So this month (August), for our very last month of the World Race we
were settled in Ongole India. Upon
arrival we were given the opportunity to choose some different ministries that
we felt the Lord prompting us to. Some
stayed here in Ongole working at a childrens home for special needs children
and the rest of us then felt called to plant a church in a village one hours
drive from Ongole. The small little
village, we were told didn’t have any churches in the area nor where there any
Christians. Fortunately for us after a
week of being in the community we did find some Christians and spent many hours
evangelizing the rest of the community. Our goals for the month were to build a solid group of believers who
would be willing to invest into a new church starting in their village. I am not going to say that we didn’t
accomplish our goal but our vision had changed in the few weeks of being in the
village.
The way
I see this month was that we planted many seeds for the Holy Spirit to
grow. We had many conversations with
adults through door to door evangelism and playing “5 bricks”, a game similar
to cricket, with the men in the village. We also baptized 3 men in the nearby river and greatly encouraged many
of the younger teenagers to step up and be leaders in their surroundings
whether that was home or school or else where. The last Sunday we were in the village we decided to try and have a
baptism by the river for a Sunday service but no adults showed up but rather a
group of kids and teens so we felt led to change things a bit and have time to
speak directly to the kids and teens about the gospel and that they truly are
the future of that village. It truly was
a God moment for us, I saw in the future some of those younger kids, through
the seeds we planted coming to know Christ and changing their neighborhood.
We are
also in the process of building a church in that community, you see with the
caste system in place some castes won’t go to each others houses but they will
fellowship in the same church. This is
why we spent one afternoon praying over this plot of land that was donated for
the use of building a church. It was way
over grown with shrubs and thorns and trash all over the place but we are
grateful with what we are given. Then a
week a later after praying over the land, we went back to the plot of land
right before we left Monday and saw that someone had completely removed all the
shrubs and the thorns and a good majority of the trash. It was incredible to see this “new” plot of
land. I had in my mind a picture of the
church. Although there was still some
trash on the land and some thorns left, that is where God will build His
church, He doesn’t wait for it to become perfect. He uses the imperfect to show His
Perfectness!!! How glorious!!!
