God did some amazing things in our hearts and those we were able to talk with. The plan was we would team up with a seminary (students acted as our translators) and a local church and spend the week doing door-to-door evangelism at the houses the church member picked out ahead of time. This was an amazing experience! I wish you could have been there as well. God was working in some pretty awesome ways. We arrived in India on a Friday and attempted to get over the 10 ½ hour time zone difference. Saturday we girls got two dresses the Indian women wore and we met the church members and our translators and had orientation that afternoon. It was a good time of fellowship.
Sunday our group split up and we went to two different churches to worship. It was such an encouraging time being with other believers from a different part of the world and worshipping in different languages but worshipping the same God. Just by their worship and their prayer you could tell they understood who God was. They understood His holiness and power. It was an emotional experience worshipping with them and it was convicting when looking at our church services centered around programs and the style of music and style of preaching. We ate lunch together and had some more training. (Ok side note, our bananas are pretty gross when compared to those picked right off a tree. They were amazing!)
Monday rolled around (by far my favorite day of the trip) and we were preparing to head out for our first day of evangelism. I was a little nervous about this but decided that since God was the one who changes peoples’ hearts He was also the one who would be speaking through me. Matthew 10:19-20 kept coming to mind so I knew I didn’t have to worry about what to say.
The American team split up so there were 2 of us in each town. We were in 5 towns and the trip leaders went around to the towns to make sure we had everything we needed and answered questions. Mike and I got to work in Pastor Royson’s town. He was the pastor we teamed up with. He has such a heart for the lost and it was contagious. You could see God written all over his face whenever he talked about his Savior.
Samson (my translator), Sinjin (church planter and teacher), Suma (church member, such a dear woman. We couldn’t speak to each other so we would just smile at each other and try to use nonverbal to communicate.), and I headed out and began our day at Suma’s house to talk with her husband. One of the tools we used in evangelism was the evangecube. It is a cube with pictures on it to help you tell the story of the Gospel. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was working in some mighty ways because I wasn’t very good at it but God used our faithfulness anyway. The four of us got to see 10 people come to know the Lord. It was a phenomenal experience seeing the joy shining forth on Samson, Sinjin and Suma's faces and the hope rising in the new believers' faces as we explained the Gospel and prayed with them. It was just so cool! Mike and his team met up with us for lunch then we headed out again.
Around four that afternoon my group was sitting outside Suma’s house waiting for Mike’s group to come and the new believers so we could have a Bible study and talk about the Bible and some of the basics of Christianity. However, Samson and Sinjin got a text saying part of our team was in trouble and we had to go. I didn't really undersatnd what was going on at first but the concern in their faces said it was time to go. Right as we were about to pray Mike and his group showed up and we prayed together. Samson’s father, a pastor in a neighboring town, had driven down that afternoon to help us and he drove Mike and I to Pastor Royson’s house. He told us to get back into the car right away and go to the hotel because someone had just drove by looking for us. The houses we had gone to that day were all down a maze of roads from the main road so it was a little harder to find us.
We got back to the boat and waited for the rest of the groups to show up. Hannah, my roommate and a girl I got to know very well on this trip, came running out from the boat that would take us to our hotel and gave me a big hug. Her group had people coming up and yelling at them to go away and she told me three of our group members had been arrested for proselytizing. Another group had to escape out the backdoor because there were some people waiting to jump them at the front. This explained the worried looks I had seen on my groups and the pastor’s faces. We found out our groups had seen 36 people come to know the Lord that day! How amazing! No wonder the enemy was getting nervous.
Eventually the other groups came back and we headed to the hotel to wait. We had no idea what was really going on and all we could do was wait. It was a pretty amazing experience though. I loved praying with our team and listening for what God was saying. A few weeks before the trip my pastor had talked about getting all you can out of the God experiences so I grabbed my Bible and it was amazing the things God was saying. Since Isaiah is my favorite book I turned there and so many verses jumped out. Isaiah 41:9-14 was one of the first ones to stick out. I had prayed that God would speak through me before the trip and then God brought me to Isaiah 50:4-5. I was worried about the new believers so God showed me Isaiah 51:4-7. I asked God about our friends in jail and God said Isaiah 51:12-14. As I always have a song in my head, I couldn’t stop singing Healer by Hillsong. The presence of God was just so strong! His peace was amazing!
Around 9ish that night our friends were released and we were taken to a hotel about 2 hours north of where we were staying. We cried and sang praise songs and prayed on the ride there. The next day we wait to find out our flight information. We had to leave the state within 24 hours but because the travel office was in the US and 10 ½ hour behind us, it took a little longer to get flights figured. Michael, one of our trip leaders, asked if anyone wanted to stay longer and go to a different state. Hannah and I volunteered for this and the three of us went on to Delhi and the rest of the team went home.
We were in Kerala during the monsoon season but so far had not experienced any rain. It rained before we arrived in Kerala and Monday night and Tuesday and Wednesday morning. This wasn’t a little rain either. It was cool how God stopped the rain for His purposes to be accomplished and then when it was time to go the rain came again.
Delhi was totally different from the more tropical Kerala we were in previously. There wasn’t humidity for one which was a huge bonus. It was about 120 when we were there so it was still pretty hot but we didn’t sweat as much. Delhi was a lot more urban and the poverty and homelessness was more obvious. We met up with a pastor in the evenings and attended a few of his prayer meetings. Again, it was just so encouraging being with other believers and worshipping together. The rest of the time we were in the hotel. Hannah and I got to talk a lot which was a lot of fun and we shared our dreams and what God was doing in our lives.
Friday we got to do a little training with the church members. Charles, one of the e3 staff we got to hang out with, did the HIV/AIDES cube, Michael preached and I did the evangecube. We walked down to the next house church and it was across from a Hindu temple. A little metal door in the side of a wall led into the living room area. Before the meeting started I got to talk a little with the pastor and father of the family whose house we were at. Bilbal was in an accident a few years back and had a lot of problems with his leg healing so he was bedridden for about 3 years. During that time the pastor came daily and taught him theology and he got his associates in theology. They are planning to have him be the associate pastor and help create more churches. It was so good talking with them. He and the pastor have such a burden for their neighbors and it was just so encouraging seeing their passion for the Lord. The pastor travels about an hour each way to visit the various church groups and prayer meetings around the city he oversees. He has such a heart for his congregation.
Hannah has a true gift with children and she got to play with the kids before the prayer meeting. They can really dance too! She led the Bible study that night which was great because of the number of kids there. During the Bible study the power went out and we were in complete darkness. They got some candles out and used a cell phone light to read the Bible. I wish I had a way to capture that time in the dark on film because it was just so special spending that time with them studying the Word.
The next morning we flew out and began the long journey home to the States. God really did some amazing things on this trip. About a week after we came back we heard from Pastor Royson that new churches were started and 2 more had become believers. At church that Sunday their worship was uninterrupted and the threats stopped. Praise God for the many things He is doing in India right now! Thank you for allowing God to use you as part of this as well. Please continue to be in prayer for the Indian church. One thing the seminary students and pastors often said was “pray for me and my ministry”. I hope you will join me in prayer for them as well.
