“My dad grew up in the church [BCC], but my parents left when I was 4 years old.”
The family becomes part of a Presbyterian congregation, and his father eventually becomes its leader.
“My grandmother and my father’s siblings were still in BCC. The road to school was long and impassable, so from the age of 5 I lived with my grandmother for three years and later with my aunt, who lived closer to the school. I really wanted to leave the Presbyterian church, but my parents didn’t like the idea. My father was the leader, and it wasn’t a good example if his son chose something else.”
Studying engineering leads to meeting the church
After finishing school, Badap applies for university and is admitted to study engineering in 2016. But it’s with mixed feelings, because by choosing state universities in India, you can be placed arbitrarily. Badap ends up in Punjab, almost 3000 kilometers away from his home.
One day in 2018, he gets a call from his uncle Daniel, inviting him to come to Mumbai At the same time, his uncle arranges an internship in a Norwegian-owned construction company.
Badap accepts. As a result, he joins his uncle at a meeting in a more established Christian community, where, he gets to experience something completely different from what he is used to:
“Here there is peace, here there is love. I noticed it right away,” Badap says emphatically.
“It’s not easy to see on the surface if people are serving God, but when you hear the words of the Bible and their testimonies, you realize that this is real. There is a life behind it. It was completely different from what I had experienced before,” Badap explains.
He emphasizes the word “completely.”
Facts about YEP
- Stands for Youth Exchange Program
- A youth program for BCC members that provides a foundation for Christian and practical life
- Participants come from countries outside the EU and EEA and are affiliated with a local church in Norway
- Participants are employed by BCC Event, which provides salary (pocket money), board, lodging, transportation and occupational injury insurance, in addition to training, development and education
- Collaborates with the BCC A-team, which offers Bible teaching and leisure activities
- Meets the criteria of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) for youth programs
Lockdown changes the plan
In February 2020, he gets a new internship, but when the world goes into lockdown just over a month later, he cannot return to university in Punjab.
“That’s why I stayed in Mumbai for a year during lockdown and lived with three boys. Two of them are actually here with me at YEP now,” he explains.
After four months without visitors, Badap and his housemates are hungry for social interaction. Their first guests are two young people from the church in Mumbai.
“They talked about what YEP is, that you live together with people from other cultures. They said that in the beginning, it wasn’t easy to be bold enough to talk to everyone, coming as they do from many different countries and cultures.”
It’s not entirely clear what he means by being bold in this context. Badap elaborates:
“We from India tend to think that people from Europe are not on the same level as us, that we can’t talk to them.”
Later, Badap will get first-hand experience of this. We will come back to that.
He meets several people who talk about the program and the Bible teaching they are getting, which makes a strong impression:
“They said that they had personally experienced real conversion at YEP, but that this was not a given. You may get ‘nothing’ out of the year, but if you give your heart to God, you can get a lot of value out of it.”
One night he makes up his mind: No matter what happens, he has to go to YEP.
A turning point for the whole family
Easter 2022 is a turning point for Badap’s family. Along with his new friends from Mumbai he participates in Easter Camp in Langtor in northeast India, where he comes from. His travel companions make a good impression at home.
“At home they gave us the testimony that we had a strong connection with God. But then I felt like, no! It’s not true in me. I don’t have that connection with God that the others have. It created a longing inside me to seek God more.”
Shortly after this, Badap has a conversation with his father about what they have both experienced from the church, about faith, and how God’s word has helped them. It becomes clear that their experiences of the church are somewhat different, and that much has developed in the years since their father left.
Three or four months later, Badap hears that his family now also wants to join the church.
“I was really happy,” says Badap. “This was something I had wanted all my life.”
Turning family life upside down
He talks about how becoming part of BCC has affected their family life.
“Before, there was no peace, and it was difficult to be humble and submit to each other. We couldn’t talk about God’s word, and we didn’t realize how important it was to be good to our younger brothers and sisters who look up to us.”
But now that’s all been turned upside down.
“Now we’re busy all week and involved with things in the church. For example, activities and preparations, and then we learn Norwegian. As siblings, we can now share experiences and talk to each other, and I can help others with the help I myself have received from the preaching and from God’s word.”
Badap is the eldest of nine siblings and it’s clear that he feels the responsibility of being a role model in the family. He slips in a point which is obviously important to him:
“I would recommend a year at YEP to all my siblings.”
Facts about Badap
- Age: 27
- Lives with one person from Switzerland, two from Germany, one from Brazil, one from China, one from India, and one from Norway
- Participates in YEP, which includes Christian event management
- Occupation: Bachelor’s degree in engineering
- Eldest of 9 siblings. His brother is going to YEP next year
Everyday life at YEP
Now we come to the main point, because in 2023 Badap gets the opportunity to travel to Norway and participate in YEP. He works for BCC Event preparing and running events, and his skills as an engineer come in handy, as he is tasked with designing a 3D model to be used at the festive weekend planned for October.
In addition to evening activities, Bible study, meetings and visits, he spends a lot of time at his home in Moss, where he now lives with seven other boys from six different countries.
As his friends had told him during the lockdown conversation, it’s not easy to come from India and be part of an international community. You may feel inferior.
Breaking down cultural barriers
“When I came here, I could recognize what my friends had told me. It was difficult to be bold in front of those who are not from India. But after a few months, I discovered that it was my own complicated thoughts that were holding me back. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. We all want to do God’s will and so there is much we can learn from each other. We have light on different things and can talk together and then we get revelation together.”
What Badap describes is the experience of having fellowship in spirit.
“Now I can talk to everyone, because they are people who serve God. We have become like a family with strong ties.”
He believes that the biggest thing that has happened during his stay at YEP is that the cultural barriers have been broken.
“I have to understand and respect the culture in Norway, and conversely, my friends from other countries don’t talk badly about India. My experience is that when we respect each other, we can have fellowship.”
What they do with the food
In a household, there are also many practical things that need to work.
“Things go very well in our house,” he laughs. “But not everyone can cook.”
He explains that he learned to cook Italian food because two Indian cooks became too much for his housemates.
“You have to use your talents in a way that is a blessing to others,” says Badap.
He is quite fluent in Norwegian now.
“It helps to live with someone who can’t, or won’t, speak English,” says Badap. In the house, they have agreed to always speak Norwegian. Those who already know Norwegian work hard to help the others, because if you don’t know the language, it’s easy to become a bit of an outsider.
“I am grateful to those who have taught us Norwegian. I actually knew very little at the beginning of the YEP year and I found it difficult to learn, but I have worked a lot on it.”
“I’m going home”
The last question I have is what is the plan for next year?
“I’m going home,” says Badap with a big smile.
“I’m leaving on August 5 and I’m really looking forward to coming home to my family, because I’ve lived away from them for half my life.”
