Stories of my Jesus.

So I am in Siliguri India. Teaching a two week seminar on simple health care for oral learners. This is the second time that we are teaching in this particular community of madagar (spelling?!?).
We are teaching about 16 participants. Most of which have come back from the first seminar! Yah! It is amazing to see the change in some of the women here, we have men in the seminar too but some of the local women are really transforming. They are bold confident and following Jesus in a community that follows so many other gods.

We have been able to see some of the local people we met last april on this trip. one particular family that was close to our hearts, particular close to one girl on my teams heart. She prayed and fasted for this family the whole time we were here in April. Some of the participants that we teach are a mercy ministry group and they live here, so they have been frequently visiting the family, sharing about Jesus and praying for the little boy. The family consists of grandparents that are raising a little boy that is mental and physically handicap. The parents have abandoned the boy. So when we arrived this time to teach, we were all very excited to see this grandmother carry her boy over to where we teach. We talked with them again, and the mercy ministry group updated us on the boy's grandparents. How they were starting to become very curious in Jesus.

We have been here for two weeks now. The little boy's grandmother reported today that when the sun drops, the little boy becomes very restless and anxious. So she has started to pray for the little boy in the name of Jesus, and when she does he immediatly is settled and at peace. Praise the Lord. So she invited us back again today to tell her more about Jesus and is having a time tonight with the grandfather to discuss their decision on if they want to commit to only Jesus. OH and last night they threw out all their other gods!

We are all so excited and praising God for His glory and persistence with us all. He fights for us, and seeks after us, even when we aren't fully even aware of it.

So tomorrow is the last day in the community. We are all very sad that this time has gone by so quickly. Today we taught on child weighing. Powerful! Most kids that die are under the age of 5 yrs. When I say most.. I mean statistically it is around 2 million children a year. A lot of kids, dying from simple, preventable things. All that can be picked up on and treated or helped if the babies and children under 5 were weighed monthly. A healthy child gains weight, a sick child losses weights. How simple is that. So today we did just that. We went into the community and started weighing as many children and babies as we could find, and the rest of us where teaching as many mothers and fathers as we could find, the truth, the importance of such a simple task. Lots of lies are spread in this community because of false "doctors" consulting false gods. Today we spread truth. We lit up the neighborhood with the words of Jesus. Can you tell I am excited?!. Okay will report more later! Headed down to Hyderabad on Sunday for another seminar!

You are blessed to be a blessing.

India

Back in India. I can’t believe the excitement that was pouring out of me when we finally arrived in Bagdogra. This small town that has an airport, is about an hour away from Siliguri, our finally destination. The drive from the airport to Siliguri was full of familiar sights. Cows in the road, people every where doing their daily work tasks, and the smell of smog. I had forgot the excitement and energy that surrounds this country. I felt like my heart was beating to the rhythm of the streets, or it could have been the intense hindi techno music our taxi drive was playing. Either way, it fit the scene.   

Their is so much God wants to do in this country. We started teaching the day after we arrived. We are teaching the same group of people we taught in April, plus about 6 new ones. We teach simple topics in a way for oral learners to understand. Mainly because most people in the community that we are targeting are illiterate. 

I wish I could put into words the feeling of God's kingdom in this community when the participants go out into the village and teach. Everyday the participants come and we teach them a new topic and by that afternoon we are headed out in small groups and they are teaching others. We see the multiplication of the knowledge right before us. These participants take hold of this information about topics like anemia, feeding a sick child, Tuberculosis, ect and they go and immediately are excited and ready to give what they learned away to whoever we can find in the villages. 

Their is such an anointing that happens, I can't explain it and I think it is only because of the prayer put into the curriculum and the fact that everything we teach is based on the truth that God speaks about in the Bible. Keeping yourself a temple, being holy so that He can dwell in you. All the things we know about health care are started and have root in the BIble. I love it! 

We have really been able to encourage the participants of the seminar. Most of them are mission workers here in India. They live here and see the people in this community and their living conditions on a day to day basis. They fight these issues of helping these people get clean drinking water or helping them get over simple diseases so they don't die or have someone in their family die. They face this everyday. They love these people and as we have told them all this week, the information they are learning is like a key to unlock a prison. The people in this community are in a prison of no education, or false information from witch doctors or who ever. So they are bringing truth and setting these people free. Giving them opportunity to take the new information and live in a cleaner and healthier environment. 

Oh I love it! Well if you can't tell I am really excited to be back in India! More to come...

You are blessed to be a blessing

Helloo.... I have not stopped blogging!

Well transitions are coming to a close and life is becoming more normal. So I will pick back up my normal activites like blogging!

I left America and set out to Europe for a fly by trip to visit a friend that was getting married. I took the long way back to Perth, Australia. It was so much fun to visit my friends from last year. The girls I stayed with and the friend that got married were apart of my birth attendant school. I stayed in Copenhagen for 5 days, seeing and eating all that I could! Mostly chocolate.. lots of chocolate. Then I headed down to Germany where my friend was getting married. We got to spend some amazing days with the grooms parents down in black forest. It looks like you have walked onto the movie set of the sound of music. You could walk up the road and pick yourself some fresh wild black berries if you wanted, or you could go hiking in the forest, or maybe go to the near by lake and go for a little canoe with all the HUGE catfish. It was increadibly beautiful!

Speaking of beauty, my friend, corinna, looked absolutely amazing! She was married and it was such fun getting to be apart of a German wedding and join in celebrating with her and her new husband!
I left germany and was able to spend a day layover in Italy! So I treated myself to some pizza and gelato! Yummy. This trip secured my love for Europe!

The fun had to come to an end and new fun awaited. The fun of transitioning into my new life here in Perth. It is so different being back on this base as staff and not a student. The base is big and so I learned my first lesson of what I like to call getting used to the awkwardness. Once you recognize that everything in life is now awkward because you don't know what is going on, or you don't know anybody, and you don't have a clue, then you are able to move forward in every awkward situation with a strange new confindence. I have been here for three weeks now and I am some what settled but still get asked if I am a new student and what school I am doing. Bahaha..

Well three weeks in and I am already packing again. Getting ready to go back to India! I can't believe it. I added up and it seems that I will have been in India for one third of this year.  I am only going for a one month trip this time. We (my simple health care team) are teaching two different seminars. I am so excited to be going back to communities we have already been in. Seeing people and continuing to get to know people we have already been working with! Oh and to see what God has done since we were last there!

My brother is coming to Australia!!! Trevor is coming to do a discipleship training school with ywam bribane! I am so happy to have him so close! Practically the same time zone! Yah!

Well until next time,

You are blessed to be a blessing