We continue to be blessed by incredible guest speakers at our local church here in Trivandrum. Last Sunday, they broke their rules of having women preach and let a woman who was a former member visiting from the US preach that day. She was born in South Africa but is of Indian descent and has lived in the US with her husband for many years. Her testimony was amazing. She was raised as a Hindu, but when she finally heard the gospel and accepted Christ, she said that her prayers were actually answered, which was something she had never experienced with the false Hindu gods. She spoke about the need for Christians to have a true relationship with the Holy Spirit so that we can hear what God wants for us. She has had several experiences where she heard the audible voice of God, mostly in times of struggling with His will for her.
What was really impactful for us was what God has been doing in her life over the past few years. When she and her husband moved the US years ago, all she wanted was to just get a job and have a normal life. She felt God telling her that no, she was to be in the ministry full time. In fact, God wanted her travel each month to a different nation and pray for that nation! She told her husband about it, and he agreed to let her go, but every other month. They also had very little money, so God was going to have to provide the financing. Since that calling, she has gone to over 20 different nations on nearly every continent. Nearly every time she has to travel and stay with people she’s never met and endure long flights. Every time she books a flight, she has to trust that God will provide. She had boarded planes many times with either little or no money in her purse. She recently went to Israel, which is very expensive, and the Lord provided miraculously for her while she was there. In the three days that she spent there, the 40 dollars that she had in her purse never disappeared even though she had to spend a lot on transportation and meals. She said that on the third and final day there, she realized that this was happening and couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t really thinking about it because she was so busy with the ministry. She asked the ladies that she was with, whom she hadn’t met before this trip, if they had put money in her purse and they said no.
The story that stuck with me the most for several reasons was her recent trip to Fiji. Israel one month, Fiji the next. Crazy! Anyway, she lives in Florida, so for that trip she had to fly to San Francisco, then to Australia, then to Fiji. Her experience in San Francisco stressed me out just listening to it, and then it convicted me. While she was waiting at the terminal to board the plane for Australia, activity at the gate was chaotic. While she waited, she heard the ticket agent call her name. When she came up to the counter, the agent asked her to show him her visa for Australia. She explained that she was not staying in Australia, just changing planes, and that it wasn’t needed. They went round and round about it, and then the agent asked for her e-ticket. She handed it over, and then after some paper shuffling and 10 minutes had passed, the agent again asked for her ticket. She said that she had just given it to him 10 minutes ago. Apparently the man kept looking and looking and couldn’t find it. Meanwhile, it was time to board and they can’t find the ticket. The agent also did not remember her giving him the ticket, so he wouldn’t allow her to board. She was only planning on being in Fiji for three days and staying with a missionary family over there, so the plans were getting totally disrupted because she would have to spend the night in San Francisco and fly out the next day. Eventually, the plane took off without her. After it left, she asked if she could come behind the desk and look for herself, because if they didn’t find the ticket, she’d have to pay for new one, plus the hotel for the night, etc and she had no money. She was desperate at that point. She went behind the desk and looked in the trash can, and there was her ticket right on top. The agents, in astonishment, all swore that they had looked there.
So that was the part that stressed me out. The part that convicted me was what she did next. The airline paid for her room for the night, and instead of being angry and just going to bed, she called a friend and they prayed together for hours. She felt that the enemy had orchestrated this attack, and she meant to derail his plans and turn it into a blessing. She and her friend spent those hours praying for the city of San Francisco and its people. She eventually got on a flight the next day and made it Fiji. Another convicting part of what she shared was that she felt that God had called her to move to the United States to intercede in prayer for our nation. Wow, here we are (or were) a Christian nation (despite what people want to say these days) and now we need people from other nations to intercede for us. She shared of how God told to her to go to Washington D.C. when all of the Muslims where gathering there for that day of prayer, to pray that God’s hand would overcome. For those who didn’t followed this event, it turned out that the number of Muslims that actually participated was far, far less than projected, and there were an equal number of Christians there to hand out pamphlets and share the Gospel with them! I knew about the event weeks prior, but I didn’t even pray about it. This woman later felt God tell her go to the Mojave Desert, to pray with those gathering to save the cross that was mounted as a memorial that some atheist group protested. Again, I had seen this on the news and had even been on an archaeology job right near there years ago, but I didn’t pray about it. What struck me was, boy, what am I doing for my own country? In truth, I get angry at the way our country is headed yet do next to nothing to try to bring about change. I look on with ennui at each news story about how God is being removed from our nation. Thank God for folks like this woman, and for people like Tony and Janat who do prayer walks around their neighborhoods. What a humbling lesson.
