Here it is, the 12th of July, and we have two days left before we leave for the U.S. It’s hard to believe that we’ve come to the end of this trip that seemed like it would never end. God has taken us through some amazing things here, but certainly not the kind of things that we guessed might happen before we left to come here. God is like that though, always surprising us, and not always in the ways that we want. You can’t come to the end of a trip like this without reflecting back on all of the events that transpired.
The Tough Surprises
Before the trip, we had envisioned that we’d meet a lot of local people at the apartment complex, do bible studies, and those noble sorts of things. It didn’t pan out. When we got here and saw that we had a spare room, I thought how great it would be to use that room to house a missionary or someone like that who might need a place to stay during a visit here. Nope, didn’t happen. The room stayed vacant. I prayed that I would meet some European or American who I could fellowship with, who would be my close friend and partner in everyday life here. While this didn’t happen specifically like that, I did meet some Europeans, and Indians as well, who became my friends, but none who were Christians that I could fellowship with. Plus, we only got together one day a week. I felt that each thing that I prayed for fell on deaf ears with God. All I got was 6 months of isolation and loneliness, and trying to manage my kids’ emotional breakdowns over missing home and living in a difficult culture.
As I recounted in my many blog entries of the black days of crushing loneliness, I struggled to understand why God would do something that seemed so ‘meaningless’. I read the other day in a book by Alistair Begg, an account of a British woman named Dr. Helen Roseveare. She went to the Congo to serve Christ as a doctor in the mid-1960’s. When she got there, she was engulfed by utter chaos and watched as rebel troops shot many of her colleagues in the head and dumped their bodies into open graves. She couldn’t understand the situation, but in the hour of her greatest need, God gave her the phrase, ‘Can you thank me for trusting you with this experience, even if I never tell you why?’ I found that very powerful. God not only asks us to trust Him with the trials that He gives but to thank Him for trusting us with them.
I might never know what God’s purpose was for the loneliness and isolation. I have come to know Him in a much deeper way though, a way that I would never have gotten to in my day to day walk with Him in Idaho. I think this old poem best summarizes it:
"I walked a mile with pleasure and she chattered all the way,
but left me none the wiser for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow and ne’er a word said she,
but oh the things I learned from her, when sorrow walked with me."
He knew what my weak spot was, the place where I was the most vulnerable, and He asked me to trust Him. I am thankful for that.
The Wonderful Surprises
A few years ago, Pastor Daniel who runs the Mercy Homes programs here in India, came to visit the US and stayed with us. We had dinner with him and our friends the Siekers, and it was an incredible time of fellowship and prayer. During prayer, Pastor Daniel felt God telling him things about the future ministries for both of our families. For me and Adam, we were going to be used like Barnabas- as encouragers. At the time, I was really wanting to go on a missions trip and thought, ‘Encouragers?! That’s it?!’ Again, I was hoping for something more glamorous.
Being that God of surprises that He is, we now see in retrospect what a blessing being encouragers really is. We feel that one of the main reasons for this trip was for us to encourage the pastor of Radiant church, our little church here in town. One of Pastor Thomas’ mentors was visiting two weeks ago, and he told Adam that our involvement in the church had finally validated within Pastor Thomas the fact that he was indeed the lead pastor. Just a month ago, he decided to commit to being the full time pastor, and we were blessed to witness his ordination ceremony at the church. In the past few months we were able to bring other American Christians from Adam’s work who were visiting to Radiant, and Adam also worked with Thomas to build a website for the church. In our few months there, we have seen two new families join the church. This little church has the ability to transform many lives in this city, especially with its target group of professionals at Technopark, the technology center where Adam’s work and many other companies do business. God has surprised and blessed us by allowing us to be a part of His plan for this church in this city. We also grew to dearly love Pastor Thomas and his family and the other family that we first met at Radiant. It was very hard to say good-bye. Even Jackie cried last Sunday night before bed, saying that she’d miss church. That was quite a transformation from her not wanting to go those first few weeks.
During this visit, we also got visit Mercy Homes and spend some time with Pastor Daniel and his lovely wife Lilly. We met many amazing people from all over the world. Adam was also encouraged to preach, which he did several times. And lastly, the needs of the missionaries that we support have been made crystal clear to us through this trip. We hope to be better able to support them when we return.
Thank You!
I’ve said it before, but we are eternally grateful to our friends who have been such a support to us. Your prayers and care packages made the unbearable times bearable. We can’t wait to see everyone in a few short days!
All of our love,
The Getchells
Monday, July 12, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thankful for the Fleas
In a previous posting, I mentioned the book ‘The Hiding Place’, based on the story of Corrie Ten Boom and her sister during World War II, and how they were imprisoned in a concentration camp. Corrie’s sister was almost not of this world- instead seeming to belong to the heavenly realms. Her faith was unlike anything that I’ve read or heard of. The part of the book that impacted me the most was actually just a minor event, but its life application, I thought, was tremendous. During the latter half of the their time in the camp, the sisters were moved into a much more crowded women’s dorm with deplorable conditions. Worst of all was that the whole place was infested with fleas. Corrie’s sister, above all, was always thankful for everything, and when they arrived in the dorm, she excitedly demanded that she and Corrie give thanks for all of the women they could now minister to- and also for the fleas. Corrie said that there was no way she would give thanks for the fleas, but her sister convinced her and she begrudgingly did. As time passed, they could not understand why the guards never came in to search them, leaving their smuggled bible undiscovered and allowing them to read and minister to the women there. It was when Corrie’s sister was dying that the reason became apparent- the guards refused to set foot in the dorm because of the fleas.
Are we thankful for the fleas in our lives? Here’s another example- our pastor here told a story about how a business deal that their family business made led to him being taken to court in Delhi. The judge, after looking at the plaintiff’s papers for 10 seconds, decreed that he’d look at it in a week, which meant that our pastor would have to spend that week in prison while he waited. Think ‘Midnight Express’ or the stories of the ‘black hole of Calcutta’, and that will give you an idea of what prisons here are like. But the pastor’s first reaction was to praise God and give thanks. He didn’t know how he’d get through it, but he had peace and stood there calmly. Inexplicably, the judge stopped the next proceeding and reached over and took his papers again, and announced that he would actually deal with the case then and there, and the matter was settled.
With our return date of July 9th, the girls and I have been counting the days. Last week, Adam’s work decided that they needed him to stay for an important meeting in mid-July, which meant adding extra days to our trip. Even though it was just 4 extra days, it was a real blow for me and the girls. It’s like telling your kids two weeks before Christmas that you decided to have it after New Year's instead. I really struggled with this and was, quite frankly, very angry and depressed. After a day or two, I came to terms with it and tried to move forward. Then, two days later, Adam’s company said they need to move our return out another day on top of the four. Again, that went over as well as the proverbial lead balloon. I tried to tell myself to be thankful for the fleas and prayed that God would give me that spirit. The next day I tried to get out of my dark mood, when lo and behold, we were told that there were no flights on that new date, and we’d have to add yet another day. I was again extremely angry and tried to remember the fleas but sadly could not bring myself to be thankful for it. Its like God was saying, ‘Okay- let’s try it again…’.
So I failed the being thankful for the fleas test, but what I did learn was a huge lesson in the incredible awesomeness of God’s grace and forgiveness. I was really angry with God and told him so. I've never done that in my life, even in very bad situations (of which I've had my share). When I regained my senses, I realized what I had done- I had dared to tell the Creator of the Universe, the Alpha and the Omega, that I, the puny insect person, was angry with Him. I’ve done a lot of things, and still do things, that I’ve had to repent of, but for me this was completely over the line. I know all sin is equal in God’s eyes, but I felt like me expressing anger toward the Almighty was worthy of me being crushed like a bug. I am humbled by the thought that, thanks to the cleansing blood of Jesus, I could again come before the throne of the Father, completely forgiven.
Our new return date is July 15th. Thank you God for the fleas….
Are we thankful for the fleas in our lives? Here’s another example- our pastor here told a story about how a business deal that their family business made led to him being taken to court in Delhi. The judge, after looking at the plaintiff’s papers for 10 seconds, decreed that he’d look at it in a week, which meant that our pastor would have to spend that week in prison while he waited. Think ‘Midnight Express’ or the stories of the ‘black hole of Calcutta’, and that will give you an idea of what prisons here are like. But the pastor’s first reaction was to praise God and give thanks. He didn’t know how he’d get through it, but he had peace and stood there calmly. Inexplicably, the judge stopped the next proceeding and reached over and took his papers again, and announced that he would actually deal with the case then and there, and the matter was settled.
With our return date of July 9th, the girls and I have been counting the days. Last week, Adam’s work decided that they needed him to stay for an important meeting in mid-July, which meant adding extra days to our trip. Even though it was just 4 extra days, it was a real blow for me and the girls. It’s like telling your kids two weeks before Christmas that you decided to have it after New Year's instead. I really struggled with this and was, quite frankly, very angry and depressed. After a day or two, I came to terms with it and tried to move forward. Then, two days later, Adam’s company said they need to move our return out another day on top of the four. Again, that went over as well as the proverbial lead balloon. I tried to tell myself to be thankful for the fleas and prayed that God would give me that spirit. The next day I tried to get out of my dark mood, when lo and behold, we were told that there were no flights on that new date, and we’d have to add yet another day. I was again extremely angry and tried to remember the fleas but sadly could not bring myself to be thankful for it. Its like God was saying, ‘Okay- let’s try it again…’.
So I failed the being thankful for the fleas test, but what I did learn was a huge lesson in the incredible awesomeness of God’s grace and forgiveness. I was really angry with God and told him so. I've never done that in my life, even in very bad situations (of which I've had my share). When I regained my senses, I realized what I had done- I had dared to tell the Creator of the Universe, the Alpha and the Omega, that I, the puny insect person, was angry with Him. I’ve done a lot of things, and still do things, that I’ve had to repent of, but for me this was completely over the line. I know all sin is equal in God’s eyes, but I felt like me expressing anger toward the Almighty was worthy of me being crushed like a bug. I am humbled by the thought that, thanks to the cleansing blood of Jesus, I could again come before the throne of the Father, completely forgiven.
Our new return date is July 15th. Thank you God for the fleas….
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Climbing the Mountain
Over the past two days, I’ve experienced a huge transformation. I am out of the valley and climbing up the mountain again. I believe that this is the blessing that I was waiting for in June. I have a feeling other blessings are still to come.
There is so much to tell about this week. I’ll begin with the healing that I’ve had. It was right around the time of my last posting, when we had taken Hailey to the hospital here. I felt like I was at my breaking point. I felt almost mentally unstable, not knowing how I was going to endure the remaining weeks here and envisioning every horrible scenario imaginable. I don’t know what a nervous breakdown feels like, but I can imagine I was close to it. In a nutshell, I was gripped by an overwhelming sense of fear that was suffocating me. Not knowing what to do, I sent an e-mail in the morning to our Pastor’s wife, asking for prayer and expressing my feelings of fear and being overwhelmed. Not only did they pray, but they came over that evening to spend time with us and pray more. It was an incredible time of fellowship and prayer. Both Pastor Thomas and his wife Molly encouraged me with scripture and prayers. Most importantly, I think, is how they showed me that I have been living under the oppression of the spirit of fear. I agreed and had even told Adam the night before, in the midst of the fear, that it really felt like spiritual warfare and I now needed to fight.
Pastor Thomas and Molly could see immediately that it was spiritual oppression. After a time as we were praying, Thomas’ eyes went to the china cabinet in our living room with a lit display case. In it, we had a large carved ceremonial elephant as well as many other small ones. Knowing that we’d most likely spend a fair amount of money on them, Thomas asked if he could be frank with us. We of course said yes. Unbeknownst to us, elephants in full ceremonial dress are Hindu idols, and we had put it in a place of prominence in our house. He said that we should consider removing them from the apartment, and showed us scripture to support this. The bible is very clear about God’s displeasure with idols. While Adam and I discussed it and how we might handle it, we thought of giving them to the Hindu guy that manages our apartment. We prayed some more and literally the SECOND that we stopped praying, the doorbell rang, and it was the apartment manager (who never comes in the evening, mind you!). We promptly bagged up the carvings and gave them to him to take away. The thing that really convicted us to get rid of them too was that the very night that we bought them, I started being plagued by demonic dreams. I had a strong feeling that it was something to do with the carvings. Another neat thing that came out of the situation was that Pastor Thomas mentioned later in church that the speed with which we made our decision and the equally quick action was a lesson for him in his habit of procrastination.
I have had another experience like this before involving spiritual warfare, and at the time I didn’t understand why God would allow it. Eventually I realized that He allowed it to bring a bad situation to light so it could be dealt with and removed from my life once and for all. This is definitely the case here. It wasn’t so much having to do with getting rid of the carving. The main point was to bring to me to that place where I was so utterly backed into a corner that I had to do something, like make the decision to fight the oppression and accept Jesus’ truths. Thomas used a great analogy from a Malayali movie, where a guy robs another guy by putting a carrot to his back, pretending it was a gun. The analogy really struck a chord with both me and Adam. The enemy is holding a carrot to our backs! Why do we give in to him so easily? We give the enemy way more power than he has or deserves.
We have been blessed in such a tremendous way by Pastor Thomas, Molly the son Rohith, the daughter Manju, her husband Jereen, and Manju and Jereen’s one year old little boy DJ. Its like we’ve known them for years. Yesterday was Adam’s birthday, and the whole family surprised Adam and came over in the evening with a cake. Jereen was traveling to the US later that night as well but still came over. It was a very touching and special gesture. We only have three more Sundays with them. Its heartbreaking to think of leaving them.
Praise God for being such a faithful father, even when we don't understand the work that He is doing in us. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
There is so much to tell about this week. I’ll begin with the healing that I’ve had. It was right around the time of my last posting, when we had taken Hailey to the hospital here. I felt like I was at my breaking point. I felt almost mentally unstable, not knowing how I was going to endure the remaining weeks here and envisioning every horrible scenario imaginable. I don’t know what a nervous breakdown feels like, but I can imagine I was close to it. In a nutshell, I was gripped by an overwhelming sense of fear that was suffocating me. Not knowing what to do, I sent an e-mail in the morning to our Pastor’s wife, asking for prayer and expressing my feelings of fear and being overwhelmed. Not only did they pray, but they came over that evening to spend time with us and pray more. It was an incredible time of fellowship and prayer. Both Pastor Thomas and his wife Molly encouraged me with scripture and prayers. Most importantly, I think, is how they showed me that I have been living under the oppression of the spirit of fear. I agreed and had even told Adam the night before, in the midst of the fear, that it really felt like spiritual warfare and I now needed to fight.
