Here are some pics of our trip so far...
http://travel.webshots.com/album/559277213rAfytF
Hello everyone,
And greetings from your brothers and sister in Christ in India...
Let me begin by thanking you all so much for leaving us comments and sending emails. We really enjoy hearing from you and its been good to hear in the emails from many of you what God is doing through you this summer wherever you may be. I really wish I could respond to each comment and respond in detail to each email, but we either have to be taken to the city to use internet and then the driver must wait for us, or we have to use the dial-up in the office here on campus (convenient, but really slow and it blocks the phone line). But know that we DEFINITELY appreciate the comments and emails nonetheless. I do miss you all... like I said in the last blog, won't it be great in Heaven when we can be together with all our brothers and sisters from all over the world at the same time and with God forever?
On Saturday, May 26th, I was blessed to spend some time with Sunil Korad. He is the Chaplain here at the campus. He has a 4-year-old daughter and a wife who is carrying another child scheduled to be born in October. He is here alone now, because it is too dangerous for his pregnant wife to be in this heat. They are back in their home state of Orissa. Anyway, I asked Sunil if I could hear his story and he invited me in. Immediately, he began apologizing that he had nothing to serve me (his wife is not there so he doesn't have much food in the house, ha. She calls every morning to make sure he's been able to eat breakfast). I told him it was fine, but he just said, "No, you are a servant of God, I must give you something." After finding a mango, he knelt by the couch and peeled it and gave it to me. They are definitely teaching me about humility and servanthood. Then he showed me family pictures and told me his story. Sunil really is a man dedicated to working for the Lord. He has such a passion to serve God here in India and bring more people to Jesus. In addition to being the chaplain here, he also teaches some classes. On the holidays, he and many of the other faculty go out to the villages to preach the Gospel. This can be very dangerous and he said that if the people know you are coming to bring the Gospel, they will persecute you and drive you from the village. But he forms relationships and slowly shares the Word with them. He truly believes that if he only proclaims the message, people will believe because the Gospel is so incredibly powerful. He told me, referring to Jesus' first miracle at Cana, "You need only pour the water and Jesus is there to perform the miracle." Pray for Sunil, that he will be able to continue his service to the Lord. Pray for his family, that they will be able to afford to send their daughter to school, and that his wife and expected child will be safe as they travel here on a 22hour train ride in the end of June.
Sunday, May 27th, we were able to worship at the Wadi church. Wadi is a little suburb outside of Nagpur where the Mission India office is located. That evening we got to go to a vegie market. That was quite interesting. As I may have already said, Nagpur is a city of about 4 million people (pretty small for an Indian city) but the travel book we have says about Nagpur, "You won't want to spend much time here, it's not that interesting." So, basically, its not a tourist city, and therefore, white people never come here. So, the people at the market were quite shocked to see us.
Monday, May 28th, we had a special treat. We, along with the faculty went to a waterpark about 30 km from Nagpur. This was to be a relaxing day before the school semester began (June 1st) and before things got REALLY busy around here. That day was quite unusual and it'll be easier to explain it when we get back, ha. That morning, though, the engineer over the construction that is going on here at the campus, Binoj, was in terrible pain. So he had to go to the hospital. That night, after dinner in Nagpur we went to the hospital to visit him. Binoj is from Kerala and only speaks Malayalam and a tiny bit of both English and Hindi. The people at the hospital only speak English and Hindi. So, Bansal stayed with Binoj to help him communicate with the doctor. They thought at first that his appendix was infected, but after x-rays he was found to have numerous kidney stones. The staff here and Binoj's family and Christian friends began praying for him. Friday, another x-ray showed no kidney stones. Binoj gives glory to God completely and believes that God removed the kidney stones.
I feel terrible that when he was talking about God miraculously healing him, I had to fight away feelings of doubt about that. I've been reading C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" and I want to include a quote that really convicted me about my doubts. This is supposed to be a letter from a veteran demon, Screwtape, to a temptor-in-training named Wormwood about the best ways to tempt his target human... "You can worry him with the haunting suspicion that the practice [prayer] is absurd and can have no objective result. Don't forget to use the 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument. If the thing he prays for doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayers don't work; if it does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and 'therefore it would have happened anyway', and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective." -CS LEWIS
Why do I even pray at all if I don't believe my prayers can be answered?
