conversations.
  
• i love college football. seeing the rose bowl = dream come true.
  
• malibu beach is beautiful. hiking a mountain while looking at the ocean is pretty unreal.
• the dean of religious life at usc is a hindu. we learned so much from him about hinduism and hindu nationalism in india. he spoke about ways christianity and hinduism could learn from each other, ways they're alike and ways they're different, what to expect in india in terms of the various religions, etc. he's brilliant and super interesting.
  
• everywhere the dean told us to visit in india is already on our itinerary. dr. stroope: "cara jane, i don't plan b team trips. this is an a team tour." well, perfect. this ain't his first rodeo, i guess.
• dr. stroope outside of the classroom = HILARIOUS.
• i fell asleep during the LOST finale, but that's okay, because let's be honest...it was slightly disappointing anyways, right?
  
• we had a conversation with a guy named h.l. richard. he's one of the leading voices on rethinking hindu/christian relations. talk about a character. he lived in india for over 20 years and has done an immense amount of research on top of that, so his knowledge was mind-boggling, and his views and perspectives on mission were definitely outside of the box.
  
• a few questions that are already making my head hurt: what is the gospel? what is conversion? what does "salvation" look like? what does it mean for a hindu to love jesus? how much of christianity is cultural and how much is biblical? and this is only the tip of the iceberg....
• people-watching at LAX = a fantastic pastime.

okay that's all for now. i'm sure i'll try to post more thoughts after our days of trekking around hong kong. you know i'm excited. thank you for your continued prayers. as dr. stroope prayed yesterday, "we pray not because we know how to, but because we know we need to." amen.