We went to a little village none of us know the name of yesterday morning - we left at about 10:30 AM and seemed to drive in circles, getting there in about an hour. I recognized the village tho' once we arrived - it's a village where New Song church provided a well after my visit there 3 years ago. There's a communal "pond" there where the village was getting it's water and the wish for the church was that they'd have a well on the church property and today, there it was! Pretty cool. We participated in a rather long service, Tim gave a message from Luke 15 about God's joy over finding the lost, and he then cemented together 9 bricks as the cornerstone for their hopes for a new church building. We then drove to another area (I'm not sure why - possibly because the pond adjacent to the church was the village's drinking water supply) where Tim baptized 8 people. We found out later the government had to allow the water to be pumped into this area becasue they are in the middle of a pretty bad drought. Jaideep mentioned this: his mango trees aren't yielding and the water level for his irrigation well has dropped so low he needs to re-bore it and expand the casing (we're talking about $2,000). He has some fields he'd cultivate for food for his campus and for income but - not enough water. The Pithapuraum area is the same, water levels are very low. Victor Samuel has even had to remove the well at his house for the same reason - the water table has dropped considerably.
After getting back Kent and I drove into Kakinada with Victor for some errands. While waiting for Victor at one point we got a glimpse of Kakinada "night life": two apparently amourous representatives of the "sacred cow" population giving some thought to the propogation of the species. Nothing actually occurred but the mood was evidently there.
Later yesterday evening we drove to Pastor Anil's village where an outdoor meeting was in progress - they covered one of the village streets with rice (and other) bags sewn together and we met right in the street of the village. I'd guess there were 300 or so people there. There was lots of music, actually very good music (they had a professional recording couple and their band there - the electronic drummer and keyboardist were awesome!). Jordan and I gave brief introductions and Kent and Tim gave messages. About 16 people came forward at the end to indicate their being ready to commit to being baptized. It appears that due to the desire of the pastors to be sure people are ready for the consequences of their choice to become Christians they postpone baptism for a little bit after folks decide to accept Jesus (He was there too, by the way - He says hi!) to give them time to prepare for their public committment of baptism. The kids got a big kick out of throwing flower petals at us, I mean on us, and it was difficult for us to drive out to leave due to the people wanting to say good bye and shake hands, etc.
Right now it's about 8 AM our time - everyone else is sleeping as we got in after midnight. I don't know what the plan for today is but as Pratibha just got a new clothes washing machine, I hope it's laundry. I'm sure you'll appreciate my sparing you a description of the clean (or lack thereof) undergarment situation.
Love ya!!

Last night . . .

So much for my faith - let's get my numbers right. There are 150 pastors of churches whom Tim has ordained. Some of these men, so I understand, pastor more than one church. But, of the men who have attended Tim's training seminars who are pastoring churches: there are over 2,000 of them, from this area in Andra Pradesh, to south to the Chennai area. Let's hope I have it right this time!

Last night we drove about a half hour to a small village church where, as usual, the service was in progess when we arrived. The picture above gives you a feel for the size of the church and those worshipers attending. We were told that this church is primarily of Indians from the perviously higher castes and interestingly enough, the pastor is from a lower caste who felt nonetheless that God called him to this village where he is obviously doing a very impressive work. As always, we all introuduced ourselves, I spoke briefly from the Gospel of John re: Jesus' emphasizing love for each other and unity and Tim preached his message on God's provision for us to live the Christian life. At the end of the service we prayed for about 7 of those present who, we were told, responded to Victor Samuel's invitation to become Christians. We thenm prayed for those who requested prayer and Tim paryed for two woman who were HIV infected; HIV being something that we understand can be a real issue here as well as in our part of the world. We found out something interesting as we were leaving; evidently there had been a death in the village earlier that day but the Hindu folks did not ask the Christians to cancel their/our meeting as sometimes is the case. A generous gesture on their part, much appreaciated by us.

Yesterday afternoon we attended a service dedicating the start of a new chruch building where Tim laid the cornerstone. It was pretty pleasant ceremony as the temperture had dropped and there was a nice breeze. Today we have a baptismal service and an open air meeting later tonight, so more later! God bless ya big time!

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.

Sorry I have to do this . . .

This is the only decent picture of Kent in his "lungee," (or however it's spelled) that I can post. Frankly, I didn't want to post it all all as this kind of thing just encourages him. He thinks he's rather studly and no amount of logic has changed his mind. Victor Samuel actually bought Kent and Jordan Indian outfits today, as is their tradition with newcomers and maybe I'll get a picture of these to post later.
We went to Kakinada this morning: I thought we were going to the bank but Victor Samuel knew we wanted to do some shopping, so this was why we went. We've been eating a great dish called biryani and we bought some stuff to try to make it at home. We're going to the village where Pratibha is from tonight (I just can't get my brain or tongue wrapped around some of these Indian names yet) for a church service and we're all kind of resting now. Sleep was kind of tough last night due to the heat but we'll adjust pretty quick I think. Victor told me the boys (some of his orphans) were waiting to walk with me at about 6 AM this morning and were disappointed that I wasn't up earlier. Three years ago we did a lot of walking in this area, greeting folks, etc. and I'm flattered they've remembered. Tomorrow for sure. Kent said he wants to go too; as long as he's properly dressed!

