Sunday in India

Sunday, February 07, 2010

I think it is Sunday….or is it Saturday?? I honestly have no clue. But I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it? The team has been quite busy between teaching the conference and visiting the children’s home. There really are two separate opportunities for ministry to happen for us here. The children love it when we show up where they are. The first time we met them, they were brought to the local KFC for dinner. We were there already waiting for them. As they all filed in, their faces were gleaming. Beautiful, intelligent and respectful faces. They were so happy. Dr. Anjuli Nayak has created this home for them, each one representing a family where both parents have died. This particular children’s home only accepts “true orphans” and apparently a child left with no living parents is what that means. There are a total of thirty three of them . We brought them each a new pair of shoes, games, books, movies, clothes and jelly beans.

The Galatians conference began on Friday morning with approximately 200 Indian pastors and students from villages as far as 100 miles away. Their enthusiasm and charisma was refreshing. To watch them soak in the teaching of the Scriptures all day long amazed me. Often in the U.S. we think an hour and a half long class is the maximum anyone could expect us to sit through. These men and women studied for hours, took a lunch break, and came back for more teaching the rest of the afternoon and into early evening. By the time we finish this conference tomorrow afternoon, we will have worked our way through the entire book of Galatians. Then on Wednesday, we fly off to Varanasi for the second conference. We have been told by numerous local people that Varanasi is a very “religious” place. By this, they mean it is over 70% Hindu and the rest mostly Muslim. There are over 200,000 idols in the city and it is the location of the Ganges River where people go to die. They believe if they die there, they go straight to heaven. So, we go to this place on Wednesday of next week to begin sessions on Thursday.

Getting to a place where we could access the internet has been impossible. Between the locations we are staying in and our crazy schedule, it just couldn’t happen for us. Right now, I have one hour of internet access which I was finally able to acquire, but I am so sleepy, I am not sure how much I will get done. All in all, it has been a good trip. There is so much to tell but not the time right now to write it all down. I am taking pictures on my phone and trying to post some of them on Facebook. It seems my phone can take me to that sight as well as bring in my emails. Other than that, my phone is useless.

Once again, trust has been the biggest challenge for me. Trusting Jesus that He has a reason for my being here in this place for such a time as this, trusting His provision, and trusting Him to speak through me to the ones I am teaching. Today was my first time to teach here and God came through as He always does. I had so much fun interacting with God’s people here. I am exhausted tonight, but it is a good exhaustion. I’ll write more later.

(By the way, living here gives a whole new meaning to the expression “Holy Cow!”)