Mainly pictures...

Hey!

Just thought I would throw some pictures up! We are starting our second month of being in India! WOW time is flying by! I am so excited because some of our friends showed up today from Australia! We get to spend a week with them... yea becca and chris!

I hope you like all these... pic's of where I am staying... right out my front door is a huge catholic church, we eat with our hands and there are some pictures of the food. pictures of us geared up for the labor room.. pictures from off our roof top... yea I think that is it!

You are blessed to be a blessing!

Praise Report....

This week has been full of excitement and seeing Jesus guide us to watering people’s lives with His spirit. It is amazing the opportunity we have in the hospital to speak so freely about Jesus and encourage, give testimonies of His love, and comfort those in mourning.

In the hospital there are several other nursing schools. So every unit our team works in, there are about 10 - 15 indian nursing students. Wide eyed and ready to learn. Not only about skills but about these new foreigners! We have been able to not only teach these students skills, but have been able to show them compassion, comfort, and love to the women that you take care of. We are able to pray with them, and through them (they translate for us, so we can pray for the patients). Most of the nursing students are christian but most of them don’t think it possible or have never seen Jesus’ love spread through action and word in the hospital. There have been so many testimonies of students watching us and coming up afterwards saying we didn’t think we could share with others about what we believe but now that we have seen you do it, now we know that we can too!! Praise the Lord!

We had an amazing week. Three different people came to know Jesus this week! Two of the women were in the same family. One of the women from my team, Corinna, was involved in seeing this mom come to know Jesus. She said that it was such a beautiful thing to reflect on. That in that moment she was with this women when Jesus washed her clean. That there was transformation taking place in that women’s life and she got to be apart of God’s glory in that moment.

My team and I received the scripture Jeremiah 1:4-10 this week. In vs 9 it says, “Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me,

“Now I have put my words in your mouth.”

We have been anointed. The time is now to open your mouth and speak about having a new life because of Jesus. Sometimes that means opening your mouth before you know what you are even going to say, and sometimes you know exactly what to say. The thing that I am soaking up and learning is that when we died to ourselves and rose again in the forgiveness we have in Jesus. We were anointed. I was transformed and given the ability (through the Holy Spirit) to go now and use the words that God gives me. There are so many opportunities in life to leave people with little touches of Jesus.

For example, my mom has decided to start praying over her house and things she owned so that God would preserve them like He did for the Israelites in the desert. When they wondered around for forty years and didn’t need a new pair of shoes, or clothes because God kept all their stuff intact for them. Well just the other day, my mom experienced a miracle. She was rear-ended in the parking lot of her work. She told me that the guy that hit her hard. She was really worried about what the back of her car was going to look like. She got out and meet the guy at the back of her car. Nothing was wrong. They couldn’t even find a scratch. What an amazing testimony! God protects us and our stuff, and in that moment, use your words to give glory to God because it was Him who protected the car. I love this, a miracle and an opportunity to give glory to God and to give a little piece of Jesus to give someone.

Well it is getting stinking hot here. We are still taking in and learning the Indian culture. I wish I could say I am getting better at eating with my hands but I think I am getting worse. My team and I are working in the hospital here at least four times a week. There is a different group of us that rotates everyday doing what we call adventure days. It is a great time of praying, asking God what we should do for the day, and then letting Him take us on an adventure to show His love.

Last week on my adventure day we ended up in the High Court (the justice building where all the judges and lawyers work) in front of the Newly elected, it was his first day in office, Chief Judge of the whole province. It was crazy and we had such favor from God that whole day!

Matthew 10:18

“And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them ...”

You are blessed to be a blessing!

India...

What a start to an amazing culture. This place is so full of so many languages, and people. Every day has been a new day to learn how to lean into God. One of the first days that we arrived, God spoke to me through a story of Jesus (Luke 5:12-16). I realized that Jesus, needed to often withdraw away from the people and his disciples and pray. He had to lean into God and during this season I desperately need to lean into God. India is a place of many different things, including religion. There is Hindi and Islam and even some Buddhist. It is like the melting pot for religion. The atmosphere is heavy here, not just because of the overwhelming amount of exhaust but because of the overwhelming amount of spiritual strongholds.

It has been amazing to lean into God and get strategy to live in this country. My team and I have read through the entire Bible out loud around the city in the first week. Proclaiming truth is powerful. We have been able to start volunteering at the hospital in this second week. There is so much to get adjusted too but so much opportunity to love. The hospital is more advanced than what we had seen in Africa but still has a major hole that needs to be filled by Jesus.

