Greetings from India!
We are Here at last.
At long last we have made it to India. This first week we have been extremely limited in internet access and the ability to charge our devices. Before I forget again, let me tell you we have created a blog, Godsyesmen, that we will update more frequently. The newsletter will still go out about once a month, but we hope to update the blog more frequently. Also, we will post only a few pictures in the newsletter so that those with slower internet won’t have a problem getting it, but we hope to post MANY pictures online on the blog. You can also find us on Facebook at Godsyesmen.
We arrived after the 21 hour flight and navigated the confusing customs system. We finally made it outside where we were met by our amazing hosts, Pastor John Pradeep and his wife Tabitha and their two sons. They had made a large banner with our pictures welcoming us. You really couldn’t hope for a warmer greeting. They had come the 7 hour journey to meet us after a long day of working at the elections. They had also arranged to have a large van there to take our luggage and us to the hotel we had insisted we needed to stay at in Chennai after arriving. I have to tell you, that first trip on Indian streets was an experience none of us will ever forget!
After reaching the hotel, however, we decided there was really no point to staying in Chennai after all, and rather than having our hosts return to their homes and come back in a couple of days, we should just go with them right now. So, after negotiating the price for the van, we drove through the night till we reached the place we would stay. All told we saw 3 sunrises and 3 sunsets that day before finally going to bed.
How can I describe our 6 days so far? I could tell you story after story about the heat and culture shock and heat and forgetting a suitcase at the airport and the heat and getting a house ready to live in and the HEAT so that when I was done you would rightfully say, wow their lives just sound unbearable! I could also tell you just as many stories about the unbelievably wonderful people and sites that we’ve seen and the people and the events that we’ve attended and these indescribably amazing Christian PEOPLE so that at the end you would say, wow their lives sound wonderful! Both would be true, often at the exact same time.
Our second day here, for instance, we are sitting in a very small building with no fans and a few windows and we are literally pouring sweat off us. It is so hot even breathing is difficult. But we are sitting in the child home with a room full of smiling, wonderful children who love us and are SO happy to see us. It is really one of the best moments of our lives, but at the same time it was so hard, so exhausting. Literally everything is like that, simultaneously wonderful and unendurable at the same time. It’s really overwhelming.
Our third day was a meeting with all the pastors. These men…there’s just no words to describe them. I can’t. Their faithfulness, their service, their faith and trust in God is just so much MORE than anything I’ve ever encountered. And they are so happy to meet us finally in person. They are so encouraged…at one point Pastor Pradeep broke into tears telling about how his father had asked many foreigners to come and help them, and he himself had for years asked God to send someone to help them, and many people had told him that they would come, but no one ever did. We are so inadequate. At one point we asked him why he would want us here. We had so far felt like just useless lumps of swiftly melting people, and worse, the word has gone around that the Americans have come and are giving lots of money, but Pastor John is keeping it for himself. They are thinking they do not give to their local pastors because the Americans have come and of course they are giving the pastors lots of money. Why would they want the trouble of having us around? But he can’t even answer that question. It’s so far beyond how he thinks that he doesn’t even understand the question. To him and the other pastors, just our presence here is such an encouragement that they cannot do enough to express their thanks.
We heard these pastors tell testimony after testimony of what God has done in their lives. Pastor Luke, who pastors and works in the Child Home told of how he was an alcoholic and a bad man, but he had visions of God calling him to come work for Him. Finally, he came to church and God saved him and he’s been preaching and working for God all these years since, with no salary, no guarantee of anything from week to week. One man was bitten by a poisonous snake in a village he went to work in, but was not harmed. One man was beaten in a village where he eventually started a church. One is a former hindu priest. One man couldn’t read or write before he got saved, but he read in James that if any ask for wisdom God will give it, so he asked God to help him learn how to read a Bible, and over time, with God’s help, taught himself to read. He now has no church, but just goes from village to village preaching everywhere he goes. He’s so amazingly full of joy that Pastor John has to remind him repeatedly to slow down so he can translate. They concluded the testimonies—testimonies like this! with a testimony about how God had sent us to help them. You can only imagine how humbling that is for us.
We have been asked to pray at a funeral of a pastor who now sleeps in Christ, sing and preach at a wedding (they do a lot of preaching and praying at weddings here!), preach to the pastor’s meeting, and sing and preach at the Sunday morning service we attended in a nearby village. All in just six days. They are easing us into it. :)
Please be praying for us. We have seen desperate prayers for health and strength answered already and we need grace hour by hour and minute by minute. I think you might have heard that the heat is intense here. It saps your strength and can be outright scary at times. Isaac especially has a hard time in the heat and we’re constantly concerned for Jeanette’s little ones as well (though they often stay with Tabitha instead of going out on our adventures). Pray God will give us the right words to speak as we are asked so often to ‘say a few words’, and to anoint those words with power from God. At each place we go, people line up asking us to pray for them. They are sick and hurt and need a touch from God and all we can offer them are our prayers. Please pray for them as well. We also haven’t yet been able to move into our house due to several complications along the way. We hope to move there this evening, but even still there are several things we need to get for a home there. Your prayers are so very, very important to us. We KNOW you are praying, we can sense it in our daily lives and we need the help from God that we can only expect through the prayers of His people on our behalf.
