India, Day 3

Day 3 Wed, March 10

Today is the first of our two day pastor’s conference, and also the first of our two big crusades in Rajahmundry. They are being held in a rented field. The organizing churches have built a stage, a tented area for the seminars, and set up rows of lights for the evening crusades. Kumar has all of our meetings so very far away. Even though I am riding in the front seat, I am still getting motion sickness by the time we arrive at our destination. I'm thinking this is partially due to the bizarre driving habits here. I don’t know how many near head-on collisions we have narrowly escaped.

At the pastor’s conference, Trevor and Rick both got into their messages. Trevor’s study for the two days was a verse by verse examination of the book of Habakkuk. He tied in the struggles Habakkuk was facing with the struggles the Indian church is going through, and encouraged them to stand their ground no matter what the circumstances.

Rick did a teaching on how to outline a Bible passage. According to Kumar, this was very good for the pastors because very few of them have any education. They know how to preach the gospel and encourage their members, but doing an in depth study on a particular passage is not something they have been trained to do. So the pastor’s conferences were very good and encouraging for those who attended. There were something like 200 pastors there.

This was also our first night of big crusades. We held the crusades at the same place as the pastor’s conference. During the worship, there was a hindu man who was getting loud, causing a disturbance and demanding that we stop the meeting, but the security quickly dealt with him and we moved on.

The first night, with about 2,500 in attendance, I preached a basic message about who God is, what he requires of us, and the gospel. You have to put yourself in the shoes of those you intend to reach. Many of the people I was speaking to knew nothing about the Bible at all, so I was starting form scratch. I began in Psalm 139, showing them that God knows each of them personally and actually created them for a purpose, then moved on to Acts 17, explaining that God put them exactly where they are at this time in history, using all the circumstances of their life to bring them to a place where they might seek him and find him. From here, I used to Scriptures to identify the attributes of God, his holiness, righteousness, majesty, dominion and glory. Then I moved on to bring out the fact that God has placed a conscience within each of us, so that we would know the difference between right and wrong without having to be told, and used the law to bring the knowledge of sin to them. Then we read form Revelation 20, about the great white throne judgment, to bring understanding that there is a day that God has set aside to judge every man woman and child, and if left to our sins, we would have to answer for them to Him. This sets up the message of the cross perfectly. The fact that God loves us enough that he would be willing to become one of us in order to pay the penalty for the sins we committed against him is overwhelming to those who know nothing of a personal God. They were eager to embrace Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and the gift of eternal life. I asked anyone who wanted to receive Christ to stand and pray with me, and almost the entire place got out of their seats. When you read about the day of Pentecost, sometimes you can wonder how the gospel can make such a huge impact in one setting, and then you come to a place where the gospel is being heard for the first time and you see men and women ready to surrender completely to Him, and suddenly those passages that seemed so incredible become not only possible, but probable and real.

When you see such large numbers responding to the gospel, automatically there is a tendency to question the sincerity or the motives of what is going on. But another important thing you must keep in mind about the Indian culture is that the cast system still dominates much of society. For any one of these people to come forward in this setting it is almost guaranteed that they will suffer for it in their family, in their workplace, and in their community. When they come forward to receive Christ and begin a new life in Him, they are counting the cost in a way that neither you nor I have ever experienced, and for that, I think we have to be humbled and encouraged.

The altar was packed when we had them come forward for prayer. Wow! What a blessing! The crowd was pressing in upon each other, trying to get to the front for prayer. Everyone wants you to lay you hands on them and pray for the blessing of God in their lives. The guys are really jazzed about being able to pray for so many people.

Here is the video from the pastor's seminar and the crusade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgTc8zrTQ98

The next day of ministry in Rajahmundry is coming soon....

See you on the streets!!

India, Day 2

We woke early to get to our 8:00 flight. At the airport, I was having flashbacks from our last trip as they were asking us to change airlines and take a different flight. On the last mission trip, the airline moved the flight schedule up about 4 hours, and we showed up 4 hours late for boarding, and ended up missing a big crusade of about 4,000 people. Thank God for Josh’s brother-in-law, who works at the airport and made sure we did not get bumped off our airline. One easy connection in Hyderabad, and we were in Rajahmundry.
Dr Kumar met us at the airport with his family, greeting us with flowers. We traveled to his home, which is about a half-hour drive. I had not told the team about how much different Rajahmundry is than Chennai, because I wanted them to be a bit shell-shocked by the conditions here. The difference is immediately evident from the moment you leave the airport and begin the drive through town.
Kumar has a different home now than before, which is a bit nicer and more spacious. He needs more room because he is hosting teams on a more regular basis. We were welcomed with our new favorite meal. You guessed it, diced carrots, diced potatoes, chicken curry, spicy chicken legs, and rice, … and to wash it down, you guessed it again, Sprite. This is our meal every single day of our time here. If you can’t hack it, you go hungry. Poor Rick couldn’t take it and lost nearly 15 lbs in the first week of the trip.
So, Tuesday night was our first night of crusades. This particular crusade was held in a remote village area that is controlled by the Naxallites, a rebel, guerilla terrorist group. The Naxallites are not especially interested in persecuting Christians, however, and Dr Kumar's medical work in the region has earned him a certain amount of good favor with them.
I set up a speaking schedule for the team and tonight was Rick’s night to deliver the message. We had two guys give a 5 min encouragement, then one bring a 15 min word, and the last would be a longer, 45 min-1hour message. I began by giving an introduction and a word of encouragement, then Richard, Trevor, and finally Rick.
One of the things that was really special about this meeting is that this village had a major shortage of clean drinking water. The villagers would have to walk about 6 kilometers every day for water, and then, once the ponds dried up in the summer heat, they would have to sneak water from a well 6 kilometers away belonging to a higher cast, risking beatings and even death. Kumar had told me about this situation, and a dear couple from Calvary Chapel offered to sponsor a well for $500. By the time we arrived, the well was almost completed. They placed it right in front of the local church so that every day, when they came to get water, they would know who it was who provided it for them. Think of it, a basic necessity of life, being provided to an entire village of 3000 people for a one-time gift of $500. This created an open door for us to speak to the village people about the love of Christ. About 700-1000 gathered for the evening crusades, and an untold number responded to the invitation and came forward for prayer. Here's a 5 minute clip of the altar call. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-0LQapDOEQ You should be able to copy and paste that into your browser and it'll take you to my youtube channel.
Even as we held our meeting, there were some Hindus trying to disrupt the meeting by demonstrating about 300 yards from our crusade grounds, but their actions did not stop the ministry of the Holy Spirit! The altar call was jammed and we laid hands on and prayed for hundreds of people!
One of the other highlights of the night was the fact that the team was broken in on the driving habits in India. The village we went to was way out in the boonies and we had a very bumpy and curvy road to get us there, but apparently no one informed the driver. He was taking 25 mph corners at 60. Ha ha. Everyone had white knuckles for the entire drive to and from the meeting place. We all thought we had eaten something that disturbed our stomachs, but I think it was the driving that tied us up in knots. Ha ha.
Unfortunately, I am having some difficulty adding pictures to the blog today, but I hope you have enjoyed seeing some actual footage of people being saved. There is much, much more to come as we continue through the trip, so stay tuned!
See you on the streets!

