Monday, May 17, 2010

Stotrum!

Hello again,

I forgot to say this in my last post. My favorite drink here is Maaza, which is mango juice. It's almost like a smoothie. Very thick and yummy! I drink a lot of it. :) It's a famous drink.

When Christians greet in India, they always say, 'Praise the Lord'. It's basically hello. I think it's awesome!

Last night, 5 of us went to a church service about 30 minutes away, and it was awesome! We sang "Here I am to worship" for them. Then some people shared their testimonies, and I gave a short message titled "Rest for the weary". About how Jesus is our rest and we don't have to worry. He will give us strength (Matthew 11:28-31).

Then we prayed for the people. We were able to pray for a girl who was demon possessed. We prayed for a while over her. We also want to visit her home this week, possibly Wednesday, to pray over it and to spend more time with her. Pray that God uses us and that she believes in her heart that she can be free of this dark spirit and generational curse.

Saturday night we also did a service at a youth gathering. That was really neat. We were able to share, encourage, pray for, and just hang out with people our age.

This week we will hopefully have information on the bhansala people group and find out where they live. We are eagerly waiting for the opportunity to give the mega-voices away.

Thanks for all of your continued prayers for safety and God's grace! He has protected us and has blessed the whole team in sooo many ways.

Stotrum! (praise the Lord in tamil)

Love,
Maria

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Maaza, Dosa and Jesus

Hello!

I feel terrible that I haven't been writing. But we haven't had too many chances to get on the internet here in India. I've been trying to respond to all my emails too. :) So, I'm sorry!

But I am finally writing now!

I am having an amazing time here. I LOVE India. I love the people, the food, the culture, almost everything. Well, everything but the smells. The smells of India are most of the time overwhelming, if you know what I mean. :)

From the last post, which was like 4 1/2 weeks ago, we have done a lot, as you can imagine. After a few days in Chennai, we took a long van ride to another small village in Tamil Nadu. We stayed at the home of Pastor Vedha and his family. Here we met his oldest son, Suresh, and his wife Hope (from Michigan), and Blessing. Blessing is the little girl that Suresh and Hope are going to adopt. She was the orphan that they took in. We stayed with their family for a week. The rest of their family (aunts, uncles, cousins) stayed in a hut on the roof. It was a VERY cool house. We visited a few churches, spent time with the family, did some open air ministry, and met some of their neighbors. It was an amzing time of fellowship and getting to know India and the culture and food. :) We drank LOTS of hot lemon tea (SOOOO good) and LOTS of bananas. :) which i also love. indian bananas are so yummy. much sweeter than ours. :)

from here, we took another LONG van ride to a small town called Dharmapurri, which is further south. Here we stayed at a larger house, where another YWAM team from Chennai was staying. Here, we met Pastor Daniel, who was the pastor of the local church. And he led a lot of other ministries as well, and ran an orphanage. Here, almost every night we would go out into the villages (sometimes 30-45 minutes away) and do open air ministry. Basically, we would show up at these villages, introduce ourselves, perform one of our dramas, give a few testimonies, then share the gospel and invite people to accept Christ. It was so neat meeting people at these villages. At the end we always spent time praying for the people. Most of them did not speak English, but we had some friends/pastors who translated for us. At one particular village, I met an older man. His wife, daughter and son were believers, but he was not. He had been struggling with his faith. He was Hindu. And he was also an alcoholic. I prayed that Jesus would heal him of his addiction. Afterwards, he invited us into his home and asked us to pray for him and his family, and he told us he wanted to accept Christ. Stotrum! (Praise Jesus in tamil). It was awesome.

We also spent a LOT of time with the neighbor children. We taught them games, songs, handshakes, etc. They LOVED taking photos, and would always call me down by yelling, "Aunty Maria! One photo! Please one photo!" It was so cute. I also spent some time with a Christian family, praying for and encouraging them. I also met 21 year old woman named Razeena. She is Muslim, and the SWEETEST girl ever. Almost every day she wanted me to come over. She would feed me and we would talk and talk and laugh. She was married and had one little boy. He was so adorable. Her husband was very kind as well. She also took care of her father-in-law. They had a very small house. But were so content. I was really able to develop a relationship with her. And I can't wait to continue that through email/phone if possible. I miss her!

From Dharmapurri we traveled to a town called Ooty, nicknamed "Queen of the hills". It was beautiful! And MUCH cooler than Dharmapurri. We spent a few days here, then traveled back to Chennai for a few days. We stayed in an air conditioned hotel, which was very nice. :) From Chennai we took a 22 hour bus ride to Mumbai. We have been here since Saturday, and God has done SOOO much! We will be in Mumbai for another 2 weeks, where we plan on meeting the bhansala people soon, and giving them the megavoices we have in their language. I am looking forward to it! I will hopefully write more about our experiences so far in Mumbai, soon!

I miss home a lot, but I love India. :) I miss you all! Sorry it took me so long to write. I will try and write again soon!

Love,
Maria