Pithapurum

We are in Pithapurum, arrived about 90 minutes ago. There was a HUGE crowd waiting for us: firecrackers, flowers and different characters in costume, including Santa Claus - well, the Indian version of Santa Claus anyway. The also had our individual pictures blown up on vinyl with our names underneath, that was pretty cool. My picture even had a do-rag; I liked that a lot. A good number of folks I remembered from the last time I was here 3 years ago were on hand, including some of the boys who evidently are still living here. And I'm operating off my own computer so once I get them loaded, maybe I'll get some pictures up.
We left Rejurla this morning after going to a woman's house who Tim baptized when we first arrived. She's kind of the family matriarch and the only believer in the family. We prayed for them all and when we got back Victor, his brother Philip, Victor Babu (our translator) and Madau were waiting with a large, air conditioned van, so the trip here (about 4 hours) was pretty comfy.
We're resting tonight and tomorrow we'll go to Kakinada for a little business and I think a service after that, we'll see.
More tomorrow, love ya!

Last night

Last night we drove about 25 Kilometers (Indian kilos!) to a village that is very close to Jaideep's heart. We split into two prayer teams, Kent and I and Tim and Jordan, we went though the village praying in the Christian (and some non believing) homes. Sweating? Let's just say I showered from the inside out! This is the a village where Tim laid the cornerstone of the church some years ago, a building that is now pretty impressive and Tim also provided the pastor, Pastor Joseph with the funds needed to build a home. We're discovering some interesting bits and pieces about our Pastor's committment to this mnistry - we should be VERY proud and humbled that we have him. As Tim said, he couldn't not do something after seing the conditions in which Joseph and his family were living. We soon saw for our selves.
Some of the homes for four or more people were nothing more than small yurts; some had concrete walls, others wood or thatch but most had low, thatch roofs. Some, even the Indians couldn't stand up straight in. There were a good number of widows, happily there was also a new crop of infants and pregnancies since the last time Tim was here (there has been a common difficulty in this village for pregnancies - some women had been trying and praying for 9 years to have a child). But for the most part the homes were clean and orderly and the overwhelming issue was the lack of so many things we of course find essential. I'm not going to harp on this - we've all heard it before but we somehow have to get over this entitelment attitude we Americans have and change that into a sense of responsibillty for others, both at home and in places like this. We can't cure all the ills of the world and I don't necessarily think we need to provide these villagers with microwave ovens. But, we could easily raise $2,000 bucks so Jaideep could refurbish his well - there's a drought here, he hasn't the water to grow his mangoes and other crops which he uses to feed his family and provide necessary income. We could do something like that and not even feel it.

Enough of that - you all need to pray for Kent, he's going native. He bought this Indian loin cloth type thing called a a lingee (sp?). It;s an attractive garment on the Indians and I don't for a minute believe it's to be worn in the semi transparent manner in which Kent finds so amusing and the rest of us consider just cause for beating him senseless. Better yet, I think we're going to strangle him with it. He also tood delivery of his new, tailor made shirts and he is thinking he's some sort of sartorial example for the rest of us. It's clear he's lost it, and has forgotten who he's travelling with.
It's a little after 8 AM here and Victor Samuel is picking us up at about 10 or so, so with luck and manuvering, i"ll post from Pithapurum tonight.

Love ya big time!

Our last day in Rejurla

It is hot. Hot and humid. Whenever I'm outside I'm literally soaked with sweat. The phrase "Maddogs and Englishmen" keeps coming to mind (they're the only ones who'll venture out into the tropical noonday sun). Even the locals are commenting on how hot it is. Right now Tim, Jordan and Kent are sleeping. Later this evening we're going to split into two teams and go to homes and pray for them. Jaideep wants us in teams to be able to cover more families as I think he's let a number of folks know we were going to be here.
Last night we drove to one of the tribal areas and attended a church service. The "building" was a palapa-like structure with a thatch roof, dirt floor and a balky PA system that decided to quit halfway through my message on Micah 6.8. That wasn't a problem though, the 80 or so folks there were sitting close enough that being heard wasn't really an issue. Prior to the service and afterwards three of the women, in traditional tribal dress, did a dance for us. The difference pre and post service was that Jordan and I danced with them after the service. I'm sure Kent will have the video on his Facebook page soon, if not already. Fools for Jesus, that's us, Jordan and I anyway!
:Earlier today Jordan and I went with Jaideep to a local pastor's home and church. Pastor Job, his wife and two children live in a concrete block room attached to the church that is about 14 X 8 feet. A woman was outside doing laundry; sloshing clothing in a bucket of soapy water, beating and scrubbing it on a rock and then rinsing and hanging in the air to dry.
If we ever doubt we live in a paradise in the US, forget it - we do. I told Jaideep the other day of my conviction that we in the US are the rich man , in the parable Jesus told about the wealthy man who had the begger Lazarus at his door. Not to criticize us but to remind us of of our responsibilities to others.
Enough preaching - tomorrow Victor Samuel will come for us at about 10:00 AM and we'll make the trip to Pithapuram; I've heard it will take 4 to 8 hours depending on traffic, which believe me, in India means something totally different than what we think of.
Please pray for health - there's some gippy tummy going around and other intestinal issues I'll leave to your imagination. Yours truly, though, is somewhat of a barabarian - I feel pretty good!
Love ya!