Friday, 11 November 2011

Farewell India


This is our LAST blog while in India!!  None of us can believe how fast these last 2 months have gone!!  Though most of us are SO ready to go home, we have all been EXTREMELY blessed by this experience and would not trade it for the world!  You would think that these last few days because we were getting ready to leave, ministry would slow down.  Nope, this is India so we go full force until the end!

Starting on Tuesday we had our one day off of ministry and you would never guess what all of us girls did...  We all played Paintball, many of us for the first time, in India of all places!  It was Hilarious!  We all made it out with minor bumps, bruises and sore abs from laughing SO hard!  It was a great last day off that is for sure! 
On Wednesday we all had a full day of ministry starting with the Love Care Center, which is a home for Mentally and Physically handicapped individuals.  We spent time with them while they were doing their homework, sang songs with them and our favorite was dancing with them!  It was such a special place filled with Godly love and acceptance!  After this, the most of us went to a slum to do open airs and pray for individuals throughout the slum.  Solveig and Bethany were the only ones that did not go because they had to go to the Hearing God's Voice class to teach. 

The slums were very intense!  We would walk down the street and look to our right and see people just pooping on the sidewalk right next to us.  There were young kids running everywhere, hanging on our every limb.  When we posted up in the middle of the street and just started doing our Savior drama.  We would start with a crowd of about 15 people and then as soon as the music went on there would be HUNDREDS watching!  We literally stopped traffic in the middle of the street while we performed.  After it was over we would preach the gospel out of a speaker and pray for those who would come forward for blessings and healings!  God was so good and though none of us had any strength to do this, God provided everything we needed throughout this night.

On Thursday we started at 5AM wooooweee!  We had to travel pretty far to three different colonies to provide blankets and rice bags for the entire village while we prayed for and played with the children present.  The first camp we went to was called the Rag Pickers, who lived like the Gypsies we had visited last week.  Just in tents with no houses, in the middle of a dirt field.  Their primary source of income is digging through trash and finding recyclable material, which does not even provide enough money for them to eat.  Though it was hard to see such poverty, it was such a blessing to be able to bring a little bit of the kingdom to them and share with them the love of Christ.  The second camp was called the Irrulares, which were people who made their money through charming snakes.  It was a very dark camp, where they worshipped many gods and practiced black magic.  There was only one believer in the village and the only reason she believed was because God healed her miraculously from cancer.  Though none of them were really Christians they still allowed us to pray blessings over their lives. 

The third and final camp that we went to was a Leprosy camp.  When we pulled up I don't think that any of us knew what we were getting ourselves into, or even what leprosy looked like, but what a blessing it turned out to be.  We mostly performed for them as they smiled and clapped.  Most of them had disfigured fingers and toes, and a few did not even have hands or feet because of the disease.  We got to pray healing over them and trust that God had a plan for each of their lives.  It was an experience that NONE of us would ever trade!

On Friday we went up to Saint Thomas Mount where there was the church of Thomas in the spot where he was martyred for Christ.  We saw some of his bones and even got to walk in the cave where he stayed during his persecution.  At the top of this mount we prayed for India and submitted all of our ministries that we had been a part of to Him!  We also praised him for everything he is currently doing and everything he will eventually do!  Thank you Lord for your provision!  Later that day a bunch of us girls did a very Indian thing and got Henna on our hands! 

All in All, India was one of the most difficult but rewarding places any of us have ever been to.  God taught all of us so much while we were here and many of our hearts were attached to different ministries we were a part of.  Now all that is left is flying and traveling to 3 continents, 4 countries within 7 days!  Please pray for safety as well as God's provision with the flights not being canceled.  Thank you so much for following this blog and the way that God has been moving throughout India!  We are overjoyed to have had an experience like this and excited to share about our experiences with all of you in Person!  Thank you Lord for your eternal grace and love!  We trust you always!

Monday, 7 November 2011


This week started with an American celebration of Halloween on Monday.  Indian people had no idea what was going on as we walked around the mall downtown dressed up as Amish people, gangster, hippie and bums.  As if we did not already get enough stares this definitely added to the amount of people wondering what the heck we were doing!  It was so fun though and we also were blessed by the family we lived with who bought us 2 pumpkins to carve which we let our Australian Cassie and Norwegian Solveig carve into.  It was a first time experience for the both of them.

