Our visit to India was an overload to the senses in so many ways. The heat, the spicy food, the colours, sights and sounds, not to mention the creepy crawlies! India is a fascinating place but not for the faint hearted.
For our two week trip, we spent the whole time with Pastor Daniel & Pastor Joyce, who hosted our last team in 2013. They live in Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu – approx. 8 hours inland from Chennai and they are an incredible couple, ministering to so many people in need including orphans, widows and lepers.
Pastor Daniel involved us in many different ministries, working us very hard! We spoke at a number of church meetings, visited a leprosy colony, opened two new churches, baptised new believers from two different churches, attended two weddings, ceremonially laid the foundation stones to two new buildings, preached at a pastor’s meeting where we commissioned three DTS students, attended many prayer meetings and prayed with countless people.
One of my most prominent memories was on our second day, when we left at 5.30am to attend a church dedication at Kangayam. After 5 hours of travelling we were welcomed from our van with a traditional Indian flute playing melodious tunes, and a path of flower petals being laid in front of our path as we walked up to the church, where we officially ‘cut the ribbon’ to open the church. Following a 3 hour service, we went to a nearby town and had the pleasure of baptising 10 new believers in the river. We also visiting a believers home & prayed for his wife who was blind & praise God she was healed! After a long trip home, we arrived back at 11.30pm! This was just one example of the long days we worked!
On another occasion, we visited the YWAM base, where they have a ministry to the widows. About 100 women were transfixed as Jenny gave her testimony of how she had been widowed 8 years previously. The spirit of God moved in a powerful way and many women broke down weeping – and most of the team too! Following this, we had the opportunity to provide each of the widows with a large bag of rice, a sari, a bible and some food to eat. And then we handed out 18 goats to a selected group of women so that they could provide an income for their family. The goats and the rice were paid for by our many supporters back home, so thank you!
It was clear that the enemy was not happy with our visit as we came under constant spiritual attacks, but the team pressed into God and found breakthrough in many different areas, including one team member being healed of an irrational fear of bugs! Praise God!
For our project we raised £2915 to provide education & rehabilitation to the broken & vulnerable. We discovered that our host had a vision to provide an educational facility for nurses to be trained in a hospital which would also benefit the local community. Many of his orphans have been training as nurses and his two children are training to be doctors which will facilitate this. So, we gave him this money as a seed for the beginning of his project.
One thing I learnt from the believers in India is their passion for God, worshipping with everything they have, and they certainly taught us a thing or two about praying unceasingly. Despite the discomfort, the heat and the many struggles we had with eating Indian food, we were truly blessed by the communities we visited and we learnt so much!
