Moses, a translator

Moses and his family:

Moses has fairly recently relocated to the area where the American workers live to partner with them in sharing the gospel with Indians. Moses was the translator for my group on the first day. He was great about asking us, "Wouldn't you like to ask them (or tell them) this..." when we were uncertain what to do or say. Throughout the week, he also provided helpful insights to help us minister more effectively during our visits. Moses has also been participating in following up with the people we visited in October.

* Please pray for safety for Moses as he ministers in a country where the threat of persecution is present for believers.
* Pray for him to be nurtured and to experience growth in his faith.
* Pray for the health and safety of his family.
* Pray for local pastors to be raised up to continue ministry.

This past week, Moses helped invite and teach pastors throughout India to a Pastor's conference. They had 27 there, including wives and children...ministry is a family endeavor. It sounds like some great training took place! Here are a couple of pictures from that conference.This is Moses with the pastors.

This is Moses teaching a session.

Final Visit on First Day

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The remainder of the hike was pretty much uphill the rest of the way. We turned around after leaving the women and saw they were halfway up this steep incline where there was not even a trail...and we were the ones that were supposed to be Team Extreme!

We passed a very Cujo-type dog and were very thankful that it was on a leash! We were excited to find one more house to visit before we reached the road again. The older parents were home, as well as one of their grown children and some grandchildren. We were offered some type of a grain/rice mixture that had been fried (and was pretty OK) and some type of vegetable that looked like some type of giant orange squash, but tasted like a cucumber. The gap illustration was shared with this family as well, and they were open to us coming back and showing them the Jesus Film, which I will tell about later.

The head female of the house was experiencing pain, so we prayed over her and for the family as well. It was a great visit!

Prayer Suggestions for the Women

After I realized I had forgotten to put prayer requests with the previous entry, I was too scared to try to add them at the bottom because I kept accidently deleting photos when I did that one and it was making me crazy!

Hopefully you came up with some on your own, but if you need suggestions, here are some:

* Pray that their husbands will treat them lovingly and with respect and not as property.
* Pray that they are pondering about how Christ died for their sins.
* Pray for their safety as they work. It seemed that women do much/most of the labor in the fields and with the livestock.
* Pray that they will study and share the Christian resources given them.
* Pray that they surrender their lives to God.

A time with some ladies

As we were hiking along to our next house, we passed a couple of women on the trail. We tried to have conversation with them, but they weren't really willing to stick around. We kept on and the numbers had grown. We tried talking again, but still not much interest. We did get a picture though.

We were very surprised when we rounded and bend and found a whole group of ladies there waiting and ready to talk with us! We were able to share the gap illustration with them that discusses sin separating us from God and Christ's death on the cross bridging that gap. We also asked each other questions. They were very open and friendly. Before we left, Kasey Jo and I asked them to show us how to fix our head coverings. I think they were amused! I think ours had much more material than they were used to!
We didn't know it at the time, but the prayer team could see us from the road and knew exactly when we stopped and shared and could be praying for them and us at that exact moment! How cool is that!? Thanks to Larry's powerful telephoto lens, we have some bird's eye shots of the moment:

A visit with a family

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Heading back up from the trail from the school, we visited the family that was so curious but shy. The father was very open and talkative, but the women and the children never quite became comfortable with us. They stayed in the area where we talked, but never really interacted with us. We started on a blanket out in the yard, but were then invited in the house for chai. If you looked at the pictures, you saw that we had to climb a ladder to get to the upstairs room.

We shared the plan of salvation with the family. The father dialogued and said he believes in one God too, but that He has many names, like Shiva, Hare Krishna, etc. Please pray that he will soon understand about our one TRUE God and that he will not just add our God to his gods, but that he would surrender his life to God. Despite our differences in beliefs, he was very thankful for our visit and asked us to share more from the Bible with them, so we did. We also left Bibles and the music as well.

The man told us he was 75 and was proud that he could still farm and carry loads up and down mountain. Before we left, we prayed with the family. Kasey Jo and I had left our head coverings down on the blanket, so we asked permission to use a blanket off the bed instead and huddled together underneath it during the prayer...they probably think we are a bit strange!

Because we had spent so much time with this family and had a far way to go to reach the other homes and our ride back, we decided to move on and not visit with the other small cluster of homes nearby in hopes that those who were in the room with us would share our stories and gifts with them. Please pray that there are many conversations among these neighbors about our God and His Word.

This family, like many families, had a shrine for their family god (it's the concrete pyramid shape in the pictures). Please pray that this shrine would be torn down and that this family will worship only the one true God.

A new school

This construction site for a new school was the first visit my first team made on our first day of hiking. We were able to talk with the workers for a few minutes and got permission to visit the families nearby. Some children were watching us from their home up the hill a bit, but were very shy despite their curiosity. That family will be my next entry.

Here are some things I ask you to pray over this school and these workers:

* Pray that these workers will read and listen to the Bibles and music that were distributed in the area. One of the workers came to the home where we were visiting. Pray that God will work in their hearts and draw them to Him.

* Pray that the workers will be safe as they finish construction.

* Pray that this school will be a blessing to the families in this particular valley. Some children have to walk 2 hours both to and from school each day. Hopefully this new school will give children more time with their families.

* Pray for Christian teachers and leaders for the school.