Wednesday, May 30th, we had power for about 2 and a half of the 6 and a half hours we were in the library. When we did have power, though, we were able to get a lot done. The library computer system will be a great blessing to the operation of this campus.
That night we were blessed to be invited to the house of one of the faculty members. His name is Satish (I have no idea how its really spelled). He is the dean over the Marathi program here at the campus. India has to be the country with the most variety in everything. Each of the 30 states has its own culture, government, people groups, and language. So not only do we have difficulty talking with the Indians sometimes, but they can't even talk to each other much of the time. Add in all the tribal languages and India has more than 1600 languages!! Just the faculty here on campus represent English, Marathi, Malayalam, Uriya, Telegu, Nagamese, and Hindi (probably more that I don't know of). Anyway, Marathi is the native language of the people here in the state of Maharashtra. So Satish is in charge of all the Marathi studies here at the Nagpur campus. Well, we rode rikshaws out to his village. It was called "8 mile". When we got there we were hit with sights of overwhelming poverty. The village didn't look that big, but there were more than 25,000 people living there. A huge problem in India is overpopulation. We spent a long time talking with Satish and his family before supper. The bedroom in their house, where we sat and talked, is also the site for a house church that Satish's father has led for more than 30 years now. He was born into a Hindu family and when he converted to Christianity, even though he was the only child in his familly, his parents completely rejected him. Years before their death, though, they both came to Christ. Then Satish's family fed us, which is always humbling because of how humbly they serve you when you are the guest. After dinner we headed back to campus in another rikshaw.
Satish, that day which happen to also be his birthday, had been in a motorcycle wreck. He crashed on the Mumbai Highway, an extremely dangerous road where the majority of wrecks are fatal. However, he said the Lord spared him and when people came to see if he was ok after the wreck he began preaching the Gospel to them. He said, "Satan was trying to discourage me, but 20 people heard the Gospel today."
Friday, June 1st, while we were working in the library, Samuel asked to listen to my mp3 player. So I turned on Caedmon's Call - Share the Well. If you are not familiar with that one, it is about Caedmon's Call's ministry in India. Samuel loved the music, and he was able to explain to me what some of the Hindi phrases on the CD meant. He especially loved the song "Mother India." I think it was the only song that was slow enough for him to be able to understand all the English, but I agree, its an excellent song. It talks about a lot of the suffering in India and the almost 1 billion people here that still do not believe in the true God. Samuel said, "Ah, I love that song... because I know the suffering of my India." Then we listened to it together and during his favorite line he would close his eyes and raise his hands and sing along. That line was... "Father, forgive me for I have not believed. Like Mother India I've groaned and grieved. Father, forgive me, I forgot your grace. Your Spirit falls on India and captured me in your embrace." Then we let Sunanda, the Hindu lady that works in the library, listen to some. I think she was surprised to hear Hindi music cause she started singing along with it. Maybe one day she will believe the things she was singing... "You are my owner, so I am saved. Thank you. You are my owner, so I am saved. Thank you. You created me."
Well, the regular session students are beginning to arrive. Classes will begin shortly and I'm told now that there will actually be around 300 students here. I'm excited to hear their stories and get to know them. I haven't been able to get very many of the interviews yet due to the holiday and everyone who is still on campus generally being busy, but I pray that I'll have plenty of time to talk with the students over the next month and get a lot of inspiring testimonies.
Oh, and I'm about to buy an umbrella, cause the rainy season begins in the next few days. Hopefully that'll cool Nagpur down a bit. Also, let me just say that we have been here three weeks and it was within the last 12 hours that I learned my shower has a water heater. You just have to turn it on. That's a good piece of info to learn, ha.
Well, we are praying for you, and we will talk to you again soon.
http://travel.webshots.com/album/559277213rAfytF
Hello everyone,
And greetings from your brothers and sister in Christ in India...