Pastor Thomas and Molly could see immediately that it was spiritual oppression. After a time as we were praying, Thomas’ eyes went to the china cabinet in our living room with a lit display case. In it, we had a large carved ceremonial elephant as well as many other small ones. Knowing that we’d most likely spend a fair amount of money on them, Thomas asked if he could be frank with us. We of course said yes. Unbeknownst to us, elephants in full ceremonial dress are Hindu idols, and we had put it in a place of prominence in our house. He said that we should consider removing them from the apartment, and showed us scripture to support this. The bible is very clear about God’s displeasure with idols. While Adam and I discussed it and how we might handle it, we thought of giving them to the Hindu guy that manages our apartment. We prayed some more and literally the SECOND that we stopped praying, the doorbell rang, and it was the apartment manager (who never comes in the evening, mind you!). We promptly bagged up the carvings and gave them to him to take away. The thing that really convicted us to get rid of them too was that the very night that we bought them, I started being plagued by demonic dreams. I had a strong feeling that it was something to do with the carvings. Another neat thing that came out of the situation was that Pastor Thomas mentioned later in church that the speed with which we made our decision and the equally quick action was a lesson for him in his habit of procrastination.
I have had another experience like this before involving spiritual warfare, and at the time I didn’t understand why God would allow it. Eventually I realized that He allowed it to bring a bad situation to light so it could be dealt with and removed from my life once and for all. This is definitely the case here. It wasn’t so much having to do with getting rid of the carving. The main point was to bring to me to that place where I was so utterly backed into a corner that I had to do something, like make the decision to fight the oppression and accept Jesus’ truths. Thomas used a great analogy from a Malayali movie, where a guy robs another guy by putting a carrot to his back, pretending it was a gun. The analogy really struck a chord with both me and Adam. The enemy is holding a carrot to our backs! Why do we give in to him so easily? We give the enemy way more power than he has or deserves.
We have been blessed in such a tremendous way by Pastor Thomas, Molly the son Rohith, the daughter Manju, her husband Jereen, and Manju and Jereen’s one year old little boy DJ. Its like we’ve known them for years. Yesterday was Adam’s birthday, and the whole family surprised Adam and came over in the evening with a cake. Jereen was traveling to the US later that night as well but still came over. It was a very touching and special gesture. We only have three more Sundays with them. Its heartbreaking to think of leaving them.
Praise God for being such a faithful father, even when we don't understand the work that He is doing in us. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
One Month Left
Today we experienced what I’ve been dreading during the whole trip, which was going to the hospital. There are no private doctor’s offices here- everyone just goes to the hospital. Hailey has had an infected ingrown toenail for a few weeks, and we’ve been treating it at home. With it not showing much improvement, we finally decided to take her in. The hospital building itself was better than I expected, and I wasn’t worried about the quality of the doctor because there are a lot of smart, talented people here. My main fear was the equipment and its cleanliness, and the masses of sick people that we’d have to be around while waiting. Sure enough, there were a ton of people. When we finally did see the doctor, he barely spoke English and essentially just cleaned her toe and gave us some antibiotics. I’m extremely thankful that it didn’t need anything more.
This is a rough time of year here because with the monsoons come the host of horrendous mosquito-borne diseases. Cases of H1N1 are on the rise, as well as that brutal Chikunguyna that I had when we were here in 2007. It made your body ache so badly that even laying down hurt. Worst of all is that Dengue fever has now made its way here, and people are contracting it throughout the state. Prayers for our health and safety are coveted more than ever!
We have 3 ½ weeks left in the trip, and I’ve been reflecting on the whole trip over the past few days. All I can say is that it has been weirder than I ever could have imagined. I knew we’d face a lot of boredom, as we did last time, but I never thought it would last as long as it has and that the isolation would be so severe. I had thought I’d find a friend that I could hang out with. I realized that God has brought me several different friends but only for very short time periods. There were the missionary ladies from America who were there for one weekend. Then, there were the European ladies for a few Friday nights out and a Wednesday lunch, but they all left for their home countries months ago. Then there was Janice and Mohan who provided the two weeks out at the summer camp for the girls. We have some great fellowship with folks at church here as well, but that is only for three hours on a Sunday. The rest of the 90% of our time has been total isolation. The hardest aspect has been not having regular support and fellowship with another Christian woman like I get from my friends at home. Again, I thought I’d somehow find that here.
I’m at a loss to explain what this has all been about. I have faced many stressful situations in my life before but never like this. More than anything, it’s been psychological punishment. I feel like I’ve been taken to the edge of all that I can stand, and then God brings me back just one inch. I’ve had to trust Him even when I’ve felt like He is turning a deaf ear to my prayers, which has been most of the time. I’ve cried out angrily to God about what has seemed like an utter waste- for the girls and I to be stuck in isolation in our apartment for so long. Then I read about some missionaries to China who were beheaded one week after they arrived. Wow- talk about feeling like it was a waste! I can’t imagine what they must have been thinking, like ‘Are you kidding?! I came all the way here to be killed in the first week!’ Further reading revealed that a huge surge in conversions took place because of their deaths. I’m hoping that the lessons learned here will have some impact on people we encounter throughout our lives. Perhaps it won’t. Perhaps it is just a test.
Many blessings have come about in this trip, to be sure. We are blessed to have been involved in Radiant, our little church here. The people are amazing, and I know that Adam has been a blessing to them through encouragement, speaking, and building their website. I’d like to think that I’ve been an encouragement to the pastor’s wife as well. I think Adam overall has received a lot of blessing in this trip. He has had amazing success at work and has been recognized for his talents. The downside of it all has been that he’s had to deal with me and my emotions! I’m sure that’s been his cross to bear during this trip.
Thanks again to everyone for their prayers, especially to my friends who have put up with my constant whining e-mails. I can’t imagine how these past five months would have been without e-mail support!
This is a rough time of year here because with the monsoons come the host of horrendous mosquito-borne diseases. Cases of H1N1 are on the rise, as well as that brutal Chikunguyna that I had when we were here in 2007. It made your body ache so badly that even laying down hurt. Worst of all is that Dengue fever has now made its way here, and people are contracting it throughout the state. Prayers for our health and safety are coveted more than ever!
We have 3 ½ weeks left in the trip, and I’ve been reflecting on the whole trip over the past few days. All I can say is that it has been weirder than I ever could have imagined. I knew we’d face a lot of boredom, as we did last time, but I never thought it would last as long as it has and that the isolation would be so severe. I had thought I’d find a friend that I could hang out with. I realized that God has brought me several different friends but only for very short time periods. There were the missionary ladies from America who were there for one weekend. Then, there were the European ladies for a few Friday nights out and a Wednesday lunch, but they all left for their home countries months ago. Then there was Janice and Mohan who provided the two weeks out at the summer camp for the girls. We have some great fellowship with folks at church here as well, but that is only for three hours on a Sunday. The rest of the 90% of our time has been total isolation. The hardest aspect has been not having regular support and fellowship with another Christian woman like I get from my friends at home. Again, I thought I’d somehow find that here.
I’m at a loss to explain what this has all been about. I have faced many stressful situations in my life before but never like this. More than anything, it’s been psychological punishment. I feel like I’ve been taken to the edge of all that I can stand, and then God brings me back just one inch. I’ve had to trust Him even when I’ve felt like He is turning a deaf ear to my prayers, which has been most of the time. I’ve cried out angrily to God about what has seemed like an utter waste- for the girls and I to be stuck in isolation in our apartment for so long. Then I read about some missionaries to China who were beheaded one week after they arrived. Wow- talk about feeling like it was a waste! I can’t imagine what they must have been thinking, like ‘Are you kidding?! I came all the way here to be killed in the first week!’ Further reading revealed that a huge surge in conversions took place because of their deaths. I’m hoping that the lessons learned here will have some impact on people we encounter throughout our lives. Perhaps it won’t. Perhaps it is just a test.
Many blessings have come about in this trip, to be sure. We are blessed to have been involved in Radiant, our little church here. The people are amazing, and I know that Adam has been a blessing to them through encouragement, speaking, and building their website. I’d like to think that I’ve been an encouragement to the pastor’s wife as well. I think Adam overall has received a lot of blessing in this trip. He has had amazing success at work and has been recognized for his talents. The downside of it all has been that he’s had to deal with me and my emotions! I’m sure that’s been his cross to bear during this trip.
Thanks again to everyone for their prayers, especially to my friends who have put up with my constant whining e-mails. I can’t imagine how these past five months would have been without e-mail support!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Return Date - July 9th
We finally have a return date locked down. We leave India on July 9th, at 4:30 AM. It looks like we arrive in Boise on the 9th as well, even after more than 24 hours of flying, thanks to the many zones we will be passing through. Our arrival time is 10:30 PM, so that’s kind of rough, but we are all thankful to make it home on a Friday night so we can attend church on Sunday without being totally wiped out. We also go through San Francisco, which has got to be better than the chaos we faced in immigration last time in Los Angeles. The total lack of order there was really shocking. There were no lines and everyone was crammed in a hallway, pushing their way in. We get enough of that in India! :)
On a different topic, I thought I’d share a story about what happened a week or so ago. As I’ve mentioned before, we go to Pizza Corner every Friday night for dinner. It’s our little family outing, and we occasionally bring others along like the lady missionaries from the US, or folks from church, etc. It’s also where we met the Dutch family early on. Anyway, we almost always see one or two Europeans there every time we go. Often, it is just a single person sitting alone. The last time we went, I told Adam that if we see one of these lone Europeans, we should make it a point to invite them over and have dinner with us. We prayed that God would bring whoever He wanted that night, but secretly I hoped it would be a guy so Adam could do most of the talking! We sat down at our table and literally 30 seconds later, in walks a lone young woman. She looked right at us, then sat down at a table across the room. Adam and I both chuckled at it, and I got up my nerve and walked over and invited her to have dinner with us. Her name was Michelle, and she was Dutch. She was 22 years old and had come to India for 6 months to work teaching other teachers how to help kids with autism and other mental illnesses. She was working with a team in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu and had come to Kerala to go to an ashram here to do yoga for two weeks. We asked why she was interested in that and discussed her Catholic background. We then tried to share with her the dangers of yoga and why people who are Christian shouldn’t practice it. She kept stressing that she and her family weren’t ‘strict’ about their religion, which we eventually found meant that they didn’t go to church or much else. We shared stories about our experiences in India, and Adam and I talked a lot about what God was doing in our lives and what He’d done while we were here.
This experience with this girl made the practice of yoga among Christians weigh heavy on my heart, so I want to take a minute to address it. Many Christians want to believe that it is just stretching and breathing and that if you use the name of Jesus instead of Hindu gods, its okay. I wish people who want to adopt this practice could take a look inside one of the Hindu temples here, experience the utter darkness that comes out of there, and tell me if they think that adopting something that stems from this is godly. Or maybe look at the guy that we saw who was suspended by the hooks in the skin in his back, or the demon possessed guy in the Hindu procession, or the kids with the sticks drilled through their checks. This is Hinduism. This is where yoga originated from and been practiced for thousands of years. Are we in the west that lacking in exercises programs, videos, and outdoor activities? The Lord calls us Christians to be separated from such things. God condemned the Israelites time again for incorporating the practices of their eastern neighbors. Isaiah 2:6 says “For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with eastern ways; they are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners” Why would we want to compromise just for a workout? The ‘sun salutation’ for instance is the common pose you see advertisements. This position is designed for the practitioner to worship the sun! Another big red flag is that Indian Christians, like K.P. Yohannan of Gospel for Asia, have warned westerners in no uncertain terms that is pagan and not of God (see his book ‘Revelution in World Missions’).
Even though this girl Michelle did not seem like a true follower of Christ, it was very, very sad for us to see her taking the Hindu path and not the path of Christ. We gave her a ride to her hotel, and I gave her our contact information and told her that if anything went wrong at the ashram or if she just wanted to leave, she could call us anytime. We prayed for her and still hope that the Catholics that are on her team can steer her toward the truth.
I’d like to wrap up with a request for prayer for our girls. Now that we have a return date, it feels like we are going home soon, but we still have many days to go. Over the past few days, they are suddenly feeling much more bored that ever before and patience is running quite thin. We need to finish this well, and they in particular need endurance to see it through with grace.
We miss everyone and can’t wait to see you all!
On a different topic, I thought I’d share a story about what happened a week or so ago. As I’ve mentioned before, we go to Pizza Corner every Friday night for dinner. It’s our little family outing, and we occasionally bring others along like the lady missionaries from the US, or folks from church, etc. It’s also where we met the Dutch family early on. Anyway, we almost always see one or two Europeans there every time we go. Often, it is just a single person sitting alone. The last time we went, I told Adam that if we see one of these lone Europeans, we should make it a point to invite them over and have dinner with us. We prayed that God would bring whoever He wanted that night, but secretly I hoped it would be a guy so Adam could do most of the talking! We sat down at our table and literally 30 seconds later, in walks a lone young woman. She looked right at us, then sat down at a table across the room. Adam and I both chuckled at it, and I got up my nerve and walked over and invited her to have dinner with us. Her name was Michelle, and she was Dutch. She was 22 years old and had come to India for 6 months to work teaching other teachers how to help kids with autism and other mental illnesses. She was working with a team in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu and had come to Kerala to go to an ashram here to do yoga for two weeks. We asked why she was interested in that and discussed her Catholic background. We then tried to share with her the dangers of yoga and why people who are Christian shouldn’t practice it. She kept stressing that she and her family weren’t ‘strict’ about their religion, which we eventually found meant that they didn’t go to church or much else. We shared stories about our experiences in India, and Adam and I talked a lot about what God was doing in our lives and what He’d done while we were here.
This experience with this girl made the practice of yoga among Christians weigh heavy on my heart, so I want to take a minute to address it. Many Christians want to believe that it is just stretching and breathing and that if you use the name of Jesus instead of Hindu gods, its okay. I wish people who want to adopt this practice could take a look inside one of the Hindu temples here, experience the utter darkness that comes out of there, and tell me if they think that adopting something that stems from this is godly. Or maybe look at the guy that we saw who was suspended by the hooks in the skin in his back, or the demon possessed guy in the Hindu procession, or the kids with the sticks drilled through their checks. This is Hinduism. This is where yoga originated from and been practiced for thousands of years. Are we in the west that lacking in exercises programs, videos, and outdoor activities? The Lord calls us Christians to be separated from such things. God condemned the Israelites time again for incorporating the practices of their eastern neighbors. Isaiah 2:6 says “For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with eastern ways; they are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners” Why would we want to compromise just for a workout? The ‘sun salutation’ for instance is the common pose you see advertisements. This position is designed for the practitioner to worship the sun! Another big red flag is that Indian Christians, like K.P. Yohannan of Gospel for Asia, have warned westerners in no uncertain terms that is pagan and not of God (see his book ‘Revelution in World Missions’).
Even though this girl Michelle did not seem like a true follower of Christ, it was very, very sad for us to see her taking the Hindu path and not the path of Christ. We gave her a ride to her hotel, and I gave her our contact information and told her that if anything went wrong at the ashram or if she just wanted to leave, she could call us anytime. We prayed for her and still hope that the Catholics that are on her team can steer her toward the truth.