The pastor closed service afterward by mentioning that Kerala received the gospel over 2,000 years ago (when Thomas shared the gospel here), and the people of Kerala sat on the message and didn’t share it, even with other states in India. America, with the same message, sent people out to share it and was blessed by it. I pray that our nation doesn’t lose sight of its heritage.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Church in India- North and South
We went to a local church on Sunday called Pilgrim Highlands church. It was the one that we attended the last time that we were here, and to our surprise the pastor and a few others remembered us (granted it is a small church, and they probably don’t get many white people attending). They meet at a new location, and we found out that much like The Pursuit in the early days, they have to travel from location to location at this point as they don’t yet have a permanent building. They still seemed to struggle with the same issues that they had a few years back, like getting the laptop connected to the overhead projector to work. Adam commented on his new appreciation of The Pursuit’s commitment to doing things ‘excellently’. We can empathize with these folks though, because we’ve had nothing but issues with nearly everything electronic since we’ve been here. On a sad note, it was our visit to this church that caused Hailey to have a major meltdown that evening. She has missed many things, but she really missed her Swerve class at The Pursuit! This is a real testimony to our youth leaders! Thank you Andrew and Amanda and everyone else who helps with the junior high program. Its such a hard age.
The service was a bit different this time because they had a guest speaker. This man and his wife are doctors who volunteered to go to northern India to work for a Christian organization as doctors for one of their hospitals. They had a choice about where to go, and one of the choices was in a town in Uttar Pradesh (home of much Christian persecution). They really didn’t want to go, but they prayed and eventually asked the organization to make the decision for them so that they wouldn’t be able to look back and question the decision of which place to go. Of course, they ended up going where they dreaded but felt the peace of God. To make a long story short, he was forced to become the hospital administrator (with no prior experience), deal with an overwhelming number of patients that only he and his wife attended, and eventually defeated the extortion tactics of the corrupt local politicians. They experienced many, many miracles, one of which was a local governor getting kicked out of office the morning that they were going to levy a huge fine on the hospital.
A main point that he highlighted that we found quite interesting is that throughout history, it has been the north of India that has controlled the direction of the entire country. Every empire that made successful, lasting invasions came in through the north, mostly along the border of what is now Pakistan. The Dutch, French, and others who arrived through ports to the east and west further south were short lived and did not make any lasting impressions outside of the immediate areas, and even those were eventually lost. The next amazing statistic was that the south of India contains 80% of the Christians in India, and the center of the north (containing over ¾ of the Indian population) has barely 5% of the Christian population. This doctor and his wife confirmed exactly what we felt when we visited the north, which is that there is a palpable darkness there. Satan has a major stronghold there, and it is affecting the direction of the entire country. Many Indian Christians are now trying to organize prayer trips to the north to walk the country and pray for God’s power to be unleashed. They have great faith that prayer can turn the tide in this country.
In listening to this man’s testimony, it struck me that we often think that we know where God is leading us, only to have Him lead us somewhere completely unexpected. Adam and I felt that we were coming here to somehow affect our immediate neighbors, but perhaps God has something completely different planned. Or perhaps its nothing that we’ll ever seen in this life at all; perhaps we’ll go home thinking that we didn’t have any discernable impact. Perhaps it is just something that our kids need to experience. Only God knows.
On the subject of kids, we would greatly appreciate your prayers for our girls. Hailey is having a particularly hard last few days. She is very tired, which isn’t helping, but I think its more than that. Prayers for them both would be great.
Boy, it sure was hard knowing that our life group met last night and we weren't there! We miss you all.
Lastly, apologies for the grammar mistakes in the last post- ‘profit’ for ‘prophet’ etc. I’ll chalk it up to jet lag…. :)
The service was a bit different this time because they had a guest speaker. This man and his wife are doctors who volunteered to go to northern India to work for a Christian organization as doctors for one of their hospitals. They had a choice about where to go, and one of the choices was in a town in Uttar Pradesh (home of much Christian persecution). They really didn’t want to go, but they prayed and eventually asked the organization to make the decision for them so that they wouldn’t be able to look back and question the decision of which place to go. Of course, they ended up going where they dreaded but felt the peace of God. To make a long story short, he was forced to become the hospital administrator (with no prior experience), deal with an overwhelming number of patients that only he and his wife attended, and eventually defeated the extortion tactics of the corrupt local politicians. They experienced many, many miracles, one of which was a local governor getting kicked out of office the morning that they were going to levy a huge fine on the hospital.
