Thursday, June 7, 2012


Well today we just finished our last day of ministry here in INDIA!!! I can’t believe that we are finally done!! When I look back at our time here in India, I realized how much our team actually did while being here for 2 ½ months!! While we have been working in Bihar-Patna, we have done a wide range of ministry including house visits, teaching in slum schools, neighborhoods and at Vacation Bible Schools. We have worked and shared in orphanages, churches, youth fellowships and Bible Studies. We have helped remodel, decorate and organize a DTS office and apartments along with doing numerous prayer walks. At Bodagyah, we toured and prayed over Buddhist and Hindu temples.  We have definitely had a chance to use all our gifts and do a wide range of ministry.
            These past few weeks, we have been working with Vacation Bible Schools (VBS)  in an Assemblies of God church, a Baptist church and in the slums. At the Baptist church, there were probably around 150 or more kids who were all split up into age groups. Our team was also split up in classrooms to assist teachers who spoke Hindi and maybe some English. Laura and I were assigned to go and help two Hindi ladies teach 11-13 year olds. There were usually 35 or so students who attended our class. We helped teach the children worship songs with fun actions. We also taught them skits in which they performed at the end of the wek at the concert.  Every day, Laura and I took turns speaking for about 30-45 minutes. We taught on Creation, Adam and Eve, the fall of man, what a relationship with God looks like, how Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, how He died for us and rose again so that we could have a relationship with Him. Also, we asked the children if they wanted to have a personal relationship with Jesus and ask Him into their hearts and they all raised their hands. We prayed with them and they prayed themselves. IT was truly amazing because all 35 kids prayed the sinners prayer and wanted Jesus to be their true Savior, We have a lot of fun working with them and teaching them about the Bible and teaching them memory verses.  For an entire week, we worked with the VBS at the Baptist church. The next few days we worked with the Assemblies of God church.  We helped at a women’s meeting and led a VBS for two days.  We performed many skits, shared the gospel, did crafts, taught worship songs, and did games.
           We then traveled to an all girl’s orphanage where there were 8 girls or so. We led a program for them.  For the next few days, we traveled to slums and did children’s ministry, open airs and house visits.  At one of the days we did an open air in which there were probably 4 large tarps and blankets spread out on the hard ground.  A few houses surrounded the open area.  It was a very interactive program as we taught the children songs, performed skits for them, shared the gospel, performed magic tricks, and played games.  We did another open air out in the open in the slum last night. Many people from the slum village gathered around us as we sang songs, performed skits and debriefed them while also sharing the Gospel. We had many opportunities to pray over families, teenagers, and children. We saw people healed also during these times of back pain, headaches, stomach aches and many other ailments.  
      God is so good and its been amazing to see Him work these past few months! Our team is leaving Saturday morning to go to Agra and we will be there for 1-2 days sightseeing and going to the Taj Mahal.  It will be an 18 hr train ride. We then will travel to Delhi by train or bus to do more sightseeing and doing debriefing with our team. We  will be in Delhi for a day or so and then taking another train to Mumbai.  From there, we will fly out on the 16th on June and fly to Bangkok, Thailand where we will be sight seeing for a day or so.  I’m so excited to see Bangkok and stay in a motel. In Bangkok, we will meet up with the Nepal, Bangladesh,  Cambodia and Sri Lanka teams. We then fly together to Seoul, Korea and then to Kona. In Kona, we will all be reunited with our team leader and the Kyrgystan team. In Kona, we have five days or so of debriefing, sharing about our outreaches and bonding before everyone leaves the following weekend. Our graduation is on the 22nd which we are graduating from DTS! I fly home on the 23rd and I’m so overjoyed to see everyone! Please be praying for safety and health to finish off our DTS! Thank you for your prayers! Can’t wait to see everyone!! I have never been more excited to see family and friends!