Tuesday through Friday we worked with an orphanage about an hour and a half away that housed "gypsy children" whose parents though some were alive, lived in tents in the mud and therefore believed the orphanage could provide a much better home then they were able to.  This orphanage was such a blessing to work with.  We got to shower the children in the morning, wash their clothes, clean the house, help cook lunch, play with the kids  and help build a toilet all throughout the few days.  It was extremely tiring because these kids had SOOO much energy but also extremely rewarding!  We all loved being able to make lasting connections throughout the week instead of just moving from ministry to ministry.  During some of the off time the children also taught all of us Westerners how to play their favorite sports game Cricket!  We all made it out with only a few scrapes and bruises to be recorded!  They are such special children and we all by the end, though were tired, were so refreshed by the experience with these beautiful children!

On Thursday after working at the orphanage, we actually got the chance to pack up some rice bags and travel to the gypsy camp site where the children's parents lived and bless them with some rice.  We also were able  to pray for protection and healing for many of the individuals within the camp.  It was amazing to hear how God had already healed so many of them from sicknesses and disease.  While we were all praying for a man who had fallen off a motorbike and pretty much destroyed his knee we saw the Lord bring down the swelling in his knee and take away the pain of walking.  We are all just so wanting to see God's kingdom come to earth and though we have not seen a lot of physical results of healing, are encouraged daily knowing that all we can do is place the situation into God's hands and have faith that he is at work!  It was truly humbling to  see these people who had so little and we will continue to keep them in our prayers.

On Wednesdays and Fridays for this week and next week we are teaching at a Bible school at night about Hearing God's Voice, which was one of the topics during our lecture phase.  Though we all feel extremely underqualified to teach this subject in such a setting, God has continually shown up that his power is made PERFECT in our weakness.  During the practice time on Friday we asked them all to listen to what the Lord was telling them and it was AMAZING to hear all of their incredible visions the Lord was giving them and Bethany who some experience with visions and interpretation helped show them what the Lord often means with certain colors and animals and scenarios!  Also during our time their the translator was actually the director of the Bible school and a YWAMer himself, but he said God is so good because during his DTS one subject his school didn't teach on was actually Hearing God's Voice and he said he was learning so much through the teaching.  Praise the Lord!

On Saturday we left to travel about 7 hours south to these remote villages where we would stay for one night and two days to preach the gospel and evangelize in these villages.  These villages were SO remote that none of them had EVER even seen white people before.  Many of us received kisses and pinching of our cheeks and touching our skin because they were just so in awe of the difference.  We performed our Savior drama in the middle of the village and prayed for many individuals within the village.  We prayed for healing and blessing and salvation upon most of these individuals.  Though most were extremely receptive towards prayer, it is hard to judge where there hearts are at because the Hindu religion just accepts everything, including christian practices, yet does not limit their belief to God being the only God there is.  So we continued to pray that God would make himself known to all of these individuals.  In the morning we preached and did a short program for both the Large church and the children's Sunday school.  One thing that we could all agree on at this point is how Indian's truly know how to worship with everything they have!  They sing and shout and clap and jump up and down!  It is definitely different then the way us westerners are used to worshipping!


Yesterday (Monday) we all got to go back to our FAVORITE orphanage which houses about 25 children who are all HIV positive in different stages.  Though they all have this serious terminal disease, they are all filled with SUCH joy!  We loved every second of playing games, doing skits and DANCING like crazy with them!  We all agree that we are going to miss these children so much and will continue to pray that God will heal them COMPLETELY because God is that big!  He has no limits!  Later that night we went to the beach with the guys from City Rock Church, who we have worked with 3 or 4 times by now and have formed really fun relationships.  These guys are incredible and are just one big family that are all searching after the Lord!  We played Soccer, Volleyball and then some other games like Red Rover and what not.  It was really neat how just by being there and having fun, other people who were not a part of the church came over and played and heard about their church.  God has such big plans for this church and we were all sad to say Goodbye to them.

Can't believe that we only have 2 DAYS left of ministry here in India!  Wow how time flies!  God is so good and though these last 8 days of ministry have been extremely tiring, God has given us the strength to carry on! 