A main point that he highlighted that we found quite interesting is that throughout history, it has been the north of India that has controlled the direction of the entire country. Every empire that made successful, lasting invasions came in through the north, mostly along the border of what is now Pakistan. The Dutch, French, and others who arrived through ports to the east and west further south were short lived and did not make any lasting impressions outside of the immediate areas, and even those were eventually lost. The next amazing statistic was that the south of India contains 80% of the Christians in India, and the center of the north (containing over ¾ of the Indian population) has barely 5% of the Christian population. This doctor and his wife confirmed exactly what we felt when we visited the north, which is that there is a palpable darkness there. Satan has a major stronghold there, and it is affecting the direction of the entire country. Many Indian Christians are now trying to organize prayer trips to the north to walk the country and pray for God’s power to be unleashed. They have great faith that prayer can turn the tide in this country.
In listening to this man’s testimony, it struck me that we often think that we know where God is leading us, only to have Him lead us somewhere completely unexpected. Adam and I felt that we were coming here to somehow affect our immediate neighbors, but perhaps God has something completely different planned. Or perhaps its nothing that we’ll ever seen in this life at all; perhaps we’ll go home thinking that we didn’t have any discernable impact. Perhaps it is just something that our kids need to experience. Only God knows.
On the subject of kids, we would greatly appreciate your prayers for our girls. Hailey is having a particularly hard last few days. She is very tired, which isn’t helping, but I think its more than that. Prayers for them both would be great.
Boy, it sure was hard knowing that our life group met last night and we weren't there! We miss you all.
Lastly, apologies for the grammar mistakes in the last post- ‘profit’ for ‘prophet’ etc. I’ll chalk it up to jet lag…. :)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
In India
Prepare for arrival...
We made it to India safe and sound. The 15 hour flight from San Francisco to Dubai non-stop was brutal. We have taken so many short flight recently that it was hard to get in the mindset of just how long the flight would be. At around seven hours into the flight, I felt the engines cut back and a slight descent and I thought ‘Oh good! We’re about to land!’, only to realize that we had another 8 hours to go! We barely slept so we got to experience just about every painful minute of that 15 hours. After a short few hours in Dubai, it was back on the plane for the four hour flight to Trivandrum. It was dark when were where in Dubai, so didn’t even get to see the new tallest building in the world.
Many of you know that I have developed an irrational fear of flying over the past few years or so. I have traveled all around the world since I was in my early twenties, but for some reason this fear came out of nowhere and eventually came to a crisis point last year. I could barely finish the second of a two leg flight. Since then, I’ve asked for prayer from friends every time I fly. As one can imagine, I was not particularly looking forward to the 20+ hours of flying ahead of us. I asked for prayer from as many people as I could, and God really came through! I did have moments of fear, but not the crushing terror that I’ve felt in the past, so THANK YOU to those who were praying.
During those fearful moments, I started to think of the many people in the bible, particularly in the Old Testament, who must have faced incredible fear. The obvious one is David as he stood before Goliath, but I thought of those like Gideon who had to go to battle against great odds and the prophets who faced horrible circumstances like being kept in a muddy well, or sawed in half. I can’t image how terrifying it would be waking up in the morning (assuming you slept) that hey, today is the day that you get sawed in half! I wanted to impart some wise words about fear, but in retrospect I really haven’t any. My experience though, is that it forces me to draw right up to God’s feet and beg for peace. I haven’t had waves of peace flow over me, but I have had just enough to back me away from the edge. Perhaps that’s God way of keeping me dependant on Him.
We arrived at 3:30 am in Trivandrum and didn’t reach the apartment until about 5am. We all had a short nap and each had the creeping feeling of ‘Oh my gosh, what have we done!’ when it all set in. Hailey was very upset and crying at one point, and I started to feel that panic of ‘how am I going to do this for 8 months’ set in. I had a real lesson in spiritual warfare last year, and in hindsight I realized that much of my struggles the last time we were here were attacks from the enemy in this land that he has such a stronghold in. I had planned to anoint the apartment when we first got here, but I was too tired. Literally with each passing minute I could tell that it could not wait. We got up and went straight to it, and sure enough, we all felt much, much better a short time later. So far, we are all doing really well. Last night (Monday night) was the first time we’ve had any real sleep for about 48 hours. The girls did amazingly well for such little sleep. Even though they were exhausted on Monday, they were eager to start homeschooling. Crazy! I wasn’t ready and fortunately Adam stayed home that day so we could go shopping for supplies.