Thank you so much for following along with us on this journey. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for reading through a long email, it feels good to know that there are people that know what we are going through and care enough to listen. As we say here so often, Devudu mimmu deevinchu gaka—God bless you.
We arrived after the 21 hour flight and navigated the confusing customs system. We finally made it outside where we were met by our amazing hosts, Pastor John Pradeep and his wife Tabitha and their two sons. They had made a large banner with our pictures welcoming us. You really couldn’t hope for a warmer greeting. They had come the 7 hour journey to meet us after a long day of working at the elections. They had also arranged to have a large van there to take our luggage and us to the hotel we had insisted we needed to stay at in Chennai after arriving. I have to tell you, that first trip on Indian streets was an experience none of us will ever forget!
After reaching the hotel, however, we decided there was really no point to staying in Chennai after all, and rather than having our hosts return to their homes and come back in a couple of days, we should just go with them right now. So, after negotiating the price for the van, we drove through the night till we reached the place we would stay. All told we saw 3 sunrises and 3 sunsets that day before finally going to bed.
How can I describe our 6 days so far? I could tell you story after story about the heat and culture shock and heat and forgetting a suitcase at the airport and the heat and getting a house ready to live in and the HEAT so that when I was done you would rightfully say, wow their lives just sound unbearable! I could also tell you just as many stories about the unbelievably wonderful people and sites that we’ve seen and the people and the events that we’ve attended and these indescribably amazing Christian PEOPLE so that at the end you would say, wow their lives sound wonderful! Both would be true, often at the exact same time.
Our second day here, for instance, we are sitting in a very small building with no fans and a few windows and we are literally pouring sweat off us. It is so hot even breathing is difficult. But we are sitting in the child home with a room full of smiling, wonderful children who love us and are SO happy to see us. It is really one of the best moments of our lives, but at the same time it was so hard, so exhausting. Literally everything is like that, simultaneously wonderful and unendurable at the same time. It’s really overwhelming.
Our third day was a meeting with all the pastors. These men…there’s just no words to describe them. I can’t. Their faithfulness, their service, their faith and trust in God is just so much MORE than anything I’ve ever encountered. And they are so happy to meet us finally in person. They are so encouraged…at one point Pastor Pradeep broke into tears telling about how his father had asked many foreigners to come and help them, and he himself had for years asked God to send someone to help them, and many people had told him that they would come, but no one ever did. We are so inadequate. At one point we asked him why he would want us here. We had so far felt like just useless lumps of swiftly melting people, and worse, the word has gone around that the Americans have come and are giving lots of money, but Pastor John is keeping it for himself. They are thinking they do not give to their local pastors because the Americans have come and of course they are giving the pastors lots of money. Why would they want the trouble of having us around? But he can’t even answer that question. It’s so far beyond how he thinks that he doesn’t even understand the question. To him and the other pastors, just our presence here is such an encouragement that they cannot do enough to express their thanks.
We heard these pastors tell testimony after testimony of what God has done in their lives. Pastor Luke, who pastors and works in the Child Home told of how he was an alcoholic and a bad man, but he had visions of God calling him to come work for Him. Finally, he came to church and God saved him and he’s been preaching and working for God all these years since, with no salary, no guarantee of anything from week to week. One man was bitten by a poisonous snake in a village he went to work in, but was not harmed. One man was beaten in a village where he eventually started a church. One is a former hindu priest. One man couldn’t read or write before he got saved, but he read in James that if any ask for wisdom God will give it, so he asked God to help him learn how to read a Bible, and over time, with God’s help, taught himself to read. He now has no church, but just goes from village to village preaching everywhere he goes. He’s so amazingly full of joy that Pastor John has to remind him repeatedly to slow down so he can translate. They concluded the testimonies—testimonies like this! with a testimony about how God had sent us to help them. You can only imagine how humbling that is for us.
We have been asked to pray at a funeral of a pastor who now sleeps in Christ, sing and preach at a wedding (they do a lot of preaching and praying at weddings here!), preach to the pastor’s meeting, and sing and preach at the Sunday morning service we attended in a nearby village. All in just six days. They are easing us into it. :)
Please be praying for us. We have seen desperate prayers for health and strength answered already and we need grace hour by hour and minute by minute. I think you might have heard that the heat is intense here. It saps your strength and can be outright scary at times. Isaac especially has a hard time in the heat and we’re constantly concerned for Jeanette’s little ones as well (though they often stay with Tabitha instead of going out on our adventures). Pray God will give us the right words to speak as we are asked so often to ‘say a few words’, and to anoint those words with power from God. At each place we go, people line up asking us to pray for them. They are sick and hurt and need a touch from God and all we can offer them are our prayers. Please pray for them as well. We also haven’t yet been able to move into our house due to several complications along the way. We hope to move there this evening, but even still there are several things we need to get for a home there. Your prayers are so very, very important to us. We KNOW you are praying, we can sense it in our daily lives and we need the help from God that we can only expect through the prayers of His people on our behalf.
Thank you so much for following along with us on this journey. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for reading through a long email, it feels good to know that there are people that know what we are going through and care enough to listen. As we say here so often, Devudu mimmu deevinchu gaka—God bless you.
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