My dad used to joke with me saying that I've never met a stranger. My uncle (his brother) is the same way. If you are sitting next to me on a plane, in a restaurant, or at a ball game, get ready to listen. I have, over time, developed an eye for those situations where the person isn't in the mood to chat. However, my love for sharing my life and learning about the lives of others shines forth. My friends can attest to this. I sat next to a middle aged man on the way to the Dominican Republic once. I had him in tears 15 minutes in as he was telling me about his mother who just died and how he doesn't know what he's going to do without her. We talked it out and I helped him through it. My friends, Matt and Alex laughed and thought, "Oh, of course. He's always talking to someone!"
If you cross my path, you aren't a stranger. You're a friend. You're family. This has translated well in the evangelistic setting.
If you remember the last post, you'll remember that we were scheduled for another short village trip that had no purpose. We met with our supervisor and have already got the ball rolling with changes we need to make. We also did exactly what I said we would do. My teammate and I had to make up for lost time by working twice as hard. We met about a dozen students last week and shared with all of them.
Regarding to the trip that we were supposed to take to the village, it was important that we didn't go. We had leads and contacts coming our way that were too good to pass up this weekend and we needed to be in Bangalore. The problem was we had no alibi and no place to stay for the weekend (we are not allowed to stay in the family's house alone). We prayed for something to come up and rescue us from another three day stint in the village. God provided there too. In "Blind Faith", I described a group to you that is made up of Indian evangelists. Because of our trips we have been forced to cancel days of evangelism with them. They already had a wavering trust in us to begin with. Us being unavailable for two weeks didn't help our situation. We were supposed to meet with one of their staff on Wednesday night to share on a campus with him. We were excited but nervous. Would he be angry with us? Will he show up? We prayed that God would mend our relationship with them. We had no idea how powerfully He would answer that prayer.
We were waiting on our friend at the university and shared with a guy in the meantime. Our friend showed up halfway through and smiled when he saw us working ahead of him. We finished up and shook his hand apologizing over and over again for letting him down. He forgave and was gracious to us assuring us there was no problem. He brought two guys our age who also work for their organization and we hung out for a while. They went on to tell us that there are "camps" that they do. These are what we would think of as weekend retreats that campus ministries back home would do. They do three or four a year. One of them was last weekend. The exact days we needed plans and it also includes lodging and food. We couldn't believe how perfect this was. It seemed too good to be true. It is for new believers and seekers to come and learn more about Jesus. Three days of teaching and worship with fellowship in between. They want us to come and help lead it. I could hardly sit still I was so excited. We accepted.
We went and the retreat was held at a small Bible college on the outskirts of town. About 25 students came to learn more about being disciples. We felt like this was a good opportunity to help these young believers get their feet under them as they go back out to school. Our role for the weekend was never made clear but we took the opportunity to talk to all the guys we could and offer help to them in their universities. They were all very moved over the weekend and want to live more radically for Christ. Most new Christians are very timid. They are terrified to share with their friends because it might ruin the relationship and rejection terrifies them. They come from Christian families for the most part which helps quite a bit. But they tend to stay in a very tight circle of believers that rarely grows. One of them really connected with us over in small group time and during breaks. We learned he was the reason we came that weekend as he really wanted to have us meet some of his atheist friends and talk to them. We were thrilled to help any of them out in any way we could teaching them about following Jesus and making disciples themselves! God wants us to reproduce Christ in another and they now know that your faith is not meant to be locked inside of you but to be shared with others.
We are also going to a church that meets in a coffee shop and is mostly people our age. This is beneficial because it gives us a place to direct seekers to if they want to know Christ. We are also getting filled. For the first two months, we went to church every week in a place where the message was in Tamil and we were put in another room to watch the kids as they colored. We must be fed. God was gracious for the first half of the trip by teaching us through His Word and through the Spirit alone. We actually went quite a while just learning under Him as Father and being filled daily from a having good relationship with Him. I've never had a season of life where I didn't have an older man pouring into me since I came to faith at the age of sixteen. This was new for me. God took the reigns for a time and did it Himself. The Spirit was my guide and the Father was my teacher. But it is crucial that we find another place and we have! We left the retreat Sunday morning and took the bus back to our end of town where this fellowship meets. The pastor/worship leader is incredible and really understand us. He speaks perfect English and has a fairly good American accent. The worship is modern and powerful. It reminded me a lot of home in some ways but was completely different in others. The prayer time before the sermon was very open-ended, the people were terrific, the teaching was solid, the vision matches ours, it was the most refreshing thing we've done here. People from Africa, Engalnd, India and America come to fellowship here and there are families as well as college students. It's a perfect fit. The pastor and his wife took us out to lunch afterwards and got to know us. They're great. They also have good ministry opportunities for us throughout the week as well as Bible studies. This is an answered prayer.
So things are going well. We are meeting a lot of people and a lot of good things are happening. We still need to convey the importance of this to the family. They don't really understand what is happening and we feel a tension in the house. They aren't happy. A talk is coming that none of us are looking forward to. Pray for them and for us. But also pray for the work that is happening and praise God for it! We have seen a tremendous amount of change and are doing well.