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

Thankful hearts

This week was filled with lots of opportunities for us to practice our preaching skills.  For the first few days (Tuesday through Friday), we went to different slum houses and churches and preached a message that one person in our group switched off preparing.  We preached and worshipped and prayed for the individuals who took part in these services.  This was an amazing blessing to have a week break from hard manual labor that we had done so much last week.  These houses that we spoke in were the size of a pretty small bedroom and they fit their beds, kitchens and living rooms all in the same room.  Even though these rooms were small we still fit close to 30 people all with our knees to our chest trying to take up as little space as possible.  The cool thing about the people who were in these homes was that often there were women there who did not even consider themselves Christian's, yet had rough home lives with their husbands who beat them and drank away all the little money that was earned.  They came because they were desperate for their house life to be changed and wanted prayer for it.  We were able to pray for healing and protection and whatever else they asked us to lift up in prayer.  It was truly humbling and broke most of our hearts just hearing about what these beautiful women were going through. 

On Saturday our team had a break from all the preaching that had been going on during the week and while our staff took their staff day, us students drove 2 hours away from our house to an Aids orphanage where there were 26 kids who lived their were HIV positive.  Almost all of these children's parents had died and many of the kids even watched their parents die.  Immediately when we got there, the man who ran the orphanage briefed us on his mission for these children of bringing them the true love and joy of Jesus, regardless of their circumstances.  Boy had he accomplished this!  These children, even though were terminally ill, were SO excited to see us and extremely joyful!  All of us were so moved by the way that these kids looked at life!  We had an hour and a half to play games, sing songs, do skits and just make them laugh.  Most of us had so much fun that when we got back home and were talking to Joshua we were begging him to allow us to go back and spend more time with these incredible children! 
Sunday may have been the longest day of all of our lives! haha We started at 7:30am when we left for our first church service, which was so neat because we got to preach, sing worship songs and do our savior drama for this church which was actually Joshua's church that we had worked so hard to build during the last week.  During this 3 /2 hour church service they worshipped and prayed for around 2 1/12 hours.  Most of us had never experienced this kind of dedication until we got to India.  Such love and devotion to God and wanting to see Him move.  After this we went to another church that we did the Savior drama, sang worship songs and preached at.  Many of the individuals here we had heard were not christian but still came.  This was another long service and we had zero time to rest in between.  As you can probably imagine we were all looking to God for our strength because our human selves were extremely tired.  When this was finished, the church had made everyone lunch.  We were all extremely thankful for this because it was now 3pm haha.  After lunch we headed back to the house for about a half hour rest before we off to our next church service.  This church was called City Rock Church and we had already done a couple other ministries with them, so it was so nice to be able to recognize faces at the service.  Another blessing was that the church was entirely in English!  It felt like we were back home in the states!  They were all our age and just had such fun personalities for us to play games, worship and preach to.  We also did the Savior Drama for the third time that day!  The pastor of this church has such an amazing apostle's heart and every student there adores him.  It was such a nice way to end the day because most of us felt extremely refreshed after this service.  Thank you Lord for filling up throughout these crazy days!

As for prayer requests for this past week, we have a praise that no one on our team was sick this week!  But one of our leaders, Fleur last week may have broken her toe and is wobbling around.  So prayer for her comfort.  Also, we would like to pray for our neighbor Nazir and his family who live in the same building that all of us live in and Bethany and Luke have really been pouring into.  They are a Muslim family, but the father Nazir is very open to talking and speaks English very well.  During this past week Nazir got very sick and was not able to go to work at all.  One day Luke and Bethany walked into the house and asked if they could pray for him and he agreed.  The next day that Luke and Bethany walked by his house Nazir came out and said that he was almost completely 100 percent better.  We were all amazed and he said, "Yes I pray to Jesus now because there is power in his name."   What this statement actually means, none of us our sure but all we know is that God is pursuing his heart!  Yesterday when Luke and Beth walked by Nazir came out to them and said that he had been at the hospital an hour away all day because his daughters best friend had been in a car accident and is in CRITICAL condition.  Her face is completely smashed and is getting air into her brain and he said that he had been praying for her.  He also asked all of us to begin praying and that is why I am asking you guys who read this to pray as well.  Thank you so much for keeping up with our lives and praying through our journey with us!  We are continually thankful!  Only a week and a half left here!