Our last day of any ministry . . .

We left late this morning for a wedding - Pastor Paul, one of the pastors involved in Victor Samuel's El Shaddai Ministries, was getting married to a young woman named Kumari. Tim basically officiated with Pastor Victor Bapu (who wore an official looking white robe with a red stole-I told Tim he needed one like that!). The church was packed and the ceremony was fairly similar to our weddings with the main differences being the adorning of the bride's foot with a toe ring and the absence of the final, "you may now kiss the bride." In Indian culture, evidently, PDAs, public displays of affection, are verboten. Tim reminded me that some time ago Richard Gere got an Indian co-star from one of his movies in trouble by kissing her during a televised awards ceremony, something like that. After the wedding we, of course, briefly attended the reception.

We then made a shopping trip to Kakinada - actually a little more than that. Pratibha discovered our penchant for french fries so she had us stop at a little hotel "fast food" restaurant where we all had a plate of french fries and ketchup. After a little shopping, we headed home for a little rest prior to our last meeting.

When we got home we found Victor and his crew setting up a stage and a seating area across the stree from his house. Although the people started arriving early with the music and singing starting at about ab0ut 7:30 Victor didn't come and get us and start the service until about 9:30. There were over 400 people there, many from the Victor's neighborhood but others from a good distance away. Through Madou's translating I was able to finally speak directly to those who I'd been praying with during my morning walks. Tim preached but he followed Jordan who did an excellent job sharing the word. It was a great meeting, I think we each had about 8 garlands of flowers hung around our necks over the course of the evening. At the end we handed out food for everyone: biryani rice in a plastic bag. 500 of these were prepared and there were only 20 left over at the end of the meeting.

We then had dinner, shared some time with Victor and Pratibha and then went to bed at about 1:00 AM

Even getting to bed late, Kent and I got up early to take one last walk through the neighborhood. The boys thought I had left already and we went looking for them. I had wanted to cover all four streets in the 'hood during this last walk but one of the older boys came to tell us the younger guys (who had found us) needed to go to school so we missed a block or so.

Now, I've got to turn the computer over to Kent who wants to transfer some pictures and music for Victor, and I'll wrap this blog up later.

God bless ya big time!