It is Sunday and we are back in a village church. Andrew delivered a powerful message from Acts 4 with Sanjay right on his heels with the translation. We met in a small house church and it made many of us think about what it was like for the early Christians.

After church we split the villagers into two adult groups and one children’s group. Andrew and Rick led the two adult groups through the discipleship training on the parables. The rest of us worked with the kids and shared the cube, played some games, taught them gospel songs and just loved them.

We then had lunch in the village and then said good bye to our translators and gave them small gifts. Our final bus ride back to the hotel included a stop for some last minute shopping and then we begin preparations to leave for the Bagdogra airport tomorrow morning.

This week has been a great blessing and had many different components than previous trips. The discipleship training was new, the medical camp hasn’t been done in about five years and both went extremely well. We also found that there is some success with the cows and sows project. We look forward to providing a report to the church so you can share the experience with us.

Tomorrow morning we will be going to the Bagdogra airport, then fly to Calcutta, then to Delhi, spend the night, and then to Dubai, and the last flight of 16 hours will bring us to LAX. Therefore, you will probably not hear from us again until we get to the church around 4:30 or 5:00 on Tuesday afternoon.

Your prayers have been appreciated and they worked !!! Everyone stayed healthy and safe during our time in India. We cannot thank you enough for your consistent prayer support. See you soon.

Today was our second day of discipleship training with about 100 Indian brothers and sisters in the LTC Hindi church. Before the gathering, we had the opportunity to tour LTC. Since it was Saturday morning, we found the campus filled with students doing their weekly chores to keep the facilities clean and running. We also got to witness firsthand some building projects that have begun as LTC continues to expand.

We then traveled a short distance to the school where the LTC Hindi church meets. After a short greeting, we broke into song. Auntie Mary Beth took the lead and had the whole group (American and Indian) singing praises to Jesus together. What a joy to worship together with our brothers and sisters in the Lord!

Just like Tuesday, we split our team and the large group into three. Mary Beth and I took one group, Pablo and Bill another, and Rick and Cathy a third. Our group was again very interactive and many of the believers jumped right into the training. We worked through the Parable of the Sower from Mark 4 and Acts 2:42-47 which describes the body life of the early Jerusalem church. All along, we sought to teach them a simple, 4 step approach to studying the Word of God which they could adapt and use for any passage of Scripture. We also shared our testimonies and took some time to train them in using the Evangecube to share the gospel with their friends and family.

After the training we gave Evangecubes to several who desired to use them in sharing their faith. We also spent about 30 minutes in prayer for any that had need. One young man came forward and shared that he was a new youth pastor. It was a great joy to be able to pray for him as he enters into his new ministry, a ministry similar to my own.

In the evening, we had the joy of sharing a meal of Domino’s Pizza with Peter and Moala Kashung and some other leaders of LTC. As Rick said, that pizza really hit the spot! It was also a blessing to be able to sit down with Peter and hear some of the future vision for LTC and the various ministries here.

Tomorrow is our last day of ministry here in Siliguri. What a blur! We will be visiting another village church where I will be preaching. After lunch, Arun, Mary Beth, and Cathy will be leading us in a children’s program with (we are hoping) 150-200 children. Pray that the Holy Spirit would give us the words to speak and the energy and strength to finish our trip well. Thank you for your prayers and partnership in the ministry of the gospel. Your prayers are bearing much fruit!

Jai Mashi dear friends! God has blessed us with good weather, good health and a good harvest. This morning Bill shared letters he got from his prayer partners, Dave and Gail Arneson. We were amazed at how fitting their words were to us on this particular day. Thanks Dave and Gail.

We prayed together for God to show us a miracle of healing at the medical camp. We again loaded up the van and headed out to Manja Tea Estate. We traveled for an hour and a half when Themrei announced only 2 hours to go. Themrei seems to enjoy teasing us. We love that guy!

We picked up our translators along the way and were joined by a doctor and a nurse/pharmacist. The villagers arrived slowly today but we were able to share the Gospel with about 130 men women and children. Andrew was on a roll today and the Holy Spirit was upon him and giving him just the right words to speak. Bill was soaking wet after playing Frisbee with the kids and Pablo got to pick tea.

The boys and girls really liked the ‘tricks’ I performed and they enjoyed blowing bubbles, too. A cooling rain showered down on us from the mountainous jungle. A really great day! Incredible India!!!!

Today we were unable to go to the villages due to a strike by merchants and business people that included all commercial transportation. This meant that we wouldn’t have the bus and for the most point it appeared that most people stayed off the roads today. They were protesting the rise in gas prices ($6.00 per gal) and the government allowing Walmart and Carrefore to come into India. The concern is that these super retail stores will kill the business in the small village stores. – Sounds just like home.

