Off and running

Well, last night, ministry wise, we kicked in big time since being in Pithapurum. We've been doing some small stuff, but last evening we travelled for about an hour to Pratibha's home village, Annavaran, for an outdoor meeting. I'm going to say there were 200 people there. We had the traditional greeting of lots of stares, smiles and flower pedals thrown on us vbefore we were sequestered into the home of our hosts, which was adjacent to the area where the service was being held. I think this gives us some time for our hosts to offer us something to drink and then we were led to the platform where the service was already in progress, and had been for more than an hour prior to our arrival. Kent, Jordan and I gave words of greeting and it was evident the young ladies in the "pews" (actually, almost everyone sits Indian style on the floor) thought Jordan was cute; there were lots of giggles and smiles. We had some more music; Prathiba sang a really beautiful song that Kent recorded, Tim preached, again from I Peter. We then had a "birthday party" for Pastor Victor Samuel, who turned 33 yesterday. They had this incredible "candle" on the cake that seemed a cross from a birthday candle and a 4th of July exhibit; it flamed, sparkled and played Happy Birthday. Weird, but cool.
We ate dinner there at midnight and then drove home. About an hour after getting into bed the power went off and it was stiffling. Kent, Tim and Victor sat oustide and gabbed until about 3, when the power came back on and we were able to get some sleep.
This morning we drove to Chitrada, a nearby village where Pastor Victor's church is and we participated in a memnorial service for a Christian gal who died a year ago at the age of 46 of a heart attack.
And I need to cut this off, it's time for lunch and then we're off to another meeting. And by the way, we got the true scoop on the number of churches in Victor Samuel's minsitry. There are 26 that El Shaddai supports, but about 150 that are a result of the pastoral training that Tim has done. I had mentioned earlier that we were tld there were 1,500 churches: I'm happy to correct that, that first number seemed a little unrealistic.
Love you all, more later. Keep checking Kent Getzin's Facebook page for extra stuff; he says he has his journal up to date.