Meet Me Halfway Across The Sky

I hope you now have this blog title’s tune stuck in your head for a good few hours. This song has been stuck in ours for DAYS thanks to Justin Hanneken’s over-the-top love for the movie, “Over The Top”. But it’s also appropriate because this blog wraps up our halfway point. Five days of VBS last week - five days of VBS this week. We kicked off our VBS at 9 a.m. because it’s scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and nothing happens according to schedule in India. Nothing. Not ever. Therefore, if you ever want to go to India, you will have to omit the phrase, “What time…(fill in the blank)” from your vocabulary. For Americans this can be really difficult to deal with. We are so accustomed to everything starting and stopping exactly on schedule and when it doesn’t, we feel a loss of control. But turns out, the Indian people have it right. There is a real sense of freedom and fellowship when you’re not watching the clock. But I digress.

So we start up and are waiting our turn. The working assumption was that it would follow the same structure as the Poonthanthalam Mission Center: 1 hour of program in the a.m., hanging with the kids in classes and then leading some active Grain Game things in the p.m. We was WRONGO. That WILL be the schedule (we have been told, but it’s India and it’s totally up for changing), but today we had to lead pretty much all of the VBS - and your India 2012 Team knocked it out of the park. The team hung together, filled in for each other when one was down, took care of each other and served so well today. What potentially could have been a train wreck, the Team had no trouble - and we give every bit of credit to Jesus for His faithfulness to us and His answering the prayers that we actively feel throughout the day. Please don’t let up. There’s still so much work to do.

So, update from yesterday. I’m glad to report that Betty Jo is feeling much better this evening. However, this morning she was still not feeling 100%, so we felt getting into the Medical Clinic for an evaluation and some fluids would help her out. We’re pretty sure it’s heat related vs. food related, so she’s spending the evening in David’s condo to get some relief. Also, Leon was sent to the Medical Clinic as well. As we were in our morning devos (that’s hipster talk for “devotions”), he ended up getting really sick. He’s currently on about 6 different meds to help him out and it seems like he’s doing much better…but he’ll also be having a night of cool rest in David’s condo. We can’t wait to have them back at full strength.

Like I said, today went really smoothly for how chaotic it was. Here’s something that you’ll find interesting (I hope): at the end of the day today I was going over my notes and I found the daily breakdown of last week’s mission experience…and, no lie at all, last Monday’s line-up was EXACTLY identical to what the Lord let us to do today. We see God at work in so many places. Tonight I was Skyping with my lovely wife when I was called down to what I THOUGHT was dinner. Instead, Pastor Nandekumar and some of the village ladies wanted our team to pray with a woman who, as best we understand, has either been delivered of an evil spirit or it will be done on Sunday. I love India. One minute you’re video chatting with a loved one, next you’re casting out demons. There is absolutely nothing like it. As far as our program went today, we went with some old faithfuls (like I said, go read last Monday’s and you’ll have it all laid out for you): Pillow fights, One (Hula Hoops), Bubbles and the Cup demonstration we did in church yesterday. But the greatest joy we’re having is getting to share and love on these kids - they are filled with so much joy and love and it’s amazing. We can’t wait to hit it tomorrow.

After VBS, the remaining five team members took some time to rest. Then, Justin Hanneken had the worst idea of all time: “Let’s take a walk”. I had the worst response of all time: “Ok”. It actually wasn’t bad at all - great weather, great breeze and Vella, a young 15 year old Christian who has been helping out at VBS, took the walk with us. On our walk, we walked past some Hindu shrines/temples and the stuff on it and around it was so eerie. We certainly need your prayers, but if we could ask you to lift up the children in the village who are following Christ, that would be super awesome. These young Christians are persecuted in their village, yet they walk around professing Christ and wearing huge crosses and things to identify themselves as followers of Jesus. We can’t share Christ with a co-worker, family or friend that we’re close to. If these kids do, they could be homeless and kicked out of their family. Pray for these children. Pray that the Light of Christ will break through the darkness and there would be a receptivity to the message of Jesus. Jesus is the only One who can fix these issues. I forgot to mention this yesterday, but Pastor Nandekumar led a beautiful time of testifying to the provision and goodness of God. So many came forward to share the miracles that Christ had done in their lives: cancers/tumors removed, restored relationships, job success and lost children being found. We can’t share every single story, but there is such an intense awareness in these people that God is in their midst and hard at work.

I’m going to keep this thing mildly short tonight - I can barely see straight, half of these lines I don’t remember composing and I know there’s gotta be a grammatical error in here (I blame the computer). So exhausted. But we want you to know how faithful God has been to us and to share our sincere love and appreciation for your faithful and continual prayers. You are all the best.

For tonight, we ask you to join us in prayer for these things:
1) Continued healing for Betty Jo and Leon
2) Rest and renewed strength for the whole Team
3) Jesus to have victory in this village
4) Continued boldness to proclaim the Name of Jesus in the enemy's territory

We love you guys so much. We can’t wait to see you, but we also can’t wait for you to come join the Mission God has given to us.