So we had an unplanned day of rest at the hotel. Andrew had an opportunity to go to LTC and sit in on a class on World Religions and then he addressed the class of 19 students for about fifteen minutes. It was a good day for us to catch up on sleep, laundry and play a few card games. Tomorrow we are back at it with a medical camp and on Saturday we have discipleship training.

Your prayers are appreciated and it has been really good to connect with many of you on Skype.

Halleluiah, Halleluiah what a blessed day for the glory of God. We went to the village of Jamakial. Today was our Medical Camp and it was unbelievable with so many people you could not keep up with them. The registered number of people there to see the Doctor was 250 with another 50 who came to see what we were doing there. We could not keep up with the number of people that were waiting to hear what we had to say and most of them had not heard about Jesus. All of us were kept so busy spreading the good news to all of them waiting for us to start a new group.

It was truly amazing and they just kept coming and accepting Christ. Is that something? The day just kept on going strong with many wonderful experiences by all. The story of a women who said “I am so glad that you came from so far away to tell us the good news”. We gave out many Bibles to so many new believers and they were so happy to hear about God and how they would go the heaven and have eternal life with him. At the end of presenting the cube one older woman said “when can I go to heaven?”. I almost cried. She followed me throughout the village the rest of the day. This new program was a very successful way to have many receptive people who stood in lines waiting to hear the good news. Another thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of men there today. What a great harvest for the glory of God.

Today we embarked on a new mission. After prayer over Skype with Rob Marton’s life group (very encouraging- thank you!) and a short devotional from Mary Beth, we hopped into the bus once again to go out to the villages. Yesterday our focus was evangelism, going hut-to-hut sharing the gospel. Today, we gathered with believers from three villages for discipleship training.

Discipleship training is a new element added to our short-term mission here. For this time, the pastors gathered believers from three villages to be trained by our team in one of the essentials to the faith, reading and studying Scripture. When we planned the discipleship training over a month ago, we determined that this training would need to be interactive and take a question and answer format. This would require more than simply us coming in and teaching and the Adivasi believers listening. This would require a back and forth interaction. This is not something we had ever done before and we had some concern as to how well the format would work, especially considering all of the communication and translation issues.

By God’s grace, the interactive format turned out to be a great success! The people were very responsive and volunteered answers to questions freely. You could sense an excitement in their eyes as they engaged and grew in their ability to answer questions by reading the text of Scripture. Through our interactions, we were also pleasantly surprised at how well many of the young believers knew Scripture already.

Mary Beth and I spent several hours with about 35 believers in the village of Jabra. We began our time with them by singing a few songs and sharing our testimonies of how we came to know Jesus. Then, we dove into the training. They were very receptive and enthusiastically participated in everything. We together worked through the parable of the Sower from Mark 4, and the three “lost” parables from Luke 15. While at first they were slow to respond, by the end I would ask a question and the whole group would respond in unison.

We concluded our time with the believers in Jabra by offering to pray for any that had need. One after one, nearly 10 of them came forward and asked for prayer. Mary Beth and I laid hands on them and prayed for healing (for those who were sick physically and mentally), for faith (for a woman who asked that God would increase her faith), and for a new pastor who traveled from another village just for our training! What a blessing to pray for these brothers and sisters in Christ.

Overall, we were blessed by having wonderful fellowship with the believers here today. God’s Spirit is working in their hearts and the Word of God is spreading and taking root in fertile ground. Pray for these believers from these three villages that they would grow in their love for the Word of God. Pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to help them understand the truth of Scripture and to apply it to their lives. Pray also that they would take the Word to others in the villages. Thank you for being our co-laborers in the gospel…you are truly a vital part of our team.

Well today we started with our devotional and then we drove for two hours to get to the Modhuabari village. We got there and to our surprise kids, women and men show up at the bus almost before we could get off. So we decided to do a village program right away. Mary Beth started with music, then Bill shared the Cube, Cathy told the parable of the sower with pictures that Kristie helped prepare for the children’s program. It was beautiful to see everyone in action. Pastor Andrew closed the program with a song. And me taking pictures like crazy.

Then we had lunch with our translators and Themrei and prepared to go door to door through the village. We encountered opposition because people were celebrating the day of their patron saint/idol. So people not very receptive to our sharing. Some people prayed to receive Christ and some others didn’t want to pray. We found lots of wonderful Christian brothers and sisters. So we were able to encourage them to keep following Jesus and be good examples and models of who Jesus is. It was a long day, but it was very rewarding.

We thank you for keeping us in your prayers – continue to pray for us. Looking forward to sending you additional good news.

Greetings from India in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is amazing to be half way around the world and able to communicate so easily with our brothers and sisters back home. Although when Pastor Andrew shared with me that Stanford upset USC in football, well fast communication no longer impressed me. And I think he got a little too much enjoyment in giving me the bad news (from my perspective anyway).

