India 2013 Rajahmundry

We had to get to the airport in Chennai by 7:00 am on Tuesday. We woke early in the morning, loaded our bags, said our goodbyes and headed to the airport. We had a one hour flight to Hyderabad, and couple hour layover, and another one hour flight to Rajahmundry.

It’s much hotter in Rajahmundry, like a straight up furnace. To make things even better, the government of India rations the electricity. In years past, the power would get cut off for a few hours per day at random times. Now, the situation is worse, and the power is off pretty much 75% of the time. They turn it on for an hour or two, then off for several hours, then on for an hour, then off, and so on. The heat is really affecting the team.

On our first night in Rajahmundry, we held a small crusade in a remote village. There were about 150 people there. Kyle Skinner preached the gospel and the whole crowd stood to their feet at the altar call. Everyone here is so sensitive towards God, they all want to call upon the name of the Lord whenever they will get the chance.

 

On Wednesday, we had a pastor’s conference, which was set upon a hillside underneath a pavilion that is used to facilitate weddings.  There were about 75-85 pastors there. Billy and Barrett went to the conference, while the rest of the team went to one of the local villages to minister to some of the children there. They brought a bunch of candy as well as some metal plates and cups for their families. These people do not have vessels for eating their food, so it was a blessing to be able to provide them with these basic necessities.

They set the children in a row on the ground, and their parents stood at a short distance away. When the team started to give them the candy, the children began to cry. The harder they tried to be nice to them, the harder they would wail and cry aloud for their parents. Somehow, they had gotten the impression that the team had come to take them away from their families. So they were deathly afraid of everyone on the team. Eventually, they were able to go back to their families, and then they settled down and began to enjoy the candy. It was really a strange situation for the people on the team, since they had planned on staying around for awhile and playing with the children, but after what had happened, they decided to head back to the house early.

The pastors conference was over by 5:00, and we went back to the house to enjoy a little rest before our evening crusade.

Barrett was on schedule to preach tonight at the crusade, which had a great turnout. There were about 2,000 people in the crowd. After the altar call, hundreds of them called on the name of the Lord, and we praised God for them.  We did not pray for everyone tonight, because the people have to get up very early to work on harvesting in the fields tomorrow, so we had to let them go to sleep. We will offer prayers to anyone who wants to come forward tomorrow night.

Thank you brothers and sisters, for your prayers for us. We are so grateful for you.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *