From Bill – September 14

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.