I’d like to wrap up with a request for prayer for our girls. Now that we have a return date, it feels like we are going home soon, but we still have many days to go. Over the past few days, they are suddenly feeling much more bored that ever before and patience is running quite thin. We need to finish this well, and they in particular need endurance to see it through with grace.
We miss everyone and can’t wait to see you all!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Return and Healing
RETURN DATE
The past few days have been interesting. On Tuesday, Adam’s boss- seemingly out of nowhere- said that he may want Adam (and us) to go home mid-June, so that Adam could give presentations to accounts in the U.S. He and I were cautious about getting our hopes up for an early return, since things constantly change at his work. Even so, we were still excited, and against all common sense, I started to mentally plan for it. We did not tell the girls however, because that would be a crushing disappointment for them if they thought they were going home and things fell through.
Later that night, I started to feel guilty about that June return date; I’ve had the feeling for several months now that our purpose for being here would come to fruition in June. I’ve shared this with friends as well, so when I e-mailed some friends about the situation, my friend Michelle thought perhaps this was what was going to happen in June. I tried to convince myself that maybe she was right, but deep down I knew I was kidding myself. I’ve felt that it is when God is supposed to show us why we’re here, not take us out of here. I felt like I was taking things into my own hands and forcing God’s hand. I tried to push aside the feelings of guilt, because hey- I get to see my dog again, and the girls get to have a life outside of these four walls again. Even through my many mental justifications, I still felt irritable and uneasy, so I prayed that we would surrender to God’s timing and not our own so that we would not miss the blessing.
So here we are today- Adam’s boss is out of town today, but he sent an e-mail this morning saying that he was now thinking end of June/mid-July as our return date. Adam will talk with him tomorrow to see what the future business plans are and what his boss thinks is needed. Adam made a great point about this experience- here I’ve been talking for months about this feeling of God revealing his plans in June, yet here we were, more than willing to leave in the middle of June.
We both feel peace about the new time frame, which is actually earlier than the original late-July/early-August plan. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we aren’t disappointed, though. I’m praying that God will provide things to keep me and the girls occupied over the next several weeks, and that we all finish the race with joy, patience, and endurance.
HEALING
It seems like a visit to India is not complete unless we witness supernatural healing. The last time we were here, God worked through Adam at Pastor Daniel’s church to heal our driver’s bad back and a lady of asthma. As many of our friends know, I started getting a toothache a few weeks ago. It was in a tooth with a crown, which spells ‘root canal’. The idea of getting a root canal here was, shall we say, less than appealing. Two weeks ago at church, a guest pastor talked about healing. Long story short, he had Adam pray healing over me for my tooth. That day, I struggled because I wanted to believe that I was healed, but I still felt pain. I wrestled with the whole issue of ‘is it God’s will for me to be healed, or is it His will that I’m not, or is it that I just don’t have enough faith?’ Apparently it was His will that I was healed because the next day the pain was way less and now it is entirely gone.
Thanks again to everyone that is keeping us in prayer. It has really made a huge difference. We can feel God’s covering.
One last note- Adam will be preaching at our church this Sunday, and Hailey is going to sing a solo song acappella!
The past few days have been interesting. On Tuesday, Adam’s boss- seemingly out of nowhere- said that he may want Adam (and us) to go home mid-June, so that Adam could give presentations to accounts in the U.S. He and I were cautious about getting our hopes up for an early return, since things constantly change at his work. Even so, we were still excited, and against all common sense, I started to mentally plan for it. We did not tell the girls however, because that would be a crushing disappointment for them if they thought they were going home and things fell through.
Later that night, I started to feel guilty about that June return date; I’ve had the feeling for several months now that our purpose for being here would come to fruition in June. I’ve shared this with friends as well, so when I e-mailed some friends about the situation, my friend Michelle thought perhaps this was what was going to happen in June. I tried to convince myself that maybe she was right, but deep down I knew I was kidding myself. I’ve felt that it is when God is supposed to show us why we’re here, not take us out of here. I felt like I was taking things into my own hands and forcing God’s hand. I tried to push aside the feelings of guilt, because hey- I get to see my dog again, and the girls get to have a life outside of these four walls again. Even through my many mental justifications, I still felt irritable and uneasy, so I prayed that we would surrender to God’s timing and not our own so that we would not miss the blessing.
So here we are today- Adam’s boss is out of town today, but he sent an e-mail this morning saying that he was now thinking end of June/mid-July as our return date. Adam will talk with him tomorrow to see what the future business plans are and what his boss thinks is needed. Adam made a great point about this experience- here I’ve been talking for months about this feeling of God revealing his plans in June, yet here we were, more than willing to leave in the middle of June.
We both feel peace about the new time frame, which is actually earlier than the original late-July/early-August plan. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we aren’t disappointed, though. I’m praying that God will provide things to keep me and the girls occupied over the next several weeks, and that we all finish the race with joy, patience, and endurance.
HEALING
It seems like a visit to India is not complete unless we witness supernatural healing. The last time we were here, God worked through Adam at Pastor Daniel’s church to heal our driver’s bad back and a lady of asthma. As many of our friends know, I started getting a toothache a few weeks ago. It was in a tooth with a crown, which spells ‘root canal’. The idea of getting a root canal here was, shall we say, less than appealing. Two weeks ago at church, a guest pastor talked about healing. Long story short, he had Adam pray healing over me for my tooth. That day, I struggled because I wanted to believe that I was healed, but I still felt pain. I wrestled with the whole issue of ‘is it God’s will for me to be healed, or is it His will that I’m not, or is it that I just don’t have enough faith?’ Apparently it was His will that I was healed because the next day the pain was way less and now it is entirely gone.
Thanks again to everyone that is keeping us in prayer. It has really made a huge difference. We can feel God’s covering.
One last note- Adam will be preaching at our church this Sunday, and Hailey is going to sing a solo song acappella!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Janice and Mohan
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) I have never experienced this well-known verse more than I have over the past two weeks. My attitude toward all of the challenges that we face here has taken a complete 180 degree turn. I finally feel able to take each day as it comes and accept whatever it is that God has for me, whether it is staying in the apartment all day or getting out. Adam and I were even talking last night about how we could live here if we had to. Its not that that is what I want, but I could do it, whereas even two week prior I would never have considered it. I can’t point to any epiphany that lead to the change; I have prayed the same prayers since I got here about God changing my heart. I sincerely believe that God allowed to me experience such depths that the turnaround would give Him even more glory, because there is nothing that I’ve done that can explain this sudden change. I think He wanted me to experienced the sorrow deeply enough that I could live in the joy more fully. Its been a difficult but amazing journey, and I thank God for His goodness in knowing what each of us needs.
God has provided for us in many surprising ways this past week and a half. Last week, a client from America visited Adam’s work and had brought his 14 year old daughter along on this trip to India. Usually, there is someone at Adam’s work who would have taken her around sightseeing, but it was a holiday (yes, another holiday), so most people were gone. They then asked Adam if I would mind taking here around. The girls and I were more than willing to do it, so we had a lovely day of shopping and having lunch at a resort with this girl. It was really fun for the girls to hang out with this girl, especially because she was British born and had just moved to America two years ago. Hailey is fascinated with Great Britian and really wants to visit there.
This past week was one of the best weeks we’ve had here. We had heard for some time from folks at church that there was a Canadian lady and her Indian husband who lived near to us. They are Christians, and she is homeschooling two young boys from our apartment complex. Back when I was in a lousy state of mind, I didn’t feel like reaching out to them. They put on a summer leadership camp (its summer break for kids here), and Hailey agreed to go so I signed her up and left it at that. Over the next several weeks, several other people, including non-Christians from Adam’s work, told us about this couple and said that we should meet. The guilt of being disobedient to what God obviously wanted finally got to me, so I reached out to the wife, Janice, and we went over to their house on Saturday. They are an awesome couple doing some great things for the Kingdom. Janice, while of Canadian heritage, was brought up in another part of India, where her parents were missionaries and had a children’s home. She is much more culturally Indian than she is Canadian.
Mohan, Janice’s husband, has a crazy story as well. He comes from a family who has been Brahmans (the high priestly class of Hindus) for many, many generations. He began schooling to be a Brahman at the age of four. Very shortly into his studies, he began to questions what the Hindu priests where teaching him; things like how their religion originally believed that there was one God, and then later they believed there were many Gods. He kept questioning them about the many contradictions he was seeing. Once you meet Mohan, you can just imagine these priests tearing their hair out at this rebellious kid! Rebellious continued to be the watchword for young life. His family had enough of his, and he eventually left home in his teen years and went to a big city and became part of a gang that sold drugs, exams answers for the major school, you name it. He eventually went to a university there and met a guy there that introduced him to Christ. And not just any guy- a guy who went around dressed as Sherlock Holmes…. This guy was apparently very fond of Sherlock Holmes, but it was his way of coping with his shyness and helping to share the gospel by getting people’s attention. Who would have though! Anyway, Mohan found Christ and became a passionate follower. He and Janice have recently adopted a baby girl named Sara, who is just adorable.
Janice and Mohan held their camp for Hailey’s age group this past week, and it was such a blessing to us all. For the first time, Hailey interacted on a very personal level with many Indian kids her age and learned some really great lessons through the camps activities. The most important lesson that she learned, which she shared with us, was that she now feels comfortable about socializing with Indian kids because she realized that they have the same issues as every kid no matter where you are from. She was also able to handle it when the kids would slip into speaking Malayalam. The cool thing about the camp is that because it’s a leadership camp, kids from many important families in town go there, including many Hindu kids. Janice and Mohan share each day some aspect of the Gospel in camp. On the last day, Mohan even shared his story of being a Hindu and challenging their beliefs and finding truth in the bible. It could see the impact on one girl in particular, so I will be praying for her.
On a final note, prayers for peace for our driver Rinish and his family would be appreciated. His father died three weeks ago, and his uncle just died last week. Its been rough on his family, especially his mother whose brother it was that died. Another prayer request is for a wife for him. Even among Christian families, marriages are still often arranged, and it is the role of the father to find a bride. Rinish has been anxious to get married since we first arrived here, and since his father died, it makes it that much harder for him to find a wife.
Thanks again to everyone for your prayers and e-mails!! We love you.
P.S. This is a shout out to Carie Lopez in Chicago- I am so glad that God has used me and Margaret to encourage you! God bless!
God has provided for us in many surprising ways this past week and a half. Last week, a client from America visited Adam’s work and had brought his 14 year old daughter along on this trip to India. Usually, there is someone at Adam’s work who would have taken her around sightseeing, but it was a holiday (yes, another holiday), so most people were gone. They then asked Adam if I would mind taking here around. The girls and I were more than willing to do it, so we had a lovely day of shopping and having lunch at a resort with this girl. It was really fun for the girls to hang out with this girl, especially because she was British born and had just moved to America two years ago. Hailey is fascinated with Great Britian and really wants to visit there.
This past week was one of the best weeks we’ve had here. We had heard for some time from folks at church that there was a Canadian lady and her Indian husband who lived near to us. They are Christians, and she is homeschooling two young boys from our apartment complex. Back when I was in a lousy state of mind, I didn’t feel like reaching out to them. They put on a summer leadership camp (its summer break for kids here), and Hailey agreed to go so I signed her up and left it at that. Over the next several weeks, several other people, including non-Christians from Adam’s work, told us about this couple and said that we should meet. The guilt of being disobedient to what God obviously wanted finally got to me, so I reached out to the wife, Janice, and we went over to their house on Saturday. They are an awesome couple doing some great things for the Kingdom. Janice, while of Canadian heritage, was brought up in another part of India, where her parents were missionaries and had a children’s home. She is much more culturally Indian than she is Canadian.
Mohan, Janice’s husband, has a crazy story as well. He comes from a family who has been Brahmans (the high priestly class of Hindus) for many, many generations. He began schooling to be a Brahman at the age of four. Very shortly into his studies, he began to questions what the Hindu priests where teaching him; things like how their religion originally believed that there was one God, and then later they believed there were many Gods. He kept questioning them about the many contradictions he was seeing. Once you meet Mohan, you can just imagine these priests tearing their hair out at this rebellious kid! Rebellious continued to be the watchword for young life. His family had enough of his, and he eventually left home in his teen years and went to a big city and became part of a gang that sold drugs, exams answers for the major school, you name it. He eventually went to a university there and met a guy there that introduced him to Christ. And not just any guy- a guy who went around dressed as Sherlock Holmes…. This guy was apparently very fond of Sherlock Holmes, but it was his way of coping with his shyness and helping to share the gospel by getting people’s attention. Who would have though! Anyway, Mohan found Christ and became a passionate follower. He and Janice have recently adopted a baby girl named Sara, who is just adorable.
Janice and Mohan held their camp for Hailey’s age group this past week, and it was such a blessing to us all. For the first time, Hailey interacted on a very personal level with many Indian kids her age and learned some really great lessons through the camps activities. The most important lesson that she learned, which she shared with us, was that she now feels comfortable about socializing with Indian kids because she realized that they have the same issues as every kid no matter where you are from. She was also able to handle it when the kids would slip into speaking Malayalam. The cool thing about the camp is that because it’s a leadership camp, kids from many important families in town go there, including many Hindu kids. Janice and Mohan share each day some aspect of the Gospel in camp. On the last day, Mohan even shared his story of being a Hindu and challenging their beliefs and finding truth in the bible. It could see the impact on one girl in particular, so I will be praying for her.
On a final note, prayers for peace for our driver Rinish and his family would be appreciated. His father died three weeks ago, and his uncle just died last week. Its been rough on his family, especially his mother whose brother it was that died. Another prayer request is for a wife for him. Even among Christian families, marriages are still often arranged, and it is the role of the father to find a bride. Rinish has been anxious to get married since we first arrived here, and since his father died, it makes it that much harder for him to find a wife.
Thanks again to everyone for your prayers and e-mails!! We love you.
P.S. This is a shout out to Carie Lopez in Chicago- I am so glad that God has used me and Margaret to encourage you! God bless!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Simon's Story
This past week or so has been pretty good. I think I’m finally learning to rest in God and take each day as it comes. It doesn’t matter what situation I am in- as God told Paul, His ‘grace is sufficient’. I also trust that He does indeed have something more in store for us here. Adam and I agreed that even if nothing monumental were to happen here, we have been totally blessed by some incredible people that we’ve met here. We have also heard some incredible testimonies. I’d like to share one of them…
SIMON
The pastor’s son-in-law at Radiant church, where we are attending here, met Simon at work at Technopark. Simon came to Radiant last week and shared his testimony.
WARNING- I want to share the graphic detail of his accident, as he described it to us, because I think it is powerful, but be warned that it is not easy to handle.
