Jose picked us up around 9:15am or so. We went to the house first where some got to check email. Then we went to the church where there was a special meetinfg for the women in the ministry. A few were pastor’s wives, but most were part of the Sisters of Jesus ministry that does humanitarian aid and evangelistic ministry in India. They had to be involved in ministry at least two days a week to come to this meeting. These were women who, like the pastors yesterday, came from the surrounding area within a morning’s traveling distance. There were maybe 60 women there.
After Pastor Daniel introduced me, I spoke about our coming to India. Maju was my interpreter. Then I introduced the ladies on the team, and they came up and shared some things that were on their hearts that God had shared with them. It was beautiful. The ladies were really blessed by my wife, Emily, Laura, Becky and Becca T. Becca Teat shared a wonderful word about dying to old dreams and living for God alone and how sometimes in order to live for God we have to give up what we want in order to have what He wants for us. After she finished, I shared with the women the importance of fellowship and discipleship in the Body of Christ. As I closed, I made Maju say nice things about himself, and he got emotional. He was such a servant and his face radiated with the light of God. I told the sisters, through him, how he had the face of God.
Oh, and this time, I got the time right!
We had lunch again at the house and checked more email. Pastor Daniel came back and we spoke with him for a few minutes before returning to the hotel.
Micah was not feeling very well, so he and Becca stayed back at the hotel while the rest of us went down to the lobby to wait for Jose to take us to another Mercy Home. We got a call, however, from Pastor Daniel and a change of plans. Another pastor from another state, Andhra Pradesh, ahd wanted to meet with us. Pastor David was acquainted with Larry and Alice over email, mostly with Alice. Alice suggested that he come to Trichur and meet Pastor Daniel and get hooked up with him. David was supposed to come down on Monday, but he had run late and was here now.
We instead went back over to Pastor Daniel’s house and met with David, whose older brother had also come. David shared his heart about starting a Children’s Home, which he had already done. He had 21 children living in his home with him. Pastor Daniel suggested contacting an organization that might fund such a project. Praise the Lord! Within minutes a need had been met. We spent some time sharing with David, and Pastor Daniel ended up sharing his amazing testimony.
Daniel grew up very poor becaues his father was a minister of a small Pentecostal church there in Trichur. Many times they just went hungry. Daniel fainted twice in school from lack of food. He told God he would never be a minister because he saw how God’s servants were treated. Instead we wnet to college and got his masters (on a scholarship) and was about to get a job as a professor when God gave him a vision and called him to be a pastor. His father’s church became something new as Daniel took it over. He called it Voice of Gospel aand after 20-25 years, 700 churches have been planted, 4 Bible training schools are running to train pastors and missionaries to other parts of India and there are 38 Mercy Homes, not to mention the Sisters of Jesus movement and other ministries to the poor in India, all through the Voice of Gospel ministry. It was a blessing to hear his testimony.
While we were sharing, it was cool to hear singing and clapping in another part of the house.
We returned to the hotel after passing on books and CDs and money from Alice to David, even though we would probably see him the next day. We went back to my hotel room to see what Becca and Micah were up to. We ordered from room service, but after seeing there was still an issue with mosquitoes, I went down to the desk and requested a new room. After showing them the number of bites on my arm (I counted the next day … I stopped at around 50), both the door man (who looks about 14) and the manager said, “oh, my God.” After eating, we moved to a new room with the help of the team and the door man, which basically consisted of throwing most of our stuff into the Pack n’ Play and rolling it down the hall. We said good night to the others and we went to bed.