Communication is the name of the game for us here in Siliguri – communicating with the people God wants us to reach and with our translators who serve as our spokespersons. Tonight we meet with all of our translators for a briefing of the week’s planned events. We had an opportunity to go over how we would work with them to conduct door to door evangelism tomorrow (pray for the harvest) and the discipleship sessions we will present for the majority of the rest of the week. It was a great session as we had much fun even as were working. The universal body of Christ was in evidence as Indians, Americans and a Mexican came together to spread the good news.

Tonight’s training briefing followed a great day. Pastor Andrew and Mary Beth were invited to LTC where Andrew preached from Acts to about 150 bible students. Mary Beth reported that Andrew was amazing, sharing and teaching boldly to the gathering there. They also enjoyed much singing and worship and even dedicated a new piano for the church at LTC.

The rest of us had the privilege of visiting the Tirihannah Tea Plantation where a church has been built by LTC in the yard of a family. Though a dark and rainy day outside, the love of Christ shone brightly inside. We shared in singing, prayer and a message from Mark 4 about the sower and seeds. This is one of the parables we are using to illustrate specific discipleship issues with the local Christians. Afterward, Cathy, Bill, Pastor Pablo and I were asked to pray for some of the members of the congregation. An older man, Bimod, asked for healing of his arms and legs which aren’t working in concert right now. Rindu, a very elderly lady, asked for prayer about general sickness. She was very participative in the service and I saw her giving directions to some of the younger women who were quick to obey. Finally, we prayed for Maniel, our translator, who had a special and specific request – for a wife. (He also asked for the welfare of his family and the health of the church in Tirihannah) We happily laid hands on each of these Christians and prayed specifically for healing and that God’s will be done in their lives.

We made an observation of the church in the tea garden that you will also fine interesting and important. The number of men there was about a 1/3 of the total. This is a huge increase just in the year since we visited last and is very encouraging. We prayed specifically that they would be the men God has called them to be and promised that we would pray for them from America. We took a picture of the men as a means of commitment to remember them in prayer. We ask that you would likewise pray for the men of Trinihannah Tea Plantation and of course the congregation as a whole.

We miss you all but are so blessed to be here representing TACC and serving Christ. Thanks for sending us.

I just must relay an experience that I had yesterday while in the second village. It was something that I had never had happen before and I am equally sure it will never happen again.

As we were walking down the path after visiting a believers house we passed by a fairly large elementary school. It appears it was during their lunch break as all the children were outside in the play yard. There was a low wall between us and the children and they could see us coming down the path. I waved and some of them waved back.

Then about 25 children came over to an opening in the wall to get a closer look at me and hear me talk. We spent a few minutes talking with the kids and then continued down the path to our jeep. I had just gotten in the jeep when a 10 year old girl came to the window with her friends. And then it happened . . . in pretty good English she asked me for my autograph !!! She had a small book that others had signed and she was handing me her pen.

How could I even think of refusing this request – after all it’s been a long time coming and who knows if it will ever happen to me again. All the girls were giggling as I wrote “John 3:16” and signed my name. We then gave her a Bible and showed her where the book of John was located.

I am just getting ready to leave the hotel to pick up the team. And then it is on to our orientation training and dinner tonight. Thank you for your continued prayers.

Today we went to the villages of Naxalbari and Hathiduba. I trust you are all paying close attention to these village names. They are beginning to sound normal to me and I may prepare a pop quiz when I return home. The team will be arriving tomorrow afternoon and while the one on one time with the village pastors has been good . . . I am looking forward to having the team here to share these experiences.

You have probably noticed through the blogs that this trip has been quite different than previous ones. When in the villages we are concentrating on visiting believers to invite them to the discipleship training next week. While we get opportunities to use the cube and share the Gospel, much of our visit is praying with believers for sickness. I told John Adams before I left that the Friends In Christ lessons on healing would be very useful to me in India, and they have been. The faith of the Adivasi believers has caused my faith to increase. Out of all the visits today, there were some that stood out.

We met a woman on the trail to a village that was a believer and she asked us to come to her home and pray for her son. Siduc is about 30 years old has TB and difficulty in breathing. He was sitting on the edge of his bed and we prayed that God would relieve his stress and cause him to breathe easier. We also invited members of his family to come to the discipleship training next week and they assured us that they would be there.

Then we met with a young man and woman, Junes and Karmila, both about 20 years old. He was visiting from another village and she told us that Junes was her brother. However, it was obvious to us that they were not brother and sister. She has been a follower of Christ for three years and he is Hindi. Based on the problems I have seen in the past couple of days with Christian/Hindi relationships . . . I knew that this was not going in a good direction. I asked if Junes would like to know about the one true God and how Karmila was certain to go to heaven. He listened and nodded in agreement as I went through the Gospel – and then he prayed to accept Jesus as his personal savior.

We prayed for Priya and Dali a mother with aches all over and her young daughter that had a fever. We also prayed for two other young women one with back aches and one with headaches. I say again – the faith of these Adivasi believers has caused my faith to grow.