Let me begin by thanking you all so much for leaving us comments and sending emails. We really enjoy hearing from you and its been good to hear in the emails from many of you what God is doing through you this summer wherever you may be. I really wish I could respond to each comment and respond in detail to each email, but we either have to be taken to the city to use internet and then the driver must wait for us, or we have to use the dial-up in the office here on campus (convenient, but really slow and it blocks the phone line). But know that we DEFINITELY appreciate the comments and emails nonetheless. I do miss you all... like I said in the last blog, won't it be great in Heaven when we can be together with all our brothers and sisters from all over the world at the same time and with God forever?
On Saturday, May 26th, I was blessed to spend some time with Sunil Korad. He is the Chaplain here at the campus. He has a 4-year-old daughter and a wife who is carrying another child scheduled to be born in October. He is here alone now, because it is too dangerous for his pregnant wife to be in this heat. They are back in their home state of Orissa. Anyway, I asked Sunil if I could hear his story and he invited me in. Immediately, he began apologizing that he had nothing to serve me (his wife is not there so he doesn't have much food in the house, ha. She calls every morning to make sure he's been able to eat breakfast). I told him it was fine, but he just said, "No, you are a servant of God, I must give you something." After finding a mango, he knelt by the couch and peeled it and gave it to me. They are definitely teaching me about humility and servanthood. Then he showed me family pictures and told me his story. Sunil really is a man dedicated to working for the Lord. He has such a passion to serve God here in India and bring more people to Jesus. In addition to being the chaplain here, he also teaches some classes. On the holidays, he and many of the other faculty go out to the villages to preach the Gospel. This can be very dangerous and he said that if the people know you are coming to bring the Gospel, they will persecute you and drive you from the village. But he forms relationships and slowly shares the Word with them. He truly believes that if he only proclaims the message, people will believe because the Gospel is so incredibly powerful. He told me, referring to Jesus' first miracle at Cana, "You need only pour the water and Jesus is there to perform the miracle." Pray for Sunil, that he will be able to continue his service to the Lord. Pray for his family, that they will be able to afford to send their daughter to school, and that his wife and expected child will be safe as they travel here on a 22hour train ride in the end of June.
Sunday, May 27th, we were able to worship at the Wadi church. Wadi is a little suburb outside of Nagpur where the Mission India office is located. That evening we got to go to a vegie market. That was quite interesting. As I may have already said, Nagpur is a city of about 4 million people (pretty small for an Indian city) but the travel book we have says about Nagpur, "You won't want to spend much time here, it's not that interesting." So, basically, its not a tourist city, and therefore, white people never come here. So, the people at the market were quite shocked to see us.
Monday, May 28th, we had a special treat. We, along with the faculty went to a waterpark about 30 km from Nagpur. This was to be a relaxing day before the school semester began (June 1st) and before things got REALLY busy around here. That day was quite unusual and it'll be easier to explain it when we get back, ha. That morning, though, the engineer over the construction that is going on here at the campus, Binoj, was in terrible pain. So he had to go to the hospital. That night, after dinner in Nagpur we went to the hospital to visit him. Binoj is from Kerala and only speaks Malayalam and a tiny bit of both English and Hindi. The people at the hospital only speak English and Hindi. So, Bansal stayed with Binoj to help him communicate with the doctor. They thought at first that his appendix was infected, but after x-rays he was found to have numerous kidney stones. The staff here and Binoj's family and Christian friends began praying for him. Friday, another x-ray showed no kidney stones. Binoj gives glory to God completely and believes that God removed the kidney stones.
I feel terrible that when he was talking about God miraculously healing him, I had to fight away feelings of doubt about that. I've been reading C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" and I want to include a quote that really convicted me about my doubts. This is supposed to be a letter from a veteran demon, Screwtape, to a temptor-in-training named Wormwood about the best ways to tempt his target human... "You can worry him with the haunting suspicion that the practice [prayer] is absurd and can have no objective result. Don't forget to use the 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument. If the thing he prays for doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayers don't work; if it does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and 'therefore it would have happened anyway', and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective." -CS LEWIS
Why do I even pray at all if I don't believe my prayers can be answered?
Wednesday, May 30th, we had power for about 2 and a half of the 6 and a half hours we were in the library. When we did have power, though, we were able to get a lot done. The library computer system will be a great blessing to the operation of this campus.
