The First Month In India

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,

By the grace of God we have been laboring in the Villupuram district for one month.  We’ve visited several villages and have many stories to tell.  Some are absolutely amazing and some are deeply sad.  We have traveled to places so rural and have seen things that we’ve never seen before in our lives.   The warm welcome we have received here can never be replaced.  We are 10,000 miles away but feel a deep sense of love and adoration daily.  Every where we go we draw a crowd (especially Marion).  People want to know your name, where your from and mostly just want to touch you.

By the grace of God we have finished two weeks of prayer at the local SDA schools here in the Villupuram district.The children were extremely attentive and respectful.  Their enthusiasm to learn is second to none. It was truly a gift from God to share bible truths with over 800 young people.

We received many prayer request from the children for typhoid fever and chicken pox.  Many, many children and their families battle with disease on a daily basis, diseases and  virus seem to be rampant here in Tamilnadu especially because the sanitary and health conditions here is extremely, extremely poor.  We intend to give some seminars on health to assist who we can.  Our whole family unfortunately on the 1st day of the Week Of Prayer also contracted a terrible eye virus that lasted for 1 week. The only way to describe it is to say that it was like having the “pink eye” but on steroids. We used different natural remedies from the US  and also prescription eye drops but nothing came close to  stopping this virus. It caused our eyes to swell and become blood shot red as well as produce days of fever and constant headaches,  but we are happy to say that by the grace of God we are well now and that” troubles don’t last always”

The Work in the Villages here has been a tremendous blessing. The people everywhere welcome us like the Apostles of Old, they fall down and bow themselves  to our feet. Some even want to kiss our feet.  We have to constantly remind them that we are men just like them. Their faith in God is so strong  that it challenges us daily to a deeper spiritual walk with God. We have visited several Villages to do bible work and Family visitations and I can honestly say that the poverty that we  have seen is second to none. People live in thatch roof huts in many places and some Children don’t even have clothes. This has saddened us greatly as you can imagine but we are doing what we can to encourage and uplift our Brothers and Sisters here.

We have visited most of the churches in the Villupuram district along with local pastors,leaders and elders.  The leadership here is very small but extremely dedicated.  Please pray for us as we are conducting  our first evangelistic campaign tonight in a very small rural village.