“Food, glorious food…”
I say ‘shopping’, but it was more like foraging. My close friends know how food was a major issue the last time we were here, and from the looks of it, things have not changed much. The one little store in town that is anywhere near being westernized has next to nothing in terms of actual food. Its mostly just ingredients like spices. I was only able to get some fruit, some bread, some jelly, peanut butter (they actually had Skippy crunchy!), rice, and dried beans. I looked in the cart and asked Adam “Okay, what do I make for dinner?” Rice and beans are fine for tonight, but what about the next 210 days? The last time we were here, the store sold these packets of ready-made Indian food that you could add the canned cheese cubes to. Not so this time. So far we’ve lived on peanut butter and jelly and roman noodles for lunch. We tried ordering food for delivery from one of the many little local restaurants that we found menus for here in the apartment, but each place we called could not understand English. Even if we could have communicated the order, forget trying to explain where we lived or how to get there! We ended up having the apartment manager order for us. Adam went to work today, and it looks like his work is going to try to find a way to make ordering food easier, like having a go-between at his work order if we text the order and restaurant to them. That would be pretty cool, but the girls would still have some major adjusting to do to the local food. They love northern India food, but not so much southern.
Thank you again friends for all of your prayers for us! We’d love your continues prayer support!
We made it to India safe and sound. The 15 hour flight from San Francisco to Dubai non-stop was brutal. We have taken so many short flight recently that it was hard to get in the mindset of just how long the flight would be. At around seven hours into the flight, I felt the engines cut back and a slight descent and I thought ‘Oh good! We’re about to land!’, only to realize that we had another 8 hours to go! We barely slept so we got to experience just about every painful minute of that 15 hours. After a short few hours in Dubai, it was back on the plane for the four hour flight to Trivandrum. It was dark when were where in Dubai, so didn’t even get to see the new tallest building in the world.
Many of you know that I have developed an irrational fear of flying over the past few years or so. I have traveled all around the world since I was in my early twenties, but for some reason this fear came out of nowhere and eventually came to a crisis point last year. I could barely finish the second of a two leg flight. Since then, I’ve asked for prayer from friends every time I fly. As one can imagine, I was not particularly looking forward to the 20+ hours of flying ahead of us. I asked for prayer from as many people as I could, and God really came through! I did have moments of fear, but not the crushing terror that I’ve felt in the past, so THANK YOU to those who were praying.
During those fearful moments, I started to think of the many people in the bible, particularly in the Old Testament, who must have faced incredible fear. The obvious one is David as he stood before Goliath, but I thought of those like Gideon who had to go to battle against great odds and the prophets who faced horrible circumstances like being kept in a muddy well, or sawed in half. I can’t image how terrifying it would be waking up in the morning (assuming you slept) that hey, today is the day that you get sawed in half! I wanted to impart some wise words about fear, but in retrospect I really haven’t any. My experience though, is that it forces me to draw right up to God’s feet and beg for peace. I haven’t had waves of peace flow over me, but I have had just enough to back me away from the edge. Perhaps that’s God way of keeping me dependant on Him.
We arrived at 3:30 am in Trivandrum and didn’t reach the apartment until about 5am. We all had a short nap and each had the creeping feeling of ‘Oh my gosh, what have we done!’ when it all set in. Hailey was very upset and crying at one point, and I started to feel that panic of ‘how am I going to do this for 8 months’ set in. I had a real lesson in spiritual warfare last year, and in hindsight I realized that much of my struggles the last time we were here were attacks from the enemy in this land that he has such a stronghold in. I had planned to anoint the apartment when we first got here, but I was too tired. Literally with each passing minute I could tell that it could not wait. We got up and went straight to it, and sure enough, we all felt much, much better a short time later. So far, we are all doing really well. Last night (Monday night) was the first time we’ve had any real sleep for about 48 hours. The girls did amazingly well for such little sleep. Even though they were exhausted on Monday, they were eager to start homeschooling. Crazy! I wasn’t ready and fortunately Adam stayed home that day so we could go shopping for supplies.
“Food, glorious food…”
I say ‘shopping’, but it was more like foraging. My close friends know how food was a major issue the last time we were here, and from the looks of it, things have not changed much. The one little store in town that is anywhere near being westernized has next to nothing in terms of actual food. Its mostly just ingredients like spices. I was only able to get some fruit, some bread, some jelly, peanut butter (they actually had Skippy crunchy!), rice, and dried beans. I looked in the cart and asked Adam “Okay, what do I make for dinner?” Rice and beans are fine for tonight, but what about the next 210 days? The last time we were here, the store sold these packets of ready-made Indian food that you could add the canned cheese cubes to. Not so this time. So far we’ve lived on peanut butter and jelly and roman noodles for lunch. We tried ordering food for delivery from one of the many little local restaurants that we found menus for here in the apartment, but each place we called could not understand English. Even if we could have communicated the order, forget trying to explain where we lived or how to get there! We ended up having the apartment manager order for us. Adam went to work today, and it looks like his work is going to try to find a way to make ordering food easier, like having a go-between at his work order if we text the order and restaurant to them. That would be pretty cool, but the girls would still have some major adjusting to do to the local food. They love northern India food, but not so much southern.
Thank you again friends for all of your prayers for us! We’d love your continues prayer support!
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