Back from India!
We’re back and have great testimonies to tell! Here are excerpts from emails we sent to the parents while we were there.
“The experience here is like living in a National Geographic magazine. There's no more exotic place in the world. Here are some word pictures so you can get a sense of what the kids feel: the browns of mud, rust and decrepit buildings contrast with the bright saris worn by women lined up to pump water at the village wells. Laughing children greet us, want to be picked up and carried, like to play catch and have taught our kids cricket. Some of the constantly staring young men are smiling but others give the girls the creeps and we stand in front of them. Many have never seen blonde hair or white skin before-ever. Everything we do attracts attention, so we limit their exposure in the city, going out to get cold drinks or snacks in groups of 4. We are being careful of government officials and Hindu radicals. Streets are packed with goats, holy cows with painted horns, massive black water buffalo with 3 foot horns and eerie blue eyes, bicycle and motorcycle drawn taxis, bikes and motorcycles, but few privately owned cars. Trucks and buses blast on their horns constantly as do our drivers, warning the mobs of pedestrians. Roadside stands sell produce and flowers, clothes and tools. There is no store bigger than your garage in the entire city of 140,000. Beggars, Hindu holy men, many Muslims in head to toe black gowns or small round caps on the men, Buddhist monks, demonized street people with cow dung smeared in their hair, ordinary people, kids in school uniforms- all turn to look at the foreigners as we pass in 3 SUVs. Once we're out of the city we watch the monkeys and cobras, driving through the fields of bananas, papayas and magnificent scenery. There are 1400 villages in this county alone (600,000 in all of India), and the people in every one we've passed through gawk at us as you would if aliens landed in your yard.
A Paradha village of the fortune teller caste was quite a sight- the men with flowing beards and their hair in topknots, wearing long skirts. The crowd was very large, and the first one to respond to the salvation invitation was the headman or village chief. There was a loud collective gasp from the people at his decision, and about 1/3 of the village followed him forward. Our pastor friends were very happy about this and have plans for planting a church soon. We give hundreds of Bibles each night to those who are interested. There has been a good response from the Banjara tribe too, and the Mangalroody caste- a very interesting story in a neighborhood where police refuse to come. They are criminals by profession and live in much nicer houses than the average ones here. Our friend starting working with them several years ago and now has a church there. Over 100 came together the night we visited and they were very friendly. One of their men was miraculously healed last year and now has a transformed life, which opens many doors in the community.
To give you an idea how far off the beaten path we are, in a Kolowar tribal village, people were told we were from the United States. They asked where in India the United States was located and were told it is a separate country, so they asked how many hours it takes to drive there! Going into primitive villages of stick huts is a step back in time a few thousand years, but in any village with electricity we see a satellite dish! Some have no electricity. At the end of a winding one lane road through fields plowed by ox drawn wooden plows, the people asked if we were from north India- they had no concept of light skinned foreigners, and we were the first people to bring the Gospel.
Our daily schedule was to work with the Charlie’s Lunch children’s feeding program in the morning and then minister in the evenings. When we went to villages for open air evangelistic services, driving up to 90 minutes through lush teak forests and jungles, usually the entire population of the village would come to the meeting. Our largest village crowd was over 1000 people! Some nights we split the group into two so we could go to two different house churches. The people are packed like sardines, spilling out into the yard and listening at the windows. When the crowds were too big for the house, the meetings turned into outdoor evangelistic services and many curious people would come out.”
The Lord blessed and protected us as we had a great adventure spreading the Gospel!
Greece, Cyprus and Turkey Outreach
This summer a small group of just eleven King’s Kids were blessed and challenged to journey through some of the most ancient places on earth. We prayed our way through Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey, very much aware that not only was this the land that Saint Paul and other apostles planted the first churches that are mentioned in the Bible but it is also a land full of historic division and war.
In Greece we found that Orthodoxy was the predominant religious practice but that many, even most people viewed it as a cultural expression rather than a means of worshiping Christ. “To be Greek is to be Orthodox.” Our prayers focused on an awakening of the church and for new life to be breathed into it like the dry bones mentioned in Scripture.
Cyprus is divided country, split between south and north, Greek and Turk, Orthodox and Muslim. There are strong Churches in the south with kind and generous people ministering in the name of Jesus and praying for reconciliation.
North Cyprus and Turkey were very similar in that they are very much dominated by Islam. We were able to pray for the King of Glory to come into the land where His church had once been strong, like Smyrna which is present day Ismir. Turkey is a land in transition. They are struggling to merge a culture of Islam with the economic and political benefits of Europe in a very deliberate attempt to become a part of the European Union. After all “to be Turkish is to be Muslim.” The young people are at a crossroads, between old and new, and east and west. We prayed that they would be open to the real choice they can now make as “freedom” comes to the Turks...will they choose to know Jesus.
Suspicion, division, strife, mistrust and war run like wildfire through this dry and weary land but nothing stood out more in the whole of the outreach than Christ’s love for His church and His desire for its rebirth and abundant overflowing life especially in the land where it all started.
Pray for the peace of God to come through the knowledge of His son Jesus Christ.
“The fruit of righteousness is sewn in peace by those who make peace” James 3:18
Local Teams Begin
This year’s local teams bring 28 Junior Team kids ages 9-12 and 38 Senior Team kids ages 13-18 for a full year of local and regional ministry outreaches, discipleship and training. The kids come from many churches, including Jesus Chapel West, St. Clement, Coronado Baptist, the Lord’s House of Prayer, St. Francis, 1st Baptist Horizon City, Calvary Chapel, Vista del Sol Baptist, Abundant Living Faith Center, Vista New Life, Vino Trigo y Aceite and others. We’ll start the Senior Team year with a retreat in Cloudcroft in September.
The Dunamis Discipleship Course will draw about 20 youth ages 14-20 from within King’s Kids and from various other churches for three 12 week segments of intensive Bible study throughout the school year. Please pray for God’s blessing and anointing on King’s Kids El Paso this year!
Hopi Native American Reservation Outreach
This summer King’s Kid El Paso was blessed to return to the Hopi Indian reservation for the third time. Faithful as ever, God helped us to grow in our relationship with him, with team members and those we were ministering to. The team was challenged to raise new standards in their lives by “Marking His Words to Make the Mark.” Leaders were definitely born and took the commission to go and make disciples personally. We had youth who wanted to develop a closer friendship with God leading out in prayer, in worship, and in teaching dramas and Bible lessons to the Hopi Children during VBS.
Before we left for Hopiland, we prayed and felt that we were supposed to build relationships with the kids so that it would be easier to talk to them about God. We planned to interact with them through games, dramas, teachings, art projects, prayer and sharing lunch together as well as a basketball tournament for the guys and a hair salon for the girls. With all this in mind, on the first day, only about twelve kids came to VBS. At first this was a little disappointing until we remembered what God had told us and just enjoyed the kids. The numbers did increase throughout the week, friendships were renewed and strengthened, and several came to know the Lord for the first time.
On our last day with the children, one of the ladies from the congregation came to thank us. She said that although many of the kids leave the church during their teenage years, they later will return because of the seeds that were planted in their hearts during VBS at the church. Thank you for helping us to go, plant and water. Now we pray that God would cause these seeds to grow and that the Hopi people will come as a nation to know our living God.