That night we were blessed to be invited to the house of one of the faculty members. His name is Satish (I have no idea how its really spelled). He is the dean over the Marathi program here at the campus. India has to be the country with the most variety in everything. Each of the 30 states has its own culture, government, people groups, and language. So not only do we have difficulty talking with the Indians sometimes, but they can't even talk to each other much of the time. Add in all the tribal languages and India has more than 1600 languages!! Just the faculty here on campus represent English, Marathi, Malayalam, Uriya, Telegu, Nagamese, and Hindi (probably more that I don't know of). Anyway, Marathi is the native language of the people here in the state of Maharashtra. So Satish is in charge of all the Marathi studies here at the Nagpur campus. Well, we rode rikshaws out to his village. It was called "8 mile". When we got there we were hit with sights of overwhelming poverty. The village didn't look that big, but there were more than 25,000 people living there. A huge problem in India is overpopulation. We spent a long time talking with Satish and his family before supper. The bedroom in their house, where we sat and talked, is also the site for a house church that Satish's father has led for more than 30 years now. He was born into a Hindu family and when he converted to Christianity, even though he was the only child in his familly, his parents completely rejected him. Years before their death, though, they both came to Christ. Then Satish's family fed us, which is always humbling because of how humbly they serve you when you are the guest. After dinner we headed back to campus in another rikshaw.
Satish, that day which happen to also be his birthday, had been in a motorcycle wreck. He crashed on the Mumbai Highway, an extremely dangerous road where the majority of wrecks are fatal. However, he said the Lord spared him and when people came to see if he was ok after the wreck he began preaching the Gospel to them. He said, "Satan was trying to discourage me, but 20 people heard the Gospel today."
Friday, June 1st, while we were working in the library, Samuel asked to listen to my mp3 player. So I turned on Caedmon's Call - Share the Well. If you are not familiar with that one, it is about Caedmon's Call's ministry in India. Samuel loved the music, and he was able to explain to me what some of the Hindi phrases on the CD meant. He especially loved the song "Mother India." I think it was the only song that was slow enough for him to be able to understand all the English, but I agree, its an excellent song. It talks about a lot of the suffering in India and the almost 1 billion people here that still do not believe in the true God. Samuel said, "Ah, I love that song... because I know the suffering of my India." Then we listened to it together and during his favorite line he would close his eyes and raise his hands and sing along. That line was... "Father, forgive me for I have not believed. Like Mother India I've groaned and grieved. Father, forgive me, I forgot your grace. Your Spirit falls on India and captured me in your embrace." Then we let Sunanda, the Hindu lady that works in the library, listen to some. I think she was surprised to hear Hindi music cause she started singing along with it. Maybe one day she will believe the things she was singing... "You are my owner, so I am saved. Thank you. You are my owner, so I am saved. Thank you. You created me."
Well, the regular session students are beginning to arrive. Classes will begin shortly and I'm told now that there will actually be around 300 students here. I'm excited to hear their stories and get to know them. I haven't been able to get very many of the interviews yet due to the holiday and everyone who is still on campus generally being busy, but I pray that I'll have plenty of time to talk with the students over the next month and get a lot of inspiring testimonies.
Oh, and I'm about to buy an umbrella, cause the rainy season begins in the next few days. Hopefully that'll cool Nagpur down a bit. Also, let me just say that we have been here three weeks and it was within the last 12 hours that I learned my shower has a water heater. You just have to turn it on. That's a good piece of info to learn, ha.
Well, we are praying for you, and we will talk to you again soon.
3 comments:
Kevin--oops I mean Kyle;
Thanks so much for all of your wonderful stories and info. on your trip. You've kept me up-to-date with your's and Carie's adventures. You've made me feel what it is to be there (without the heat!). I'm praying for your continued health and success in all you are doing. Have fun but be careful on those motorcyle rides!
Love, Miss Judith (Jan)
Wow you guys!!! Ya'll are blessing my socks off over here! I absolutely love the stories about all the people you are meeting and getting to know. And I REALLY love the pictures! It helps to put faces with names. And it's really fun to see ya'll in your Indian garb! I love it! I'm continuing to pray for you and your outreach there...love ya'll!!
Love the shirt! Got that in an XXL??
love you guys,
mr. bill
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