Hey,

Happy Father's Day, I think...

Thank you again for all the comments. We are able to read them and we really look forward to reading them. Its really good to hear from you all. Sorry its been so long since we were able to post. We sent a few emails on Saturday (June 9th) and then the internet started acting weird and we struggled with it for an hour just to be able to read the comments on the blog but we were never able to post. And yesterday, (Sat, June 18th) we were at an all day leadership seminar in the city of Nagpur. But finally we have a chance to post...

Shortly after we posted our last blogs on Saturday (June 2nd), we returned to the Mission India campus where, of course, the power was out. That's alright though, it came again at about 330pm. But then, a really strong storm came through (it was a little preview of the monsoon season that has been 'almost here' for quite some time now). The lightning, wind, and rain was crazy. During the storm, the power went out again. That was about 430pm on Saturday. Apparently, that power outage came from some damage caused by the storm and this damage did not get repaired for about 27 hours. Yeah, no power from 430pm on Saturday to 745 pm on Sunday. No AC or fan that night. Without power, no pumps to pull water from the wells either. More power problems left us without fan, AC, or water on Sunday night too. I'm not gonna lie to ya, that was frustrating. If I could have handled the mosquitos I would have slept outside. Those concrete buildings trap the heat from the day and it is actually hotter inside at night than outside (without fan or AC that is). Thursday the same thing happened... a storm came, knocked out the power, and it did not come back until about 8am Fri morning. Fortunately, though God has blessed us with moments of electricity when we could get some relief, at least. And we are also blessed to have access to bottled water so we are not dependent on the electricity for drinking water (although we are dependent on it for bathing water).

On June 4th, Carie and I got an email from Saji Lukos, the founder of this missions organization that we are working with. He wanted us to be sure that we each came back with at least 50 of those interviews he asked us to get. The regular college students just started arriving that week so we hadn't had much opportunity to interview up to that point, but we are making progress now. We've got a lot of interviews left to get in a relatively short amount of time, and to be honest, I'm nervous about getting this task done. But we are praying for God to give us the ability to finish it. If completed, this can be a very helpful tool for Mission India, both in raising funds and in sharing with people elsewhere what its like to be a Christian in India. So, would you please pray that we will be able to finish this task

On Tuesday (June 5), Carie and I had to switch rooms. I share an apartment with a guy named Chris from Georgia and our apt has one room with AC. Carie is in an apt by herself with two AC rooms. Well, another guy from the States was coming on Wednesday, so we all switched rooms. Now me, Chris and Robbie (Ohio) are in Carie's old apt and Carie is in our old apt. That night, after we switched rooms, we found and killed the snake that had apparently been living in Carie's room for who knows how long. It was under Chris's bed, hehe.

Sunday (June 10th) was a very good day. Mission India has three parts to their mission. 1. Leadership Training and Development, 2. Compassion Ministry, and 3. Evangelism Ministry. Carie and I have been working at the Mission India Theological Seminary in Nagpur, helping them in their library and spending time at the Mercy Home with the children. So our efforts had been mostly involved in the first two parts of Mission India's mission. Sunday, though, we were able to visit a village church and meet the pastor that worked there. This was a mostly Hindu village and the pastor had built the only church there 8 years ago. He was severly beaten when he was building that church. I was able to preach there that morning and it was so humbling to address Christians in such conditions. We got to get a taste of what real Indian village Christianity is like.

There are a lot of students on the campus now. Several of the students are from Nagaland, a state in the NE part of India. The people in that part of India look more like people from the Far East than what you would expect Indians to look like. Carie and I walked past some of them the other night as we were returning from the Mercy Home. They were out in the field with a light hunting frogs. We found out later that they caught no frogs, but killed 3 vipers instead. Tenzing (from Nagaland) gave us some Nagaland beef jerky... scary, but tasty. I offered some to some of the other Indians, but they did not want any cause they were afraid of what was in it since the Nagaland guys eat all kinds of birds and dogs and monkeys and snakes and stuff. I'm told small dogs taste the best, ha. Maybe I'll save one pack and try to get it back to the States for you to try some. If i'm able to get it thru customs, it'll still be good, right? It'll only be like 4 weeks old by then. Well, I will have had it for four weeks. Tenzing brought it from Nagaland which is a three day journey by train and he had already been here two weeks when he gave it to me, ha... maybe I should just throw the rest away.

Anyway, we are still working in the library, trying to get as much of the book collection entered into the computers before we leave. We are also spending a lot of time trying to get the interviews. So, like I said, please pray that we can complete that so that our time here can really serve some long-term help for the Kingdom work that Mission India is doing here. Bansal is helping me translate for many of the testimonies. I was worried that he was annoyed by having to help me do so many interviews so I said, "Thank you so much for doing this for me and helping me this way." He stopped me and said, "I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for the Lord... I'm ready to help 24 hours [a day]."

We are finally feeling a change in the climate. A major storm over near Oman, Yeman, and Saudi Arabia was delaying the Indian monsoon, but now it has come ashore from the Arabian Sea and should be on top of us full force soon. The temperature has already drastically changed. Temperatures are no longer above 110, but instead they are around 100. It feels so good! And also the breeze is a little cooler now, it feels great here now. Our last two weeks here will be very wet but the temperature will be much more bearable. The change in the climate has brought a LOT more creatures out though. We miss you all and we will see you pretty soon.

I really look forward to being able to share with you some of the stories of the Christians here, but that will be more fun to do in person.