Simon became a Christian a few years ago and followed the Lord mostly half heartedly at first. One morning, on his way to work, he had a feeling that he should look into getting some insurance in the event that he had an accident on his motorcycle. He made a mental note to do so and got on his motorcycle and drove out of his driveway. He was unaware of the enormous gravel truck barreling toward him. In a split second, he was hit by the truck, run over by the back tire, and dragged for several hundred meters underneath it. The truck driver knew he had hit someone but because of its full load, he was unable to stop quickly.
When the driver finally stopped, Simon looked down and saw that the entire front of his lower body was ripped open. He could see all of his internal organs and his own spine. His genitals were completely ripped off of his body. His legs and feet were totally crushed. At no point in this was he ever unconscious- he experienced the entire incident completely. As he lay in agony and terror on the road side, he begged for someone to take him to the hospital. Out of the hundreds of people that had gathered to look, no one would. This is often the case in India; if you take someone to the hospital in your car and they die on the way, you are left to deal with the body, so no one wants to get involved. Finally, he called his employer on some bystander’s phone and someone was sent to come and get him.
He was taken to the medical college in town, where he was told that he would most likely lose at least one of his legs. He feared this greatly and prayed that it wouldn’t happen. After many hours of surgery, he came out with both of his legs, but they remained badly crushed and he still had many open wounds. Over the course of the next few months at the medical college, the flesh in his legs began to putrefy. He described how the stench from it overwhelmed him. Infections began to set in, and the many flies in the hospital began to transmit his infection to other patients with open wounds in the room that they shared, so they moved him to an isolated place.
It took many, many months of healing and numerous surgeries to save his legs and close the wounds. He also suffered from urinary tract infections constantly and had to be catheterized for two years, which he found unbearable. Finally, the last surgery placed pins in his leg, and he eventually found healed and was able to return to work.
A few weeks after he returned to work, the man driving him had a head on collision with another car. Simon, sitting in the passenger seat, felt pain in his leg and looked down to see his femur sticking out of the leg that had just healed. Again, he went to surgery and went through months of healing. He was scheduled for one last surgery to fix a portion that was not healed. He was at the point where he just could not take another surgery and cried out to God. A few days later, he went in to have the pre-operation x-ray. After the x-ray was taken, Simon heard a commotion from the doctor in the back. The doctor came out and said that he was canceling the surgery because the break had been miraculously healed!
Simon is now completely healed but walks with a sever limp due to the rod in his right leg. Because both legs were saved, he has been able to continue playing drums, which is the main passion in his life. He also loves dogs and has several breeds of large dogs, including a Golden Retriever, a Rottweiler, and a bull dog. He is amazed that Christ took him through all that he did, and he has been able to share his testimony with many people.
I don’t know about you, but this story sure puts things in perspective for me!! My life is pretty blessed!!
Have a wonderful week.
SIMON
The pastor’s son-in-law at Radiant church, where we are attending here, met Simon at work at Technopark. Simon came to Radiant last week and shared his testimony.
WARNING- I want to share the graphic detail of his accident, as he described it to us, because I think it is powerful, but be warned that it is not easy to handle.
Simon became a Christian a few years ago and followed the Lord mostly half heartedly at first. One morning, on his way to work, he had a feeling that he should look into getting some insurance in the event that he had an accident on his motorcycle. He made a mental note to do so and got on his motorcycle and drove out of his driveway. He was unaware of the enormous gravel truck barreling toward him. In a split second, he was hit by the truck, run over by the back tire, and dragged for several hundred meters underneath it. The truck driver knew he had hit someone but because of its full load, he was unable to stop quickly.
When the driver finally stopped, Simon looked down and saw that the entire front of his lower body was ripped open. He could see all of his internal organs and his own spine. His genitals were completely ripped off of his body. His legs and feet were totally crushed. At no point in this was he ever unconscious- he experienced the entire incident completely. As he lay in agony and terror on the road side, he begged for someone to take him to the hospital. Out of the hundreds of people that had gathered to look, no one would. This is often the case in India; if you take someone to the hospital in your car and they die on the way, you are left to deal with the body, so no one wants to get involved. Finally, he called his employer on some bystander’s phone and someone was sent to come and get him.
He was taken to the medical college in town, where he was told that he would most likely lose at least one of his legs. He feared this greatly and prayed that it wouldn’t happen. After many hours of surgery, he came out with both of his legs, but they remained badly crushed and he still had many open wounds. Over the course of the next few months at the medical college, the flesh in his legs began to putrefy. He described how the stench from it overwhelmed him. Infections began to set in, and the many flies in the hospital began to transmit his infection to other patients with open wounds in the room that they shared, so they moved him to an isolated place.
It took many, many months of healing and numerous surgeries to save his legs and close the wounds. He also suffered from urinary tract infections constantly and had to be catheterized for two years, which he found unbearable. Finally, the last surgery placed pins in his leg, and he eventually found healed and was able to return to work.
A few weeks after he returned to work, the man driving him had a head on collision with another car. Simon, sitting in the passenger seat, felt pain in his leg and looked down to see his femur sticking out of the leg that had just healed. Again, he went to surgery and went through months of healing. He was scheduled for one last surgery to fix a portion that was not healed. He was at the point where he just could not take another surgery and cried out to God. A few days later, he went in to have the pre-operation x-ray. After the x-ray was taken, Simon heard a commotion from the doctor in the back. The doctor came out and said that he was canceling the surgery because the break had been miraculously healed!
Simon is now completely healed but walks with a sever limp due to the rod in his right leg. Because both legs were saved, he has been able to continue playing drums, which is the main passion in his life. He also loves dogs and has several breeds of large dogs, including a Golden Retriever, a Rottweiler, and a bull dog. He is amazed that Christ took him through all that he did, and he has been able to share his testimony with many people.
I don’t know about you, but this story sure puts things in perspective for me!! My life is pretty blessed!!
Have a wonderful week.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Struck by Thunder
In that silly Disney kid’s movie ‘Snow Dogs’, where Florida dentist Cuba Gooding Jr. goes to Alaska, there is a line in it about tough, grizzled James Coburn being the only man who was ever ‘struck by thunder’. A storm rolled through in the evening a few nights ago, and we felt like we were nearly struck by thunder. One of the thunder claps was louder and more powerful that anything that we have ever experienced. It gave us a better understanding of what it must have been like for the Israelites when Moses was on the mountain with God!
Aside for the storm, the week’s excitement was when Adam preached at church last Sunday. As I mentioned last week, our pastor felt that God was telling him that Adam should be a teacher and invited him to speak the next Sunday. Adam is obviously very busy with work all week, so he wrestled with the decision of whether or not to accept the invitation. After about two days, he knew that he was running from it, and God led him- appropriately- to teach out of Jonah. He also focused on prayer and how we should reflect on how much time we spend with God. I love the book of Jonah because of Jonah’s humanness, like how he was so mad about God not killing the Ninevites that he wanted to die himself. I’ve wrestled with God about things myself, particularly about spending so much time cooped up in the apartment here, and said things to God like ‘This is so stupid!! What a waste of time!!’ In my bitterness, I’ve also found myself, particularly early on here, not praying that much because of my bitterness. The part that Adam touched on that really affected me was how Jonah was in the belly of the fish for THREE DAYS before he prayed! I never realized that. I’m sure everyone knows that he was in the belly for three days, but I never observed that he waited that long to actually pray. When he finally did, God had the fish spit him out.
How many of us are more like Jonah than we want to admit? As human beings, our tendency is to do things under our own power and turn to God as our last resort. There are times when God will deliver us from our troubles quickly when we turn to Him, like Jonah at that point, but I’m finding that it’s the times when my will does not align itself with God’s, or that He is taking way too long in my opinion to answer the prayer in the way that I want, that I have trouble continuing to pray and seek His will. Strangely, I didn’t really have that problem in America, even through some really tough stuff. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that God is taking me through this again here- in America, I can go meet with a friend or pick up the phone and get immediate support. Here, the feeling of isolation is often overwhelming, and I see that God is really the only one that I should need to turn to. That’s not to minimize the importance of fellowship, of course, but maybe it has been a heart issue for me and this apartment is my fish belly!
Overall, Adam did quite well for it being his first real sermon. The Swiss family said they were touched by it and couldn’t believe it was his first time teaching. This couple also had two other couples with them that week visiting from Switzerland, which, as we joked, increased the congregation by 40%! They spoke German and knew only a few English words, so it took some of the pressure off of Adam. Adam was also blessed by the in-depth study that he had to do in preparation for the sermon. He said that he will never listen to a sermon the same way again!
Aside for the storm, the week’s excitement was when Adam preached at church last Sunday. As I mentioned last week, our pastor felt that God was telling him that Adam should be a teacher and invited him to speak the next Sunday. Adam is obviously very busy with work all week, so he wrestled with the decision of whether or not to accept the invitation. After about two days, he knew that he was running from it, and God led him- appropriately- to teach out of Jonah. He also focused on prayer and how we should reflect on how much time we spend with God. I love the book of Jonah because of Jonah’s humanness, like how he was so mad about God not killing the Ninevites that he wanted to die himself. I’ve wrestled with God about things myself, particularly about spending so much time cooped up in the apartment here, and said things to God like ‘This is so stupid!! What a waste of time!!’ In my bitterness, I’ve also found myself, particularly early on here, not praying that much because of my bitterness. The part that Adam touched on that really affected me was how Jonah was in the belly of the fish for THREE DAYS before he prayed! I never realized that. I’m sure everyone knows that he was in the belly for three days, but I never observed that he waited that long to actually pray. When he finally did, God had the fish spit him out.
How many of us are more like Jonah than we want to admit? As human beings, our tendency is to do things under our own power and turn to God as our last resort. There are times when God will deliver us from our troubles quickly when we turn to Him, like Jonah at that point, but I’m finding that it’s the times when my will does not align itself with God’s, or that He is taking way too long in my opinion to answer the prayer in the way that I want, that I have trouble continuing to pray and seek His will. Strangely, I didn’t really have that problem in America, even through some really tough stuff. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that God is taking me through this again here- in America, I can go meet with a friend or pick up the phone and get immediate support. Here, the feeling of isolation is often overwhelming, and I see that God is really the only one that I should need to turn to. That’s not to minimize the importance of fellowship, of course, but maybe it has been a heart issue for me and this apartment is my fish belly!
Overall, Adam did quite well for it being his first real sermon. The Swiss family said they were touched by it and couldn’t believe it was his first time teaching. This couple also had two other couples with them that week visiting from Switzerland, which, as we joked, increased the congregation by 40%! They spoke German and knew only a few English words, so it took some of the pressure off of Adam. Adam was also blessed by the in-depth study that he had to do in preparation for the sermon. He said that he will never listen to a sermon the same way again!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Horrible Accident
Last night we were involved in a horrible accident. At about 10:30 at night, our car struck a 16 year old boy who had darted out in front of us while trying to cross the street. I want to take a minute to describe how thing unfolded that evening.
As I blogged a few days ago, Hailey’s birthday was on Friday, so we decided to take her on a surprise trip on a house boat in the backwaters about an hour away from Trivandrum in the city of Kollam. We were supposed to leave at 4PM to board the boat at 5:30. At about 4:30, we realized that our driver was heading in exactly the opposite direction of Kollam, toward a town called Kovallam. Adam had even shown him the city name in writing to make sure he knew where we were headed. So he apologized and turned around, but now we were going to be over an hour late to get to Kollam.
When we were within about 10 minutes of our destination, we noticed a government official in the road. He let the car in front of us go but then waved us to take a detour. Apparently some local political rally was starting, and they were blocking the streets. Our detour led us into these remote fishing villages with single track roads. Immediately we were stopped by a train crossing and had to wait about 10 minutes for it to pass. A few minutes later, our drive followed the ‘lead’ car in the detour line around a tight turn that didn’t look like the proper route, only to find that it wasn’t- it came to an even tighter turn and just as you came out of the turn was huge pile of golf ball-sized gravel. The car in front of us landed right in the middle of the pile. He proceeded to try and get unstuck by gunning the engine, which set these rocks firing into our car at high speed. Our drive couldn’t back out because there was a line of cars behind him wedging us in. It was so frightening because these rocks were coming right at Adam’s side window and the front windshield where he was sitting. By a miracle, the car was undamaged. With direction from the local villagers, the line of cars backed out and we were on our way.
When we eventually came to the main road, our driver was lost and had to ask several people which way to go. At this point, we were over an hour and a half late, and Adam and I began to question whether or not to cancel the trip. We’ve grown to become suspicious when several weird things like this happen in a row. We decided that we’d driven so long and were so close that we might as well continue. We found the dock and went out and had a nice time celebrating Hailey’s birthday on the boat. We started to head home at around 9PM.
Adam and I have noticed that in general, traffic has changed here since our last visit several years ago. People used to just step out in to traffic, and the cars would drive around you. That is not the case anymore; cars are not stopping for people as they cross and driving is even more aggressive. It was dark as we drove home, and the whole way Adam and I both had a bad feeling. Adam even joked with our driver Rinish that he was earning his money tonight and that driving at night was a lot harder. I was in the back with girls, and I kept seeing these huge buses crossing into our lane and coming closer than normal to hitting us head on. Rinish would have to pull way off to the side of road to avoid some of them. At one point, we were in a stretch of road in a sparsely populated village area that had relatively few cars, so Rinish started driving fast to make up time. He must been going double the speed we normally do, around 45 miles per hour.
Then it happened- I heard a crash, felt Rinish jerk the car to the right, and saw Adam’s side window shatter two inches from his head. He was choking out ‘oh my God, oh my God’ over and over again, and my blood ran cold. I was afraid to even ask but yelled back ‘what did we hit’ and he said ‘we hit a person’. The tinting on the window must have prevented it from shattering all over Adam, and I could see part of the window broken inward toward him, and the side mirror was ripped off and dangling. I was so afraid that he had been hurt. He told me he was alright, and Rinish pulled over and stopped. Adam immediately got out of the car and ran into the darkness toward the boy. It was a fair distance away because at our speed we had covered a lot of ground before stopping. Rinish followed Adam. Thank God the girls had both been sleeping and had missed the whole thing. They woke up to me crying and praying loudly and calling on Jesus to be in the situation. I didn’t even know what to pray at that point. I knew Adam had just witnessed something horrific and was most likely about to see something even worse, so I prayed for protection over him.
When Adam got the scene, the locals had already started gathering. He saw them drag the limp body of the boy by one arm off the road. He was shocked at the sight of the boy laying limp and at the callus manner with which the people were handling him. The locals then dropped the boy in a heap on the side of the road. Adam lifted his hands and prayed loudly and eventually dropped to his knees in prayer. He prayed that God would miraculously heal this boy, and that God would be glorified in the situation. Back at the car, I was praying the same thing. A few minutes later, a car pulled up and the locals dumped the boy in the back of it, and as Rinish tried to walk away they grabbed him and shoved him in as well and took off.