India, Day 1

We left Tri-Cities on Saturday march 6^th at 6:00 a.m. I don’t think I slept for more than 2 hrs the night before. Knowing that I was going to be away from my family for two weeks made me sick, but the excitement of what we were about to be doing gave me strength. The joy of the Lord is indeed our strength.

The airport turned out to be more of a hassle than I expected. We had two oversized suitcases packed with medical supplies for Dr Kumar, that weighed about 70 lbs each. The airline would only allow us to have two checked bags at 50 lbs each. I knew we would be over, but I did not expect to have to pay $500 to get them flown over. Whatever. At least we were able to get them through.

So our first flight was a short one to San Francisco, where we would have a 3 hour layover before boarding our longest leg of the trip, a 15 hr flight to Hong Kong. Wow, is all I can say. That was absolutely agonizing. Poor Richard was pacing the plane for almost the entire flight. I will say, however, that Cathay Pacific is a very nice airline to fly. We had our own tv screens with hundreds of on demand movies, games and tv shows and also had our own power outlet at each seat. I killed a lot of time on the laptop and watching movies. Tried to sleep, but only got about 1 or 2 hours. By the time we got to Hong Kong, I was like a zombie. Our flight from there to Chennai was only 5 ½ hours, and I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep there.

One thing I will warn you of, is not to ever travel on too tight of a schedule with Trevor. We waited around for a half hour at every security checkpoint for this joker. I think he watched too many MacGyver episodes or something. You wouldn't believe the amount of knick-knacks he kept in his carry-on. He argued for 20 minutes about a set of screwdrivers. Screwdrivers! Anyone knows you are not getting on an airplane in 2010 with screwdrivers in your pocket. Anyhow, it made for interesting travel conversation and allowed us to partake in ministry-by-ridicule for a while.

Once we landed and got through immigration, we met with Josh, who greeted us with a traditional Indian welcome. We have pictures of us standing outside Chennai airport with shawls. Thank God for a good brother like Josh, who was willing to meet us at 1:30 a.m.

Day 1 Monday, March 8

Originally we had planned to arrive in India on Tuesday the 9^th, so we did not have any ministry arranged for Monday. Our original plan was to spend one extra day in Chennai at the tail end of the trip, but it turns out we saved about $200 per ticket to purchase our airfare on a Saturday rather than a Sunday, so we ended up bumping the whole trip up one day. We used the day to get acquainted with the culture and some of the pastors we would be working with. We met with a group of about 8 young pastors for lunch, then went to the St Thomas Mount and saw the traditional place where the Apostle Thomas is believed to have been martyred. I got to pray on the rock where the legend is that the Apostle Thomas used to kneel to pray.

After that, we went to the crusades grounds t

o pray over them for a great harvest in a couple weeks. The area where the local govt gave permission for the crusades was pretty run down, filled with trash, and the ground was uneven, but the believers worked very hard to clean it up and level it off before the crusades.

We also went to the pastor’s church who was the major player in organizing the e

vent and prayed for him and his ministry. They had all the billboards and signs for the advertisements, as well as the hand-outs for the crusades.

Josh sat the group down in the afternoon for an orientation to India. It was fun to s

ee the rest of the team get their minds blown away by the culture here. Josh is used to hosting missionary teams, so he was able to give valuable information to all of us.

We got to bed early because we were to fly to Rajahmundry the next morning and begin our ministry.

Stay tuned in to these blogs, because what you are about to read over the next few weeks will blow you away!

See you on the streets!

India, 2010 Mission Trip

Hey guys and gals,

Thank you for your patience over the past two months as I have not put up any posts for a while. Things were getting really hectic as the time drew near for us to head off to India. But, God be praised, we have now returned safely and I have so much information to share with you.

Over the next few weeks, I will be chronicling out our time in India, day by day, on this blog. I can't guarantee that you will receive a new blog every day, but each one that comes will tell the story of each individual day of the trip.

Many of you supported us financially and this will be a good opportunity for you to see that we were faithful with the funds and just where they went. I should be sending out the first blog tonight, so enjoy!

Thanks guys and gals, for your prayers!
See you on the streets!
Billy