Eternal Joy

What a week this has been!  When Fleur said that India ministry was going to be full on she was NOT kidding! From Tuesday through Friday our whole team had some of the hardest manual labor any of us have experienced in a long time from 8am in the morning until 1pm or 2pm.  We laid the foundation for a church by shoveling up bricks, rocks and sand into buckets that we as a team lifted up and brought across the way to the land that needed to be leveled.  The first day was really fun just because it was so different than anything we had done thus far during outreach.  Yet as the week went on and each day we became more and more sore, we really had to search out God for his strength.  It is a good thing that as Christians our joy is not reliant on the circumstances we are in but should be consistent even when times get tough!  The next few days we continued to shove rock and then spread dirt by hand across the large area needed for building the church.  While shoveling we found many different bugs including a poisonous centipede as well as 3 different SNAKES (some enjoyed this find more than others).  We actually burnt one of the snakes that may or may not have been poisonous haha.  The ending product was great but I think that all of us will agree that our sore bodies are definitely happy for a little break!

After the manual labor each day we had a couple hours off in the afternoon to shower and rest and then around 5pm every day we were off again to more ministry.  On Tuesday we went to an orphanage where we did a performance much like the first one we did except because it was at night, we had to battle against random power outages.  This is something that India is very known for and not a rare experience.  The kids were VERY well behaved and loved to laugh and play with us!  The orphanage was such a blessing to visit and all of us agreed that even though we were tired and didn't get home until 10pm when we had dinner, we LOVED the  ministry we were involved with! 

Wednesday during the late afternoon we met the pastor of City Rock church here in Chennai with about 20 of his guys from church and just hung out and talked with them.  Though most of them were christian there were a few who were either Muslim or Hindu and one of the guys on our team Jason was able to share with a Muslim guy about the whole story of the Jesus.  Though he had hung out with these guys, he had never really heard or known who Jesus was.  At the end, Jason was able to tell one of the pastors who was a part of that church and they got him a Bible.  God is so good to allow us to have blessed interaction such as this!  After hanging out for a couple hours with these guys we traveled to a few different houses to pray for some of the boys families who either were not christian or just needed prayer.  What a blessing that JUST because we are white westerners, we have the ability to walk into a completely Hindu house and even though we are Christians we are welcomed with open arms and able to pray to God for their family!

Thursday was staff day which means that us students were in charge.  We went to another orphanage which was pretty small.  Only 22 kids ranging from ages 5 to 18 and did an hour and a half performance.  Again these kids were extremely well behaved and respected their "Aunties" (just a respectful word for women older than them).  The performance went great even though all of us were EXTREMELY tired and worn out from all the days of hard labor.  The skits were really funny and the kids loved the games.  We wish that we could have spent more time with all of them because of how well we connected with them!  Friday night we went to the beach to hang out and play sports with over 30 young adults who were from this City Rock church we have been doing ministry with.  It was fun to have made relationships and be able to see them again.  We all had such a good time playing soccer, volleyball, and Frisbee.  They were so willing to talk about what they believed and what a blessing that most of them spoke English very well!  Not all of the students were christian and actually a few of us were able to have conversations with non Christians telling them about our testimonies and how the Lord has affected our own lives. 

Saturday was a planning day and then Sunday we were told we needed to preach at a church which Solveig stepped up to the plate and preached wonderfully about the Holy Spirit.  Yet in India and Thailand we have found that we need to be extremely flexible!  Arriving at church we found out that we are supposed to have an hour long Sunday school for little kids as well!  I love that our team handled this with such grace!  Thanks to singing and dancing and bible stories we were able to pull it off!  Thank you Lord!  Then on Sunday night all of us girls were very excited to find out that we got to dress up in Saree's and go to the very first Indian Gospel Music Awards!  As you can tell by the pictures it was the first time most of us had worn make up in MONTHS and actually taken time to look decent!  Such a fun break from the manual labor and sweating we were used to!  All in all we were VERY tired this week, but also feel great about what the Lord enabled us to get done!  By his strength alone were we able to survive!  Very excited about this next week and seeing God's kingdom come!