The girls and I stayed in the car as these few minutes unfolded. The crowd had gathered around us too, and a man opened the driver’s side door and got in the driver’s seat. I immediately yelled at the girls to get out. I had no idea what this guy’s intentions were and envisioned him driving off with us in the back seat. The crowd surrounded us, and Adam could see this so he started running back toward us. He could hear a guy running behind him and feared that it might be a relative thinking he was fleeing the scene, so he started walking. While I was standing there, I was crying because looking at the damage to the car, I thought this boy must be either dead or severely wounded. The local men kept telling me, ‘don’t be upset, it happens all the time’. They were completely unmoved by the situation and didn’t understand why we would be crying. Adam finally arrived, and we prayed together as a family. We again prayed for the boy and that Jesus would be glorified in this situation. At one point when the girls and I were standing there, I looked over at Hailey. She was standing there silent and a foot or two away from me. I expected that she’d be like Jackie, clinging to me with her head buried in my stomach crying. I thought she was in shock or something and asked her if she was alright. She looked and me and said, ‘I’m praying!’ and broke down in tears but stayed where she was. I was so moved to see that she didn’t turn to her earthly parent but turned instead to her heavenly parent for comfort.
Adam called his boss who arranged for another car to come and get us. When the car finally arrived, his boss called to tell Adam that he had made some other calls and found out that the boy was alright! From what we gather, he didn’t even have any broken bones. This boy who was hit at 45 miles an hour, shatter the window and left huge dents in the side of the car, and was unconscious on the street and appeared dead, was unharmed. We are convinced that God did indeed do a miraculous healing on the boy.
Needless to say, we were pretty shaken up on the drive home, even knowing the boy was alright. Today, we were still emotional over the whole event when we went to church. I might not have blogged about it before, but for several weeks now we have been going to a new church. Its small with only about 12 members or so. After each service, they invite anyone who wants to share up front to tell about what God is doing in their lives. Adam went up and shared our story from last night. After service, the congregation has lunch together, and after lunch today the pastor, Pastor Thomas, called Adam back into his office privately. Pastor Thomas had called Adam earlier in the week wanting to come over, but we were entertaining two other Americans from Adam’s work that night and couldn’t. Thomas explained that he had wanted to come over to get to know Adam because he felt God tell him that Adam was supposed to teach. He said that after hearing Adam speak today, he was convinced that this was the case. He told Adam that he had moved the congregation more in his short time of sharing than he as pastor had during his whole sermon.
While we were praying the other day, I prayed Romans 8:28, how ‘we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.’ I do believe that God has worked this situation for His good. Perhaps God is calling Adam to a new purpose. Please pray with us for guidance and wisdom.
As I blogged a few days ago, Hailey’s birthday was on Friday, so we decided to take her on a surprise trip on a house boat in the backwaters about an hour away from Trivandrum in the city of Kollam. We were supposed to leave at 4PM to board the boat at 5:30. At about 4:30, we realized that our driver was heading in exactly the opposite direction of Kollam, toward a town called Kovallam. Adam had even shown him the city name in writing to make sure he knew where we were headed. So he apologized and turned around, but now we were going to be over an hour late to get to Kollam.
When we were within about 10 minutes of our destination, we noticed a government official in the road. He let the car in front of us go but then waved us to take a detour. Apparently some local political rally was starting, and they were blocking the streets. Our detour led us into these remote fishing villages with single track roads. Immediately we were stopped by a train crossing and had to wait about 10 minutes for it to pass. A few minutes later, our drive followed the ‘lead’ car in the detour line around a tight turn that didn’t look like the proper route, only to find that it wasn’t- it came to an even tighter turn and just as you came out of the turn was huge pile of golf ball-sized gravel. The car in front of us landed right in the middle of the pile. He proceeded to try and get unstuck by gunning the engine, which set these rocks firing into our car at high speed. Our drive couldn’t back out because there was a line of cars behind him wedging us in. It was so frightening because these rocks were coming right at Adam’s side window and the front windshield where he was sitting. By a miracle, the car was undamaged. With direction from the local villagers, the line of cars backed out and we were on our way.
When we eventually came to the main road, our driver was lost and had to ask several people which way to go. At this point, we were over an hour and a half late, and Adam and I began to question whether or not to cancel the trip. We’ve grown to become suspicious when several weird things like this happen in a row. We decided that we’d driven so long and were so close that we might as well continue. We found the dock and went out and had a nice time celebrating Hailey’s birthday on the boat. We started to head home at around 9PM.
Adam and I have noticed that in general, traffic has changed here since our last visit several years ago. People used to just step out in to traffic, and the cars would drive around you. That is not the case anymore; cars are not stopping for people as they cross and driving is even more aggressive. It was dark as we drove home, and the whole way Adam and I both had a bad feeling. Adam even joked with our driver Rinish that he was earning his money tonight and that driving at night was a lot harder. I was in the back with girls, and I kept seeing these huge buses crossing into our lane and coming closer than normal to hitting us head on. Rinish would have to pull way off to the side of road to avoid some of them. At one point, we were in a stretch of road in a sparsely populated village area that had relatively few cars, so Rinish started driving fast to make up time. He must been going double the speed we normally do, around 45 miles per hour.
Then it happened- I heard a crash, felt Rinish jerk the car to the right, and saw Adam’s side window shatter two inches from his head. He was choking out ‘oh my God, oh my God’ over and over again, and my blood ran cold. I was afraid to even ask but yelled back ‘what did we hit’ and he said ‘we hit a person’. The tinting on the window must have prevented it from shattering all over Adam, and I could see part of the window broken inward toward him, and the side mirror was ripped off and dangling. I was so afraid that he had been hurt. He told me he was alright, and Rinish pulled over and stopped. Adam immediately got out of the car and ran into the darkness toward the boy. It was a fair distance away because at our speed we had covered a lot of ground before stopping. Rinish followed Adam. Thank God the girls had both been sleeping and had missed the whole thing. They woke up to me crying and praying loudly and calling on Jesus to be in the situation. I didn’t even know what to pray at that point. I knew Adam had just witnessed something horrific and was most likely about to see something even worse, so I prayed for protection over him.
When Adam got the scene, the locals had already started gathering. He saw them drag the limp body of the boy by one arm off the road. He was shocked at the sight of the boy laying limp and at the callus manner with which the people were handling him. The locals then dropped the boy in a heap on the side of the road. Adam lifted his hands and prayed loudly and eventually dropped to his knees in prayer. He prayed that God would miraculously heal this boy, and that God would be glorified in the situation. Back at the car, I was praying the same thing. A few minutes later, a car pulled up and the locals dumped the boy in the back of it, and as Rinish tried to walk away they grabbed him and shoved him in as well and took off.
The girls and I stayed in the car as these few minutes unfolded. The crowd had gathered around us too, and a man opened the driver’s side door and got in the driver’s seat. I immediately yelled at the girls to get out. I had no idea what this guy’s intentions were and envisioned him driving off with us in the back seat. The crowd surrounded us, and Adam could see this so he started running back toward us. He could hear a guy running behind him and feared that it might be a relative thinking he was fleeing the scene, so he started walking. While I was standing there, I was crying because looking at the damage to the car, I thought this boy must be either dead or severely wounded. The local men kept telling me, ‘don’t be upset, it happens all the time’. They were completely unmoved by the situation and didn’t understand why we would be crying. Adam finally arrived, and we prayed together as a family. We again prayed for the boy and that Jesus would be glorified in this situation. At one point when the girls and I were standing there, I looked over at Hailey. She was standing there silent and a foot or two away from me. I expected that she’d be like Jackie, clinging to me with her head buried in my stomach crying. I thought she was in shock or something and asked her if she was alright. She looked and me and said, ‘I’m praying!’ and broke down in tears but stayed where she was. I was so moved to see that she didn’t turn to her earthly parent but turned instead to her heavenly parent for comfort.
Adam called his boss who arranged for another car to come and get us. When the car finally arrived, his boss called to tell Adam that he had made some other calls and found out that the boy was alright! From what we gather, he didn’t even have any broken bones. This boy who was hit at 45 miles an hour, shatter the window and left huge dents in the side of the car, and was unconscious on the street and appeared dead, was unharmed. We are convinced that God did indeed do a miraculous healing on the boy.
Needless to say, we were pretty shaken up on the drive home, even knowing the boy was alright. Today, we were still emotional over the whole event when we went to church. I might not have blogged about it before, but for several weeks now we have been going to a new church. Its small with only about 12 members or so. After each service, they invite anyone who wants to share up front to tell about what God is doing in their lives. Adam went up and shared our story from last night. After service, the congregation has lunch together, and after lunch today the pastor, Pastor Thomas, called Adam back into his office privately. Pastor Thomas had called Adam earlier in the week wanting to come over, but we were entertaining two other Americans from Adam’s work that night and couldn’t. Thomas explained that he had wanted to come over to get to know Adam because he felt God tell him that Adam was supposed to teach. He said that after hearing Adam speak today, he was convinced that this was the case. He told Adam that he had moved the congregation more in his short time of sharing than he as pastor had during his whole sermon.
While we were praying the other day, I prayed Romans 8:28, how ‘we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.’ I do believe that God has worked this situation for His good. Perhaps God is calling Adam to a new purpose. Please pray with us for guidance and wisdom.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Hailey turns 12
Today is the 19th- Hailey’s 12th birthday. I would say that its hard to believe that she’s twelve, but I actually find it hard to believe that she’s only twelve. She has always been very mature and independent- perhaps a little too independent. As our friends can attest to, I was beside myself when she went off to music camp for a week the summer after 2nd grade. Here was this second grader wanting to go off to camp for a week completely alone to a city two hours away! That’s how old Jackie is right now. I just can’t imagine it looking back. Hailey has made amazing progress in her spiritual growth since we’ve been here. She has a tender heart and is a peacemaker for sure. I just read the comment that my niece Bonnie left on last weeks’ posting, and it made me realize how similar she and Hailey are. Bonnie is a great singer and is at college on a music scholarship, and Hailey has a lovely singing voice as well. Both girls have similar personalities too. Hailey has shown amazing endurance and patience lately, thanks to the many prayers of our friends and family.
This week, the girls and I went to a ladies’ group meeting at the Indian lady’s house. She is the one married to a Dutch guy. I’ll call her Ruth. They have a nice house and their cook makes incredible food! We get the royal treatment whenever we go there. The girls and I went over ourselves last week, so Ruth and I could socialize for a few hours. The agenda for the ladies’ get together was to learn bead jewelry work. Ruth is incredibly talented in so many things, like pastel drawing and doll making, and she is also an ex-lawyer. She makes amazing jewelry and wanted to show us all how to make a bracelet. Mind you, this isn’t just stringing beads on a thread. Its more like sewing. It was a really difficult stitch, but once I mastered it, I was hooked on beading! We took our work home to finish before the second lesson next week.
The nice thing about this beading is that it allows me to listen to sermons while I’m sewing. I’ve done this the past two nights, and I was amazed that as I ‘randomly’ chose sermons on my MP3 player, they were exactly what I needed to hear each night. What struck me in the sermon from last night was how God answers prayers, often in ways we might not neccessarily like. For example, if someone prays to be more loving, God may put a person in their lives that is not just unlovable but downright unlikable. I recalled many of my prayers over the past few months. One was a prayer that the girls would be each others’ best friends and have a bond that would last a life time. Its hysterical to think that here they are, spending 24 hours a day together with no other friends for 6 months! How’s that for bonding?! I had prayed many prayers long ago about us getting out of our comfort zones as well. I can only imagine how many other prayers God is answering through this trip. I was struck with guilt and shame over being down so often while being here and felt a huge need to confess and repent over it. I felt like such an ungrateful child. I am determined to lean more on the Lord and be grateful in all things. In his tragedy, Job in verse 1:21 said ‘The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ It’s not like I’m suffering any tragedies, but it’s a great reminder to bless the name of the Lord ALWAYS, in whatever circumstances.
Its been interesting- each morning when I wake up, I have a worship song in my head. It’s a different one each day. As I go over the words in my head, I’ve come to realize that it’s what I need for that particular day; that I need to think about and embrace those words. Its been quite uncanny. If I had memorized more scripture, perhaps God would have brought passages to mind each day, but I guess He’s using the limited resources that He has to work with. :) Its just one more reason why I’m so glad that I’ve stopped listening to the secular music that I used to listen to. The last thing I need is Morrissey (80's music for you young-ins) in my head- with songs like 'Girlfriend in a Coma', 'Unhappy Birthday', etc. 'Meat is Murder' is still okay, though. Just kidding!
This week, the girls and I went to a ladies’ group meeting at the Indian lady’s house. She is the one married to a Dutch guy. I’ll call her Ruth. They have a nice house and their cook makes incredible food! We get the royal treatment whenever we go there. The girls and I went over ourselves last week, so Ruth and I could socialize for a few hours. The agenda for the ladies’ get together was to learn bead jewelry work. Ruth is incredibly talented in so many things, like pastel drawing and doll making, and she is also an ex-lawyer. She makes amazing jewelry and wanted to show us all how to make a bracelet. Mind you, this isn’t just stringing beads on a thread. Its more like sewing. It was a really difficult stitch, but once I mastered it, I was hooked on beading! We took our work home to finish before the second lesson next week.
The nice thing about this beading is that it allows me to listen to sermons while I’m sewing. I’ve done this the past two nights, and I was amazed that as I ‘randomly’ chose sermons on my MP3 player, they were exactly what I needed to hear each night. What struck me in the sermon from last night was how God answers prayers, often in ways we might not neccessarily like. For example, if someone prays to be more loving, God may put a person in their lives that is not just unlovable but downright unlikable. I recalled many of my prayers over the past few months. One was a prayer that the girls would be each others’ best friends and have a bond that would last a life time. Its hysterical to think that here they are, spending 24 hours a day together with no other friends for 6 months! How’s that for bonding?! I had prayed many prayers long ago about us getting out of our comfort zones as well. I can only imagine how many other prayers God is answering through this trip. I was struck with guilt and shame over being down so often while being here and felt a huge need to confess and repent over it. I felt like such an ungrateful child. I am determined to lean more on the Lord and be grateful in all things. In his tragedy, Job in verse 1:21 said ‘The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ It’s not like I’m suffering any tragedies, but it’s a great reminder to bless the name of the Lord ALWAYS, in whatever circumstances.
