india.

wellllll.....we got back from india two and a half weeks ago now. what a trip.

lets see....JP had been there since the middle of june; jeff, jake, gary, and patrick went on the 17th; cindy and i went on the 20th; everyone else came on the 25th. what an amazing blessing it was to go early. we had the opportunity to spend time at the children's home that Jiwan and Esther are in charge of. it was amazing to see how they live day to day. they live seamlessly--as opposed to how i think of my life in america. Here it seems we are able to somehow keep up with two very different lives--one for church and one every other time. in india its all the same. church is a part of their everyday lives--naturally. it is not forced and it is not a burden. it is awesome.

so we were at the children's home a few days and were able to help esther teach (the boys all went to nepal to visit churches and villages--25 saved in one village!! :) the kids are amazing. there are about 15 kids ranging from ages 3-12ish. only two boys--they are waiting to take in more boys when they have more housing facilities.

when the rest of the group got there (july 27th) we jumped into the youth camp. the youth camp was a gathering of student aged believers from india and nepal. we were expecting around 180 and i think around 250 came! praise God! throughout the youth camp (july 27-30)we had times of worship and teaching followed by family time. each american had a family group--all girls or all boys that would discuss what matt talked about. the girls each had 20-25 and the boys had about 15-20 in each group. Praise the Lord that Selina (Jiwan's daughter who has excellent english) was in my group and my translator.

it was really an amazing experience and different from any other trip i''ve taken because we were able to really spend time with the people. both at the children's home and at the youth camp. The last night of the youth camp we did a foot washing service where we, the leaders, got to wash our family group's feet. what an incredible experience--the girls responded so sincerely. it was beautiful.

Many thanks to all who prayed for us. God did amazing things. I think one major thing was simply connecting believers to the body of Christ. Many believers there are the only one in their family, school, etc. I believe that fellowship is central to God's kingdom and some may just be starving for it there. i encourage you to continue praying for the people there. we are planning another youth conference possibly in march...

"to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen." -Jude 1:25