>> Good morning from Manipur, India! Chabi is Hmar for good morning 🙂 The Lord is good, and greatly to be praised!
>> The Atlanta airport was greeted by Q squad around 8am on January 10th, 4 flights, 2 days, 3 times checking in our baggage, and about 60-some hours later we arrived in India on Monday, January 12th!
>> We were welcomed to the airport by our contact, and a host of Indian officials checking our passports. After a few hours we were ushered outside where two buses awaited us. We threw our backpacks on top and climbed inside for the 1&1/2 hour ride to where we were staying.
>> The ministry we are working with here is amazing and we are so lucky to be a part of it! To be able to start the World Race in a evangelized community is encouraging. Most of the locals can speak a little english, and many are Christians. We are partnering alongside and supporting the ministries our contact already has going here. They are so welcoming and hospitable! They have a giant tent set up for our common area, to hang out and eat all our meals in. We take turns on kitchen duty and help the locals by chopping vegetables and washing dishes. Our squad is in one location together this month, and we go to different ministry opportunities each day with our team. The ministry we are partnered with is the Partnership Mission Society. They have a seminary, a hospital, and a grade school in the village here. We have helped with ministries in all of those places and are staying in the guest rooms in the seminary as well as bamboo huts the locals built for us (they’re super awesome!) It is so evident that the Lord is at work in this part of India, but also so clear that there is still a need for Christ.
>> The seminary students, and some of the seminary teachers are our liaisons. Leonard is ours, he teaches science at the grade school, plays guitar, sings, and goes to the local church in Sielmat. During our day helping in the kitchen we got to spend some time with the wife of our contact and she gave us Hmar names. Wayne’s is Hmanga which means weapon of God and Codie’s is Chullo which means always blooming, never withers. It is a blessing to have life spoken into us and see how they see the Lord in us.
>> For our ministries so far we have helped with a children’s retreat, Kyle has taught at the seminary, we have led VBS for the local village kids, poured concrete at the construction of the local hospital addition, and packed blankets into giant burlap sacks which were taken into the mountain villages for the kids Christmas presents!
>> Coming on the World Race, we left lots of comforts behind, but since we have been gone the Lord has been showing us repetitively that we don’t need to seek comfort here, but that He is our only & constant comfort. After we got here we were given a room in the seminary, we got “comfortable” and the next day our team was moved to the huts! Excited to stay in the huts, that was no big deal. Then, after our first night in the huts we were starting to feel “comfortable” again, and lo and behold it started to rain! Rain is so unlikely during this time of the year in India, but we packed up everything, assembled our tent, and waterproofed ourselves! It is humorous to look back on and see how the Lord caught us each time before we got too comfortable. Just realizing that we haven’t spent the night in the same consecutive place for more than 2-3 nights since this year started makes us realize what this year is going to hold.
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>> We covet your prayers as we learn to adjust to what life looks like on the World Race. Prayers that we will be open and willing for whatever ministry opportunities we are given, and to continuously be aware of what the Lord is teaching us, as well as prompting us to share with others. Also, so you can see some of the faces we have been laughing with and doing life with, here are some pictures!