Its been interesting- each morning when I wake up, I have a worship song in my head. It’s a different one each day. As I go over the words in my head, I’ve come to realize that it’s what I need for that particular day; that I need to think about and embrace those words. Its been quite uncanny. If I had memorized more scripture, perhaps God would have brought passages to mind each day, but I guess He’s using the limited resources that He has to work with. :) Its just one more reason why I’m so glad that I’ve stopped listening to the secular music that I used to listen to. The last thing I need is Morrissey (80's music for you young-ins) in my head- with songs like 'Girlfriend in a Coma', 'Unhappy Birthday', etc. 'Meat is Murder' is still okay, though. Just kidding!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Struggles
I will be honest- today was not such a great day, so it’s hard to sit down and write with the weight of that hanging over me, but the reason that I write these blogs is because I feel like it’s my little ministry while I’m here. I don’t know how successful I am at it, but I feel like God has called me to share, open and honestly, about our experiences here. It would be a disservice to those that I hope to edify if I were to sugar coat everything. Life is not like that, no matter where you are. When we truly commit to following Christ, we will have our struggles. Hopefully through sharing mine, others might feel like they are not alone or any less in God’s eyes because they fall short of where they think they should be (me included) in their Christian walk.
That being said, life here continues to have its ups and downs, both in their extremes; the highs are very high, and the lows are very low. Some days I wake up and anxiously wait with anticipation to see what new person God puts in my path. When several days go by and no person is put in my path, I’m deflated as the girls and I spend the time in isolation with each day feeling like its 48 hours long. Adam leaves for work at 8AM and doesn’t return until 6:30 or 7PM most nights, so the girls and I have many long hours to fill. We do spend Wednesdays with the European ladies at the weekly luncheon, but the between days can be difficult and lonely. Most of the European ladies either work or volunteer in their kids’ schools to occupy their time. They have moved here permanently, so most have decided to enroll their kids in local schools. Their kids are also very young, which helps with the integration.
I do think we have all pretty well adjusted to the culture here, though. We know where to buy everything that we need, how to get around, etc. The girls and I often make trips during the week to the stores and library to try and get out. The library is very small and mostly has fiction books, but it is a real Godsend considering how much Hailey reads! Life in this small town (even with its 2 million people!) is still pretty rough. The girls and I have started painting with some of the European ladies before our luncheon on Wednesdays, and the ladies were lamenting how this town has nothing to do in it, especially compared to larger cities in India. One lady is an Indian from Mumbai, and she hates it here. Apparently the local ladies even snub other Indians who are not Malayali (locals). She tried to make relationships, but no one would ever call her or invite her out, which is why she engaged the Europeans (that and her husband is Dutch). Social outlets in general are very few. There is only one coffee shop in town, for example (and as an aside, they serve instant coffee). There is no place to hang out, especially for younger people.
While our days are rough being cooped up in the apartment, Adam has been enjoying working at an office for a change. Working from home in Idaho, he would be on the phone in his office for hours on end and not get out much. Our roles are slightly reversed here, but in Idaho he didn’t have the girls sitting in his office with him for 12 hours a day and no other grow ups to talk to the entire time. Hmmm….it kind of makes me smile to think about that scenario…. He is settling into his new role and I think being an overall positive influence there. He shares about his faith were possible and appropriate as well. Yesterday, there was a meeting where they ask the host of the event (him) to light the flame on one of the Hindu oil offering vases before the meeting. The tricky part about the Indian culture is that Hinduism is completely intertwined with their national identity. In studying Indian history with the girls, I’ve found that this was the case extremely early in their history- like 300 A.D. early. It’s almost impossible to separate studies of their history from Hindu history and tradition. Anyway, because it’s so closely linked, many rituals like this lighting ceremony can be overlooked as being just a ‘culture thing’ when in fact it is agreeing to participate in a pagan ritual. Adam and I prayed the morning before this event that God would provide a way out, so Adam wouldn’t have to do it (he had already voiced the fact that he did not want to do this prior to this but to no avail). God provided a way out through a guest speaker who was happy to do it.
Coming full circle back to struggles, I read the other day in Francis Chan’s ‘Forgotten God’ book about a Korean woman named Esther Ahn Kim. During World War II, the Japanese occupied her native Korea, and being a Christian, she refused to bow down at the shrines that the Japanese had erected in her country. She knew that it was only a matter of time before she was arrested, so she began to ‘train’ herself everyday for her imprisonment by searching out and eating rotten food. When she was eventually arrested, she embraced the deplorable conditions of her six years in prison, and God used her to lead numerous women to Christ in that place. I have not been able to get this woman’s story out of my head for several days now. How does a person get to that place in their relationship with Christ, where they are that strong in their faith and fearlessly pursue what He has for them, no matter what it is? Perhaps they have that gift of faith that is above and beyond what most other Christians have. While I beat myself up over the times that I’m down, especially when comparing myself to people like this, I must remind myself that God has made us all differently, with different strengths and weaknesses. I doubt He is comparing me to that woman, even though I am doing it myself. He is most likely comparing me to the potential He knows is in me- in us- and encouraging me [us] to reach it, and I do find comfort in that. He is that dad with his arms out, beckoning that baby to take its first few steps and eventually run into His arms. I feel like I’m taking those first few steps into total trust. It reminds me of that DC Talk song that says:
‘What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step, and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue, when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I fall?’
Which is followed by:
'I hear you whispering my name,
“My love for you will never change”'
Blessing to you all.
That being said, life here continues to have its ups and downs, both in their extremes; the highs are very high, and the lows are very low. Some days I wake up and anxiously wait with anticipation to see what new person God puts in my path. When several days go by and no person is put in my path, I’m deflated as the girls and I spend the time in isolation with each day feeling like its 48 hours long. Adam leaves for work at 8AM and doesn’t return until 6:30 or 7PM most nights, so the girls and I have many long hours to fill. We do spend Wednesdays with the European ladies at the weekly luncheon, but the between days can be difficult and lonely. Most of the European ladies either work or volunteer in their kids’ schools to occupy their time. They have moved here permanently, so most have decided to enroll their kids in local schools. Their kids are also very young, which helps with the integration.
I do think we have all pretty well adjusted to the culture here, though. We know where to buy everything that we need, how to get around, etc. The girls and I often make trips during the week to the stores and library to try and get out. The library is very small and mostly has fiction books, but it is a real Godsend considering how much Hailey reads! Life in this small town (even with its 2 million people!) is still pretty rough. The girls and I have started painting with some of the European ladies before our luncheon on Wednesdays, and the ladies were lamenting how this town has nothing to do in it, especially compared to larger cities in India. One lady is an Indian from Mumbai, and she hates it here. Apparently the local ladies even snub other Indians who are not Malayali (locals). She tried to make relationships, but no one would ever call her or invite her out, which is why she engaged the Europeans (that and her husband is Dutch). Social outlets in general are very few. There is only one coffee shop in town, for example (and as an aside, they serve instant coffee). There is no place to hang out, especially for younger people.
While our days are rough being cooped up in the apartment, Adam has been enjoying working at an office for a change. Working from home in Idaho, he would be on the phone in his office for hours on end and not get out much. Our roles are slightly reversed here, but in Idaho he didn’t have the girls sitting in his office with him for 12 hours a day and no other grow ups to talk to the entire time. Hmmm….it kind of makes me smile to think about that scenario…. He is settling into his new role and I think being an overall positive influence there. He shares about his faith were possible and appropriate as well. Yesterday, there was a meeting where they ask the host of the event (him) to light the flame on one of the Hindu oil offering vases before the meeting. The tricky part about the Indian culture is that Hinduism is completely intertwined with their national identity. In studying Indian history with the girls, I’ve found that this was the case extremely early in their history- like 300 A.D. early. It’s almost impossible to separate studies of their history from Hindu history and tradition. Anyway, because it’s so closely linked, many rituals like this lighting ceremony can be overlooked as being just a ‘culture thing’ when in fact it is agreeing to participate in a pagan ritual. Adam and I prayed the morning before this event that God would provide a way out, so Adam wouldn’t have to do it (he had already voiced the fact that he did not want to do this prior to this but to no avail). God provided a way out through a guest speaker who was happy to do it.
Coming full circle back to struggles, I read the other day in Francis Chan’s ‘Forgotten God’ book about a Korean woman named Esther Ahn Kim. During World War II, the Japanese occupied her native Korea, and being a Christian, she refused to bow down at the shrines that the Japanese had erected in her country. She knew that it was only a matter of time before she was arrested, so she began to ‘train’ herself everyday for her imprisonment by searching out and eating rotten food. When she was eventually arrested, she embraced the deplorable conditions of her six years in prison, and God used her to lead numerous women to Christ in that place. I have not been able to get this woman’s story out of my head for several days now. How does a person get to that place in their relationship with Christ, where they are that strong in their faith and fearlessly pursue what He has for them, no matter what it is? Perhaps they have that gift of faith that is above and beyond what most other Christians have. While I beat myself up over the times that I’m down, especially when comparing myself to people like this, I must remind myself that God has made us all differently, with different strengths and weaknesses. I doubt He is comparing me to that woman, even though I am doing it myself. He is most likely comparing me to the potential He knows is in me- in us- and encouraging me [us] to reach it, and I do find comfort in that. He is that dad with his arms out, beckoning that baby to take its first few steps and eventually run into His arms. I feel like I’m taking those first few steps into total trust. It reminds me of that DC Talk song that says:
‘What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step, and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue, when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I fall?’
Which is followed by:
'I hear you whispering my name,
“My love for you will never change”'
Blessing to you all.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Festivals and Protests
“I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore…’
That Helen Reddy song from the 70’s came to mind this weekend, when we witnessed yet another Hindu festival that closed down businesses. Over 3 MILLION women descended upon the city from surrounding villages, cities, and even the adjacent states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to celebrate a festival called Pongala. There is a Hindu temple in town called Attukal Bhagavathi, and the women sit mile after mile along the roads that lead to the temple. According to the myth, they cook rice in clay pots as an offering to the goddess Kannaki to appease her after her killing rampage when her kingly husband was wrongfully killed. The Friday before the festival was crazy with a ton of traffic. Everyone warned us not to travel on Saturday either, and on Sunday most of the roads in town where closed to traffic. We managed to hire an auto-rickshaw and got close enough to some of the streets to take photos. Some of our European friends went out in the morning to the heart of the event and said that the smoke in the air from the cooking jars was so thick it choked them.
If it isn’t a Hindu festival in this town, it’s a political protest- I’m surprised anything gets done here. Adam had to work from home on Tuesday because there was a transportation strike. All buses, cab drivers, auto-rickshaws, private drivers, etc. took the day off to protest an increase in gas prices. I read in the paper that in one part of the state, the cars of private individuals were smashed in with rocks when they were driving on the roads. We decided to take a short walk on the road by our apartment to witness India without cars! As we were headed back, we saw 12 government buses in a row driving down the road, all with armed personnel in the passenger side seat. The crazy thing about Kerala is that they elected a Communist government in the last elections. It seems like an oxymoron. Apparently, they have free elections again next term during which they can vote them out. I don’t get it. Its still weird to see the posters all around town with pictures of Che Guevara in his classic beret, and the soviet hammer and sickle. Its one of the most political states in the country, we’re told.
We as a family are really growing through this whole experience. The girls have had some really tough times this past week with missing friends and their school. They knew it would be hard being here, but they both, especially Hailey, underestimated just how hard it would be and how long 8 months really is. It may be that God wanted us here to grow as a family together and closer to Him. Hailey goes into Junior High this fall, so maybe part of why we are here is to solidify her faith before these teen years (she turns twelve on March 19th). I have definitely grown as well. Earlier, I felt like I was in a prison being stuck in the apartment all of the time. I expressed this to my friend Suzanne Sieker on the phone, and she said that she knew that God did not want that for me. She prayed that I would learn to find joy. I feel like I am almost at that place. Instead of thinking of how much time we still have here, I’m thinking of how LITTLE time we have left here. I’m trying to help the girls to see that as well.
I wrote before about the Holy Spirit. Before we left, Suzanne and I were doing a study on the Holy Spirit because I really wanted to learn more about what that power looks like. I read a book by D.L. Moody, but it wasn’t quite answering my questions. I’ve been reading Francis Chan’s new book ‘Forgotten God: Reversing our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit’, and it is really hitting home. I wouldn’t say it’s the most lofty of books, but in typical Francis style, he gets to the heart of the matter and pierces you through. He asks those of us who have wanted to have the power of the Holy Spirit why we want that power. Is it for selfish reasons or for the glory of the Kingdom? I had to really examine myself on that one. I have grown to really know the Spirit in a much more intimate way being here. I told my friend Margaret that its more like a quiet strength for me at this point, which is not what I expected. He holds us up in such a tender way. Francis also discussed how the bible tells us that the Spirit prays for us on our behalf. That is too awesome to even get my mind around.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support, especially for our girls. We miss being at the Welcome Table at The Pursuit, fellowshipping with our friends as we get ready to worship, and worshipping together in the passionate way that our amazing band inspires!
That Helen Reddy song from the 70’s came to mind this weekend, when we witnessed yet another Hindu festival that closed down businesses. Over 3 MILLION women descended upon the city from surrounding villages, cities, and even the adjacent states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to celebrate a festival called Pongala. There is a Hindu temple in town called Attukal Bhagavathi, and the women sit mile after mile along the roads that lead to the temple. According to the myth, they cook rice in clay pots as an offering to the goddess Kannaki to appease her after her killing rampage when her kingly husband was wrongfully killed. The Friday before the festival was crazy with a ton of traffic. Everyone warned us not to travel on Saturday either, and on Sunday most of the roads in town where closed to traffic. We managed to hire an auto-rickshaw and got close enough to some of the streets to take photos. Some of our European friends went out in the morning to the heart of the event and said that the smoke in the air from the cooking jars was so thick it choked them.
If it isn’t a Hindu festival in this town, it’s a political protest- I’m surprised anything gets done here. Adam had to work from home on Tuesday because there was a transportation strike. All buses, cab drivers, auto-rickshaws, private drivers, etc. took the day off to protest an increase in gas prices. I read in the paper that in one part of the state, the cars of private individuals were smashed in with rocks when they were driving on the roads. We decided to take a short walk on the road by our apartment to witness India without cars! As we were headed back, we saw 12 government buses in a row driving down the road, all with armed personnel in the passenger side seat. The crazy thing about Kerala is that they elected a Communist government in the last elections. It seems like an oxymoron. Apparently, they have free elections again next term during which they can vote them out. I don’t get it. Its still weird to see the posters all around town with pictures of Che Guevara in his classic beret, and the soviet hammer and sickle. Its one of the most political states in the country, we’re told.
We as a family are really growing through this whole experience. The girls have had some really tough times this past week with missing friends and their school. They knew it would be hard being here, but they both, especially Hailey, underestimated just how hard it would be and how long 8 months really is. It may be that God wanted us here to grow as a family together and closer to Him. Hailey goes into Junior High this fall, so maybe part of why we are here is to solidify her faith before these teen years (she turns twelve on March 19th). I have definitely grown as well. Earlier, I felt like I was in a prison being stuck in the apartment all of the time. I expressed this to my friend Suzanne Sieker on the phone, and she said that she knew that God did not want that for me. She prayed that I would learn to find joy. I feel like I am almost at that place. Instead of thinking of how much time we still have here, I’m thinking of how LITTLE time we have left here. I’m trying to help the girls to see that as well.
