The Bustle is Back

After cramming into a local train Monday, waving down some taxis, meeting a variety of people in the city of 20 million, sweating while eating some chicken masala, and visiting a Muslim district with a mosque on every block, I knew I was back in Mumbai. It is good to be back in this city and full of opportunity.

We have had a blessed week serving in a new community of Islam known as neighbors to the locals. There is a need for open doors there, and for a commitment. We have met some amazing contacts for this field if any are interested long term.

I have a video summarizing our time in Wardha, central India, but my comnputer froze and is not working. So I will try my best to find a way to get it up for everyone to see the amazing time the Lord gave us in Wardha. Bless y'all and see most in a month.

I'll be in Florida a few days before Christmas and will be visiting with as many as I can. For now, we keep our focus and continue to bring the kingdom of love.

Goodbye villages, Hello Mumbai

The time has come for our team to leave the beautiful plains in central India. Wardha, our current city, has been nothing but an orchestrated blessing from Jesus. Friendships with the workers in this ministry are certainly not temporary and I look forward to seeing freindship with this organization grow. (myself and brother Kishur, who pastors village house churches and smiles constantly, after church today)

After visiting many unreached villages, my heart leaves full of love and expectancy for the future in these lands. At the pastors conference this week, we spent 3 days in prayer and joyful worship concluded by the pastors washing each others feet. God is truly blessing them in love and unity. Brother Ashu, the director of the local Dinbandhu outreach ministry in Wardha, has been an amazing servant and I hope to see more teams come to bless this organization...maybe I will come back one day too. :)

And now we head back to the city of crazy transport and people everywhere. We hope to minister in slums through preaching, bless orphanages with available hands to work, and see God reveal Himself to workers in Bollywood. These are going to be some busy weeks in Mumbai where the lost desperately need the love of Jesus. Lord, open the doors...

Update in central india

I tried my best to do this video many times, but it turns out there are around 1.3 billion people here and not a lot of places to hide. Hope you enjoy and know that there is a more detailed update coming on Saturday! Joy!

Wardha has seen a great light

Hello from Wardha, a small city in the heart of India.

From before the beginning of this outreach, God was putting His lost children on my heart. I felt He would be leading our team to call people to His loving arms. In the past two weeks, I have been blown away by the love God has for the people of India. But before I share some stories, let me tell you about Dinbandhu ministries, the friend of the poor.

Dinbandhu was started about 15 years ago to reach the unreached villages and slums in Central India. Now having 3 training centers, I am convinced the Lord will continue to bless this ministry. A basic outline of ministry starts with building friendship with unreached villages. A team then comes in and preaches the gospel of Jesus as well as pray for the sick. With those interested, a house church is started in one night! Dinbandhu then sends their team back to each village once a week for discipleship as well as to select leaders to attend their training center for one year. These centers focus on making disciple of Jesus, but they also teach each person a trade for work when they return to their village. I have been personally blessed to see such dedicated servants serving to bring change to hearts first and communities too.

In almost every village we attend, there are some who are captured by the love of Jesus and all that He offers. For example, we visited an unreached slum tonight and saw 22 desire to follow Jesus. It makes me want to rejoice and dance every time God's grace and love brings His children home. I am trying to post a video with a short update too, but it is taking a while...

I will share more soon, but for now I must sleep.

Love you all and keep praying for open doors to share the gospel! ... God truly loves His children

The colors of India

We are now in the lands of central India. We have taken a train from the largest city in the country for 12 hours to the city of Wardha in central India. Upon arrival, my spirit was refreshed with the peace of country lands and fewer honking horns. Our expectancy of God to move powerfully in the villages grew as we met with the leader of this church-planting group, Ashu. His vision to see God's love invade the villages through mercy ministry and the gospel is inspiring. They have planted many churches and we look forward to helping a few more get started.

I shared at a house church of about 20 people last night. Already there members are traveling to other villages to start house churches to spread the gospel, and it was a true honor to share with them a word of encouragement. I felt great destiny on many in the room and was humbled to share what I felt was on God's heart for their church.

I am continually blown away at the doors God opens for our team and eagerly await the next opportunity to share His kingdom of love. How good is our God?

Until next time...

Mumbai, the city of many cities

Hello blog-following friends,

I have a quick minute here in Mumbai (site of slumdog millionaire and bollywood). Stepping out of the airport, taxis and rikshas are flying everywhere. Crossing one street seems to be an impossible task, yet as we depart for New Mumbai (our current place of stay) there is an obvious method to the chaotic traffic of this city of 20 million. In fact, to this day, I have yet to see one accident, and there are usually 6 cars lined up in 3 lanes with motorcycles in between them.

Getting settled has been smooth with the help of our amazing contact Sitaram. Please bless him with your prayers. The food is something that will probably keep me coming back to Mumbai. Chicken curry with roti any meal.

This past weekend we served a youth festival with teams from Indonesia, Korea, USA, Malaysia and Sri Lanka and saw many commit there lives to missions following the preaching of the word. We have been able to hang with and bless some folks in Bollywood and are looking forward to more open doors soon.

We are leaving for Wardha tomorrow to work with a church-planting group. Our team is very expectant and excited about the upcoming months to serve villages and share the loving gospel of Jesus.

Thats all for now, bless y'all

BIP!

Team India and some dreams

As we head to India on Friday, there is a great amount of expectation and nervous excitement. Personally, my heart is stirred and hungry to run after God with the people of Mumbai and surrounding villages. Though I expect India to bring time's of intensity, I continue to feel that our team will cling to Jesus. It may get wild, but our heart is that we keep our Lord at the center of all we do.

Please lift our team up in prayer as we seek to spread the love of God and shine in some dark places. Current prayer requests are growing together in the Presence of God as a united team, to be attentive to the Holy Spirit's leading, and for wisdom as this is my first time leading an outreach.

I love you all so much and cannot wait to share what the Lord is doing in India and how He uses our team to be a part of his plans.

"Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy." Habakkuk 3:2