One of the strongholds that causes strife with people here is miscommunication. People not communicating, or there being a lack of understanding on what is being communicated. This is something that God is already helping us in, and equipping us beyond what our own mouths could do.

We have already had God do miracles in getting us into the hospital. There was a miscommunication during the first week with the superintendent of the hospital and our staff. This was going to put us out of the hospital for the first month we were here and only allow us to work in the hospital for one month instead of two. God moved and during the staff praying for wisdom and favor, we were granted just that. We were told to continue working and that things would be taken care of. Praise the Lord. We have also already had favor in working with the staff (which we have heard, takes a while for them to warm up to you). The light that is within you when you have Jesus is attractive.

I am learning a lot about what it means to die to yourself. This is something that I started to learn in Africa. What did Jesus do when someone accused Him, pushed his buttons, or inconvenienced Him. He had compassion on them, He still healed them, and He defiantly still loved them. One of the girls in my room is ready this book that has inspired me. I haven’t read it yet but am going to recommend it. It is called “Love has a face” by Michele Perry. This book is about her life, Michele, an amazing women that has followed God where ever He called her.

She read me a quote out of it about dying to one’s self that I want to share.

“I began to realize that only when I live inside of Him (Jesus) can He fully live inside of me. Let’s face it. Dead people are really hard to embarrass and impossible to scare. They have to live from another realm because they no longer exist in the present one. They do not have any opinions, and they are absolutely unoffendable. They listen more than they speak. You can step on their toes and it does not bother them one bit. They see beyond the seen into the eternal unseen. And they have no concern for their reputation. Personal dignity means nothing to them.”

Even in writing this quote their are still parts of me that cringe. Am I offendable, yes. Do I want people to know who I am, and have some personal dignity, yes. Wait, but is that going to allow me to live like Jesus? Did He worry about his personal dignity when He died on the cross, allowed people to spit on Him and beat Him?

I have used this picture of a dead person a lot this week. When people try and correct me, embarrass me, or just in living life sometimes people offend me. Each time I want to reach, and each time I have thought about this picture. If I am to die to myself, to live for Christ and live as Christ would live should I react this way? I have not done a very good job this week, and have been so blessed by the grace that I receive new every morning.

It is excited for me though. To have a better understanding of this phrase we so often use, die to yourself.

I will try and post some pictures so you can see the dress here. These are from my friend corinna’s b-day last week. We went to a park, had lunch, and played cricket (for all your americans that is like baseball).

You are blessed to be a blessing.

Pics...

New beginnings.....

I have entered city life. The buildings are all two or so stores made out of concrete and painted shades of browns, and pinks, if painted at all. The street is full of business. People walking, cars, and miniature modes of transport going so quickly that you would think you could never cross to get to the other side. You will also think that when you step out into the traffic in hopes that it will stop or swerve around you so you can get to the other side! A member of my team said we are walking by faith and not by sight. Where we live, the best place to be is the roof. It is like a social life above the world. You can see so many people doing their laundry, just standing together, kids playing. The roof top is a new view of a sometimes overwhelming city.

It is a disturbing model of life when you walk down the street and see high class jewlery shop, one after the other in between clothing stores then you look to the front step and find one beggar after the other. The rich among the poor. It reminds me a lot of the parable of Lazarus the beggar, and the rich man in Luke 16. One of the many hard situations that I believe can change. I am finding joy in the small acts of kindness. I know that big action needs to be taken but I want to walk in the opposite spirit in whatever way I can. I am afraid God built my mind to see the big and I immediately think that if we aren't having world movements to see poverty put to an end then things just aren't satisfying. God is teaching me, for now it is recognizing someone's importances as a person, or buying them a banana on the side of the road.

The people are friendly, beautiful, and colorful. The clothes, accessaries, and foods keep all your senses in high gear. We have been spending our first few days getting used to all these new sights, smells, and tastes! We are waiting to get into the hospital, which always leaves time for getting out into the city! Making friends, and learning about this culture. I am so excited about our time here! This is the 5th or 6th time the BAS school has been able to come and learn in the hospital we will be working at. Hearing the stories of changes in the hospital over the years and of walls that have been broken gets me geared up and ready to go to work.

We are praying to be in the hospital next week! I will update more later! I will also try and upload some pics from my time in Perth with my mom and brother!

You are blessed to be a blessing!