I wrote before about the Holy Spirit. Before we left, Suzanne and I were doing a study on the Holy Spirit because I really wanted to learn more about what that power looks like. I read a book by D.L. Moody, but it wasn’t quite answering my questions. I’ve been reading Francis Chan’s new book ‘Forgotten God: Reversing our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit’, and it is really hitting home. I wouldn’t say it’s the most lofty of books, but in typical Francis style, he gets to the heart of the matter and pierces you through. He asks those of us who have wanted to have the power of the Holy Spirit why we want that power. Is it for selfish reasons or for the glory of the Kingdom? I had to really examine myself on that one. I have grown to really know the Spirit in a much more intimate way being here. I told my friend Margaret that its more like a quiet strength for me at this point, which is not what I expected. He holds us up in such a tender way. Francis also discussed how the bible tells us that the Spirit prays for us on our behalf. That is too awesome to even get my mind around.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support, especially for our girls. We miss being at the Welcome Table at The Pursuit, fellowshipping with our friends as we get ready to worship, and worshipping together in the passionate way that our amazing band inspires!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Quiet week
After the events of last week, this week was quite anticlimactic…
As I mentioned last week, Lana invited me to her house for a bible study. The girls and I went to her home that following Monday. We were completely blown away by the opulence of her amazing home! It was probably one of the largest residences we’ve seen here, and the surrounding grounds were equally as impressive. Land is so expensive here that you don’t see properties with a lot of land. Hers was almost two-tiered, with a swimming pool on the lower tier. The whole place was situated on a hill above the beach, so the ocean breezes wafted up, keeping us cool.
We settled in by the pool so the girls could swim, and we started discussing the bible. She was interested in the relationship between Elijah and Elisha because the idea of a master training his devotee fascinated her because this is a Hindus practice- where the swamis train a younger person. She had no real idea of what the Old Testament contained, so I tried to explain the history and layout a bit, and how it relates to the New Testament. I don’t think the relationship between Elijah and Elisha was described enough for her, so I directed the study more toward Jesus and the New Testament. We read a bit from various books and just chatted.
It has been a week since I’ve talked to her, and at first I was kind of bummed. Eventually, I realized that it wasn’t so much whether I convert her or not- that was for God to work out- but it was about whether or not I’d be obedient and go. Quite frankly, I was dreading the visit beforehand. I’ve found that the more I dread that type of visit, the more blessed I will be for having done it. I think it’s the enemy’s way of attacking too, by putting a million reasons in your head why you shouldn’t go. My stomach was bothering me as we drove the 40 minutes in totally unfamiliar streets, in totally unfamiliar parts of town, but I was determined that even if I was on my deathbed, I’d still go because that was what I was supposed to do. The million dollar question is- would I do that at home? Would I go to some person’s house that I barely know, in some unfamiliar part of town? Would I walk across my own street to do a bible study with neighbors? Adam mentioned how when he is asked to speak in front of churches here, he jumps at the chance, but in the US, he never would. I hope we can take the lessons that we learn here back with us.
We miss our friends and everyone at The Pursuit! Thanks so much for all of the prayers on our behalf!
As I mentioned last week, Lana invited me to her house for a bible study. The girls and I went to her home that following Monday. We were completely blown away by the opulence of her amazing home! It was probably one of the largest residences we’ve seen here, and the surrounding grounds were equally as impressive. Land is so expensive here that you don’t see properties with a lot of land. Hers was almost two-tiered, with a swimming pool on the lower tier. The whole place was situated on a hill above the beach, so the ocean breezes wafted up, keeping us cool.
We settled in by the pool so the girls could swim, and we started discussing the bible. She was interested in the relationship between Elijah and Elisha because the idea of a master training his devotee fascinated her because this is a Hindus practice- where the swamis train a younger person. She had no real idea of what the Old Testament contained, so I tried to explain the history and layout a bit, and how it relates to the New Testament. I don’t think the relationship between Elijah and Elisha was described enough for her, so I directed the study more toward Jesus and the New Testament. We read a bit from various books and just chatted.
It has been a week since I’ve talked to her, and at first I was kind of bummed. Eventually, I realized that it wasn’t so much whether I convert her or not- that was for God to work out- but it was about whether or not I’d be obedient and go. Quite frankly, I was dreading the visit beforehand. I’ve found that the more I dread that type of visit, the more blessed I will be for having done it. I think it’s the enemy’s way of attacking too, by putting a million reasons in your head why you shouldn’t go. My stomach was bothering me as we drove the 40 minutes in totally unfamiliar streets, in totally unfamiliar parts of town, but I was determined that even if I was on my deathbed, I’d still go because that was what I was supposed to do. The million dollar question is- would I do that at home? Would I go to some person’s house that I barely know, in some unfamiliar part of town? Would I walk across my own street to do a bible study with neighbors? Adam mentioned how when he is asked to speak in front of churches here, he jumps at the chance, but in the US, he never would. I hope we can take the lessons that we learn here back with us.
We miss our friends and everyone at The Pursuit! Thanks so much for all of the prayers on our behalf!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Divine Appointments -long story but amazing!
This story has so many interconnecting parts that it is difficult to know where to start. I’ll begin with Friday, which was a Hindu holiday here in India so Adam had off of work. I had been feeling a bit blue the past few days, lamenting the fact that I had no women to fellowship with and was starting the morning in kind of a sluggish way. Adam was more positive, and when he woke up he had it in his mind that we’d have lunch at a café next to the Mascot hotel in town after our planned trip to the zoo. Apparently he saw it while driving by one day. So after the zoo, we went over. When we reached the hotel, it was not straight forward where the café was located, and I just was not in the mood to face another unknown, and often disastrous, eating situation. As Adam walked into the hotel, I kind of hung back and begrudgingly let him lead the way. We looked around a bit and saw where we thought the café was. As we went out to the patio area, we noticed some Anglo ladies out there. We see a lot of Europeans that don’t speak English here and are usually aloof when we smile at them, but I felt compelled to say something to these ladies, so I grabbed one by the elbow and joked that we didn’t know where we were going and that we’d just follow them. The group turned out to be American missionaries visiting from Michigan! There were 15 ladies in all and one man who was training to be the associate pastor of their church. We talked a bit and prayed outside together. I was so humbled- here I was wrestling with God over not having any women around, and He sent 15 of them! It was truly a divine appointment. We ended up having lunch together and later all went to dinner together to the pizza place. They were here for a week working with an orphanage that they sponsor in town. We also met the pastor that they work with at dinner. The ladies has a wonderful surprise for the girls as well- a bag full of toys that were extras from the 15 suitcases full of toys they had brought! What a blessing that was for the girls. Becky, the pastor’s wife who was leading the team, invited us to join them for church on Sunday where Josh, the pastor in training, was going to speak.
We as a family filled Saturday with visits to four of The Pursuit’s Mercy Homes. It was great to see the kids again, especially the ones from the home that we personally support. We remembered many of the faces from last time. Adam was great with the kids, asking questions and playing ball with them, etc. We were reminded of just how primitively people in the village areas live, but as always, the children and the pastors’ families were all happy and well adjusted. Midway through our trip, we stopped in to our driver Rinish’s parent’s home for lunch. They too lived in a very impoverished home but were extremely generous in all of the food that they set out for our grand lunch. Thankfully God kept us from getting sick as well, which was a concern!
Sunday continued the weekend full of crazy, divine appointments. The Americans were meeting the orphanage pastor for Sunday worship at a very small Assembly of God church run by a friend of his in the hills outside of town. We arrived before them early in the morning, and in this rural little church, I was a little nervous that we had the right place! It took our driver several ‘roadside Google Maps’ (yelling at a guy on the corner) to find the place. After about 10 minutes, the American group arrived. Sitting on the floor on mats with the men and women separated was a new experience for some. I felt bad for the older ladies sitting on the floor for several hours! To Adam’s surprise, the pastor asked him to speak before Josh. Nothing like a last minute invitation to give a sermon! Adam not only pulled off a great message but a truly God-inspired one. He said that since he wasn’t prepared, he followed where the Spirit led him. He felt compelled to speak on James chapter 1 about joy in suffering. As it turned out, many of the ladies in the group had been having a very tough time and were very homesick. Josh told us later that the message spoke to many of them. The other crazy part is that it tied exactly into the message Josh gave right afterward on Numbers, about the spies and the promised land, and how we should face the ‘giants’ in our lives. We all shook our heads in amazement at God’s hand in the whole morning.
After church, we went with them to visit the orphanage that their church supports. It is probably one of the most impressive buildings we’ve seen here. It was a huge, beautiful campus built at the top of a hill with 360 degree views around it. It is a school most of the year but also does programs for orphans. It was built by a Canadian man a few years ago, but their church also supports the children and is in the process of building another building for the children. Adam found out yesterday that George Verwer was there just one week before! Apparently the pastor we met works with him. While were there, we watched as Becky led the children in a bible study and the ladies sang and danced with the kids. It was their last day with them, so the ladies said tearful goodbyes to the children.
Adam and I had planned on taking the girls to the Leela hotel for brunch (which includes swimming in the pool and the private beach) for a Valentine’s Day surprise after church. After being with the folks at the orphanage and seeing how tired and burned out some of the ladies were, we offered to take them all with us to the Leela and pick up the tab. We didn’t expect missionaries to pay for a five star hotel brunch! They said they would indeed join us.
So enter divine appointment number two- while Adam and I were waiting for the group to arrive at the Leela, we let the girls swim in the pool. I looked over and saw someone waving, and who was it but the very lady from the Wednesday women's lunch group that I felt God telling me to get to know better-for privacy’s sake I’ll call her Lana, the older lady who is originally from Argentina. We had planned to meet last week but she had to cancel. I went over and spent about 20 minutes talking to her, and lo and behold she is incredibly religious to the point where she said that she doesn’t like to spend any time in the day not thinking about God. In fact, she doesn’t like the ladies’ Wednesday luncheons that we go to because she feels like it’s a waste unless she is thinking or talking about God. She was raised Catholic but is now a devout Hindu and even has a temple in her house (she is very wealthy), but she told me that she bows several times to a picture of Jesus every morning. From what I gather, she subscribes to the Hindu idea that there are many paths to God and Jesus is but one of them so its okay to mix things together.
Eventually, the American group came in. We invited Lana to have lunch with us, and- divine appointment number three- she sat next to Josh, the associate pastor in training who is finishing up seminary school. She knew they were here on a mission, so she launched into a bunch of theological questions. When she found out that he had formal training, she was particularly attentive because we could tell this gave him credibility in her eyes (turns out she used to be a lawyer). She asked him many, many deep questions, and he had great answers for her- obviously way better answers then I could ever give her. They talked for nearly an hour. As she and I talked after that, she asked if I’d come to her house so we could do a bible study!
It is incredible to sit back and watch God at work like He was this past weekend. Of course He is always at work, but it is so cool to see things like this. I realized as Adam and I have been reading through the old Testament that I have been acting like the Israelites- I have the ‘what have you done for me lately’ mentality too often. He shows me miracles, and then as the monotony of everyday life sets in, I complain. I guess its human nature to always want the peaks and not the valleys, but as Adam reminded us in James chapter 1, the testing of our faith produces endurance, and endurance will yield its perfect result. Our prayer request for our whole family is that- endurance. As the ladies leave today, it will be all too easy to feel lonely again, but I also can’t wait to see what other divine appointments God has for us in the coming months.
We as a family filled Saturday with visits to four of The Pursuit’s Mercy Homes. It was great to see the kids again, especially the ones from the home that we personally support. We remembered many of the faces from last time. Adam was great with the kids, asking questions and playing ball with them, etc. We were reminded of just how primitively people in the village areas live, but as always, the children and the pastors’ families were all happy and well adjusted. Midway through our trip, we stopped in to our driver Rinish’s parent’s home for lunch. They too lived in a very impoverished home but were extremely generous in all of the food that they set out for our grand lunch. Thankfully God kept us from getting sick as well, which was a concern!
Sunday continued the weekend full of crazy, divine appointments. The Americans were meeting the orphanage pastor for Sunday worship at a very small Assembly of God church run by a friend of his in the hills outside of town. We arrived before them early in the morning, and in this rural little church, I was a little nervous that we had the right place! It took our driver several ‘roadside Google Maps’ (yelling at a guy on the corner) to find the place. After about 10 minutes, the American group arrived. Sitting on the floor on mats with the men and women separated was a new experience for some. I felt bad for the older ladies sitting on the floor for several hours! To Adam’s surprise, the pastor asked him to speak before Josh. Nothing like a last minute invitation to give a sermon! Adam not only pulled off a great message but a truly God-inspired one. He said that since he wasn’t prepared, he followed where the Spirit led him. He felt compelled to speak on James chapter 1 about joy in suffering. As it turned out, many of the ladies in the group had been having a very tough time and were very homesick. Josh told us later that the message spoke to many of them. The other crazy part is that it tied exactly into the message Josh gave right afterward on Numbers, about the spies and the promised land, and how we should face the ‘giants’ in our lives. We all shook our heads in amazement at God’s hand in the whole morning.
After church, we went with them to visit the orphanage that their church supports. It is probably one of the most impressive buildings we’ve seen here. It was a huge, beautiful campus built at the top of a hill with 360 degree views around it. It is a school most of the year but also does programs for orphans. It was built by a Canadian man a few years ago, but their church also supports the children and is in the process of building another building for the children. Adam found out yesterday that George Verwer was there just one week before! Apparently the pastor we met works with him. While were there, we watched as Becky led the children in a bible study and the ladies sang and danced with the kids. It was their last day with them, so the ladies said tearful goodbyes to the children.
Adam and I had planned on taking the girls to the Leela hotel for brunch (which includes swimming in the pool and the private beach) for a Valentine’s Day surprise after church. After being with the folks at the orphanage and seeing how tired and burned out some of the ladies were, we offered to take them all with us to the Leela and pick up the tab. We didn’t expect missionaries to pay for a five star hotel brunch! They said they would indeed join us.
So enter divine appointment number two- while Adam and I were waiting for the group to arrive at the Leela, we let the girls swim in the pool. I looked over and saw someone waving, and who was it but the very lady from the Wednesday women's lunch group that I felt God telling me to get to know better-for privacy’s sake I’ll call her Lana, the older lady who is originally from Argentina. We had planned to meet last week but she had to cancel. I went over and spent about 20 minutes talking to her, and lo and behold she is incredibly religious to the point where she said that she doesn’t like to spend any time in the day not thinking about God. In fact, she doesn’t like the ladies’ Wednesday luncheons that we go to because she feels like it’s a waste unless she is thinking or talking about God. She was raised Catholic but is now a devout Hindu and even has a temple in her house (she is very wealthy), but she told me that she bows several times to a picture of Jesus every morning. From what I gather, she subscribes to the Hindu idea that there are many paths to God and Jesus is but one of them so its okay to mix things together.
