Yes, we’ve come to the end of another amazing Indian adventure! Next post will be from home—I hope! Thank you for all of your prayers and gifts that made our ministry possible and changed the lives of many.
Friday, 1/15—children’s program
Our final children’s program was held at a church in Boyce Company. All of their Sunday School children were there as well as kids from several other villages nearby. When we arrived a little after 10am, there were about 30 kids there, but as the morning went on, we ended up with over a hundred! We went through the same program with them that we had done at the previous children’s program– singing, nativity skit, Simon Says, flannelboard of the nativity and nativity stickers. Since we were here in Coonoor, we had our huge parachute that we left here 3 years ago. The kids loved that! We didn’t have any balls, but there happened to be balloons hanging left over from the Christmas/New Year’s decorations, so we used those. I explained the gospel using the colors on the parachute—black is sin which keeps us from heaven (yellow), red is for Jesus’ blood and white for when we’re forgiven and washed clean, green is for growing in Christ and blue for baptism. Pastor Suresh (the pastor of this church) led the children in a prayer of salvation. We pray the seeds we’ve planted will continue to grow! Even though it was almost 2pm by then, their lunch had still not arrived. So the kids started entertaining us! Each Sunday School group did a choreographed dance to a song from a CD. They were so cute. When lunch still had not arrived, they just turned on the music and everybody danced! Rose and I had a great time, but Debbie was not into it. I think it was after 3 when lunch finally came, and we passed out Beanie Babies to all of them (thanks, Mom & Aunt Judy!).
Saturday, 1/16—Tailoring school graduation and jungle safari
Rose woke up with a throat infection and couldn’t talk at all—just whisper!
It was our great privilege to speak at the graduation and also present some of the women with sewing machines. As an example for our advice to these women, we brought two shirts that we had made—one loosely hand-stitched and falling apart and the other nicely sewn and finished. On the inside of the messy one, we had written the words: anger, hate, fear, depression and quitting. On the inside of the nice one, we had written the words: patience, love, peace, joy and faithfulness. Rose and I took turns sharing experiences in our lives when God had taught us to have patience, love, peace, joy and faithfulness instead of anger, hate, fear, depression and wanting to quit. Pastor Jamie offered them the opportunity to trade in their old “shirt” for a new one—in Christ. Several—including some Muslims—prayed to accept Christ as their Savior! It was awesome to hear their testimonies of how the Tailoring Institute had changed their lives, too!
As soon as the graduation was complete, we jumped in the car and headed down the mountain to the nature preserve. It was so busy at the place in Tamil Nadu that we continued on into another state, Karnataka, to see what kind of animals we could see. Just as we crossed the state border, a family of 4 elephants—2 babies!–came right up and crossed the road behind us. It was amazing! Also, as we were driving, we came upon peacocks, spotted deer, langu monkeys, bison, wild boar—so many wonderful animals to see right next to our car! They were all a gift from God! Then as we returned to Tamil Nadu, we saw that they were giving elephant rides. This has been a dream of mine since our very first trip to India! I was so excited! However, it turned out that you had to have special reservations to ride the elephants…how sad. By the grace of God, one of the elephant caretakers overheard Jamie asking about the rides and privately offered to get the tickets for us—amazing! This wasn’t just an elephant ride—it was an elephant safari! We were riding that elephant for a half hour through the deep jungle! It was so beautiful…what a special way to end our trip.
Sunday, 1/17 church
We went to church at Boyce Company where the children’s program was held. Pastor Suresh is awesome, and it was so nice being with his church family of about 100 (though some were missing because it was a holiday weekend for them). After the singing, Pastor Wilson spoke on Psalm 23, then we had testimonies, offering and did a baby dedication. By then, it was after 1pm (church started at 10am), and Jamie turned and asked us to speak. Rose spoke on Ephesians 4—unity in the Spirit. Because it was so late, I just said a quick word about how blessed they were to have Pastor Suresh and each other, and most of all to be chosen by God to be His children (Eph. 1:3-4). After church, several people came to me and asked why I didn’t speak longer—they were so looking forward to my message!
We spent the afternoon visiting and packing, then had our last supper together at a nice hotel here in Coonoor. We’re certainly going to miss Jamie and Wilson and their families!
Monday, 1/18 travel
Today we leave Coonoor for the 8-hour drive to Kochin where our flight leaves at 8pm.
Praise report: many children and women committed their lives to Christ; elephant safari—what a blessing!
Prayer requests: Rose will get better and be able to talk again; no one else will catch her cold; safe driving and flights home
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