Eventually, the American group came in. We invited Lana to have lunch with us, and- divine appointment number three- she sat next to Josh, the associate pastor in training who is finishing up seminary school. She knew they were here on a mission, so she launched into a bunch of theological questions. When she found out that he had formal training, she was particularly attentive because we could tell this gave him credibility in her eyes (turns out she used to be a lawyer). She asked him many, many deep questions, and he had great answers for her- obviously way better answers then I could ever give her. They talked for nearly an hour. As she and I talked after that, she asked if I’d come to her house so we could do a bible study!
It is incredible to sit back and watch God at work like He was this past weekend. Of course He is always at work, but it is so cool to see things like this. I realized as Adam and I have been reading through the old Testament that I have been acting like the Israelites- I have the ‘what have you done for me lately’ mentality too often. He shows me miracles, and then as the monotony of everyday life sets in, I complain. I guess its human nature to always want the peaks and not the valleys, but as Adam reminded us in James chapter 1, the testing of our faith produces endurance, and endurance will yield its perfect result. Our prayer request for our whole family is that- endurance. As the ladies leave today, it will be all too easy to feel lonely again, but I also can’t wait to see what other divine appointments God has for us in the coming months.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Weekend Party
Not much of note happened this week, except that we went to a really interesting party on Saturday night. First, I have to back up and give a bit of background information on how we met the hosts…. Every Friday night, our family goes to the only pizza place in town, Pizza Corner. Its actually pretty descent for an Indian pizza place. Anyway, about three weeks ago we saw another Anglo family there, and they introduced themselves as they were leaving. They were from Holland, and they sold everything and moved here so the husband could start a software outsourcing company to outsource to Holland. The wife, Mieke, invited me to a weekly luncheon each Wednesday with other Europeans and Indians who have spent a lot of time abroad. The crazy thing is that very morning while Adam and I were praying, I had asked for an American or European friend! Since then, I have gone to this ladies’ luncheon every week. It would have been even better if at least one of them were Christian, but sadly none of them are. I have a strong sense that they are very a-religious, for lack of a better word, like many Europeans are now. There is one lady in particular, however, that I’d like to get to know better and hopefully share the gospel with. She is an older lady originally from Argentina who has lived all over the world, including New York for 20 year. She is very much into Hinduism, so it should be interesting.
So back to the party- it was at Mieke and her husband Wim’s apartment, along with their three young children. In attendance were a couple from France, a woman from the Czech Republic who is married to an Indian Muslim, another Dutch guy, a woman from Turkey who is married to an Indian, a woman from Germany (whose parents are from the UK and Italy, so she doesn’t feel quite ‘German’), and several other Indians who have lived abroad. It was a pretty crazy party with lots of food and a lot of small kids running around in a small, hot apartment. Wim apparently was a DJ for some time back in the Netherlands, and he had what seemed like every music video that was made in the 1980’s which he played quite loudly!
Aside from the party, we are adjusting to everyday life here. I have mentioned this to others in the States, but what strikes me most in this culture is its self-centeredness. Everyone pushes others aside to get ahead in line, etc. even when someone is clearly there ahead of them, and even adults will push ahead of children. We went to the zoo the other day, and Jackie was straining to see a cobra in its display and a group of grown men and women came over and pushed in front of her to see. Sadly, even in the local church that we attend, people push in front of others to take communion! We were shocked the first time, and now we try to joke about it each time. Adam has noticed things like this at work as well, but he pointed out that in that case, perhaps its just the sheer number of people here that doesn’t allow a person to do things like hold a door for someone or to say hi as you pass in a hallway, because if you did, you’d be holding the door all day and saying hi all day. I get that but not so much the pushing others out of the way. Coming from Boise, home of the uber-nice, its still a shock.
Finally, prayers for the girls would be appreciated. Hailey continues to get upset when we are at the local church. It makes her really, really miss home and The Pursuit. It is also not easy for them to spend every waking minute together. Even though they’ve been real troopers most of the time, it not easy to be around each other and no other kids 24/7.
I do continue to thank God for the apartment He set up for us. I have gotten past the moldy roof tops of the neighboring buildings and can now see the beauty of the trees around us. Having seen the accommodations of others as well, we are truly fortunate to have such a nice apartment.
So back to the party- it was at Mieke and her husband Wim’s apartment, along with their three young children. In attendance were a couple from France, a woman from the Czech Republic who is married to an Indian Muslim, another Dutch guy, a woman from Turkey who is married to an Indian, a woman from Germany (whose parents are from the UK and Italy, so she doesn’t feel quite ‘German’), and several other Indians who have lived abroad. It was a pretty crazy party with lots of food and a lot of small kids running around in a small, hot apartment. Wim apparently was a DJ for some time back in the Netherlands, and he had what seemed like every music video that was made in the 1980’s which he played quite loudly!
Aside from the party, we are adjusting to everyday life here. I have mentioned this to others in the States, but what strikes me most in this culture is its self-centeredness. Everyone pushes others aside to get ahead in line, etc. even when someone is clearly there ahead of them, and even adults will push ahead of children. We went to the zoo the other day, and Jackie was straining to see a cobra in its display and a group of grown men and women came over and pushed in front of her to see. Sadly, even in the local church that we attend, people push in front of others to take communion! We were shocked the first time, and now we try to joke about it each time. Adam has noticed things like this at work as well, but he pointed out that in that case, perhaps its just the sheer number of people here that doesn’t allow a person to do things like hold a door for someone or to say hi as you pass in a hallway, because if you did, you’d be holding the door all day and saying hi all day. I get that but not so much the pushing others out of the way. Coming from Boise, home of the uber-nice, its still a shock.
Finally, prayers for the girls would be appreciated. Hailey continues to get upset when we are at the local church. It makes her really, really miss home and The Pursuit. It is also not easy for them to spend every waking minute together. Even though they’ve been real troopers most of the time, it not easy to be around each other and no other kids 24/7.
I do continue to thank God for the apartment He set up for us. I have gotten past the moldy roof tops of the neighboring buildings and can now see the beauty of the trees around us. Having seen the accommodations of others as well, we are truly fortunate to have such a nice apartment.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Trip to Pastor Daniel's
This past weekend, we went to visit Pastor Daniel in Thrissur. I think we all forgot just how long the drive was. It was around 7 hours one way, with an average speed of probably 35 mph. I must say that having a good driver makes all of the difference in the world! Our drivers last time would floor it, then slam on the break. This cycle would occur every 30 seconds or so, so it was a motion sickness-fest whenever we went anywhere. We have a permanent driver this time, a young man named Raneesh who is excellent. He drives relatively smoothly (by Indian standards). More on Raneesh later…
At about one hour into the drive, we heard loud music coming from the streets. We eventually caught up to a procession of Hindus parading down the street, presumably toward their temple. We saw men with what looked like sticks held between their teeth. As we got closer, we realized that the sticks were actually protruding out of holes punctured through their cheeks! Even younger boys had this. Some of them even had apples on the ends of the sticks, I guess to add more weight and, one can only imagine, pain. It was all very disturbing. I witnessed a man who was obviously demon possessed, ranting and being pushed along by another man. The most shocking display of all was a man being suspended by hooks in the skin on his back from a palm tree trunk that was strapped to the top of a truck. It was akin to the Sun Vow ritual in the 1970’s movie ‘A Man Called Horse’. We didn’t get any photos or video of this mostly, I think, because we didn’t realize what we were looking at at first. Fortunately, the girls didn’t see this. The sticks in the face were more than enough for a kid to see.
We finally arrived at Pastor Daniel’s, and it was really nice to him and his wife Lilly. Lilly always takes such good care of us. We joked that she was actually an Italian mother at heart, because she is always pushing food on us. She even gets little ice cream cups with the little wooden sticks for the girls (okay, and for me and Adam as well :) ). They had a 70 year old woman staying with them for the next month from America, so we stayed at the nearby hotel that we stayed in once during our last trip there. Daniel and Lilly always seem to have people visiting and often staying for extended periods. They are very gracious hosts. We went to their church on Sunday morning, and Daniel called up the whole family and Adam shared a bit with the congregation. The people are so genuine in their worship. I think for many their faith has come through major hardships. I can see, especially in the faces of the women, how circumstances have affected them physically. It is a hard life for many.
Back to our driver Raneesh…. We were pleased to find out when we first arrived that Raneesh is a Christian. He is able to converse a little bit in English but not to the level we would like. You are never quite sure if he really understands what we’re saying, and its hard for him to find the words to express things to us. Adam tries to talk to him every day to and from the drive to work. As our driver, he accompanied us to the trip to Pastor Daniel’s. While we were there, Daniel talked with him a bit about spiritual matters. At one point he went in to the guest room where the drivers stay to find that he had taken one of Daniel’s theological books off the shelf and was reading it! Raneesh had gone to college, but from what we can gather, he couldn’t get a job and became a driver. Adam also got it out of him that we are his first clients! The long and the short of it is we feel like God has more for Raneesh. He told Daniel that he had been involved in work with orphans and other things like that. So we are asking ourselves, does God want us here again to change the course of yet another driver’s destiny? We have been joking and calling him Pastor Raneesh. We look forward to taking him to Mercy Homes and letting him spend more time with Daniel. It will be interesting to see how things play out.
Lastly, we ask for continued prayers for the Pastors who are leading Mercy Homes. Daniel told us about a story of persecution, right here in Kerala, where the majority of Christians in the country live. To make a long story short, one of the girls in a Mercy Home had started the equivalent of community college and one of her Hindu professors essentially seduced her into coming back to the Hindu faith. He prompted her to make false accusations against the Pastor saying that he made inappropriate advanced toward her. What struck me most in this was that teenagers who go to college are the same, whether its in the US or anywhere else in the world! I became a rabid animal rights activist in college, under the influence of some older friends. Anyway, the local Hindus have been targeting this pastor for over 6 years. A few years ago, they killed his father-in-law, and told him ‘if you keep converting Hindus, you are next!’ All of the allegations that the girl made were of course bogus and come down to him standing in her room, or something silly like that. The ridiculous part is that the pastor was out of town at a conference during the time that this allegedly took place.
The police came to his house and took him to the police station where they proceeded to beat him violently. He is a small, thin man so he was hurt so badly that he now has a life-threatening blood clot in his right lung. The only upside to the story is that, thanks to God’s mercy, the case against him was tried in a neighboring city and the magistrate there threw out the case because of its absurdity. As one can imagine, the pastor is demoralized and beside himself over the loss of this girl that he’s raised for the past 7 years. Pastor Daniel told us that this is the new tactic the Hindus are taking- trying to discredit the work of the pastors and demoralize them in the process. Prayers are needed for the courage and strength of these men and women who are truly suffering in the name of Christ.
At about one hour into the drive, we heard loud music coming from the streets. We eventually caught up to a procession of Hindus parading down the street, presumably toward their temple. We saw men with what looked like sticks held between their teeth. As we got closer, we realized that the sticks were actually protruding out of holes punctured through their cheeks! Even younger boys had this. Some of them even had apples on the ends of the sticks, I guess to add more weight and, one can only imagine, pain. It was all very disturbing. I witnessed a man who was obviously demon possessed, ranting and being pushed along by another man. The most shocking display of all was a man being suspended by hooks in the skin on his back from a palm tree trunk that was strapped to the top of a truck. It was akin to the Sun Vow ritual in the 1970’s movie ‘A Man Called Horse’. We didn’t get any photos or video of this mostly, I think, because we didn’t realize what we were looking at at first. Fortunately, the girls didn’t see this. The sticks in the face were more than enough for a kid to see.
We finally arrived at Pastor Daniel’s, and it was really nice to him and his wife Lilly. Lilly always takes such good care of us. We joked that she was actually an Italian mother at heart, because she is always pushing food on us. She even gets little ice cream cups with the little wooden sticks for the girls (okay, and for me and Adam as well :) ). They had a 70 year old woman staying with them for the next month from America, so we stayed at the nearby hotel that we stayed in once during our last trip there. Daniel and Lilly always seem to have people visiting and often staying for extended periods. They are very gracious hosts. We went to their church on Sunday morning, and Daniel called up the whole family and Adam shared a bit with the congregation. The people are so genuine in their worship. I think for many their faith has come through major hardships. I can see, especially in the faces of the women, how circumstances have affected them physically. It is a hard life for many.
Back to our driver Raneesh…. We were pleased to find out when we first arrived that Raneesh is a Christian. He is able to converse a little bit in English but not to the level we would like. You are never quite sure if he really understands what we’re saying, and its hard for him to find the words to express things to us. Adam tries to talk to him every day to and from the drive to work. As our driver, he accompanied us to the trip to Pastor Daniel’s. While we were there, Daniel talked with him a bit about spiritual matters. At one point he went in to the guest room where the drivers stay to find that he had taken one of Daniel’s theological books off the shelf and was reading it! Raneesh had gone to college, but from what we can gather, he couldn’t get a job and became a driver. Adam also got it out of him that we are his first clients! The long and the short of it is we feel like God has more for Raneesh. He told Daniel that he had been involved in work with orphans and other things like that. So we are asking ourselves, does God want us here again to change the course of yet another driver’s destiny? We have been joking and calling him Pastor Raneesh. We look forward to taking him to Mercy Homes and letting him spend more time with Daniel. It will be interesting to see how things play out.
Lastly, we ask for continued prayers for the Pastors who are leading Mercy Homes. Daniel told us about a story of persecution, right here in Kerala, where the majority of Christians in the country live. To make a long story short, one of the girls in a Mercy Home had started the equivalent of community college and one of her Hindu professors essentially seduced her into coming back to the Hindu faith. He prompted her to make false accusations against the Pastor saying that he made inappropriate advanced toward her. What struck me most in this was that teenagers who go to college are the same, whether its in the US or anywhere else in the world! I became a rabid animal rights activist in college, under the influence of some older friends. Anyway, the local Hindus have been targeting this pastor for over 6 years. A few years ago, they killed his father-in-law, and told him ‘if you keep converting Hindus, you are next!’ All of the allegations that the girl made were of course bogus and come down to him standing in her room, or something silly like that. The ridiculous part is that the pastor was out of town at a conference during the time that this allegedly took place.
The police came to his house and took him to the police station where they proceeded to beat him violently. He is a small, thin man so he was hurt so badly that he now has a life-threatening blood clot in his right lung. The only upside to the story is that, thanks to God’s mercy, the case against him was tried in a neighboring city and the magistrate there threw out the case because of its absurdity. As one can imagine, the pastor is demoralized and beside himself over the loss of this girl that he’s raised for the past 7 years. Pastor Daniel told us that this is the new tactic the Hindus are taking- trying to discredit the work of the pastors and demoralize them in the process. Prayers are needed for the courage and strength of these men and women who are truly suffering in the name of Christ.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Prayers for our Nation
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.
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.
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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