SERVE India

          Hello dear e-pray friends!

You know that we are so grateful for you!

I am sorry to start out this e-pray with disappointing news; John called and said that the customs office has decided that they will not ever be releasing the shipment of food.  They said that now it has been too long, and although it has not reached its expiration date yet, it has passed the time they allow for its shelf life. 

I felt so, so sad to hear this!  My thoughts and objections were swirling, but before they spilled out, John said simply and confidently, ‘Honey, we just have to trust that this is God’s protection.’  Yes.  If we were to get the food out and feed it to those precious people and they were to get sick or even die… THAT would be horrible!  And just what the evil one would use to further slander the name of Christians and the Lord Jesus they serve.

So, dear friends, let us trust the Lord’s work, which much of it we could see in the way that John was able to talk with so many people about the Loving God we serve.  And, we did get the non-food items we sent over, which will be a blessing to many, many people, and we probably would not have sent if we weren’t sending the food.

I also want to encourage all of you who helped to pack food please do not see it as for nothing!  The Lord’s purposes for us usually have very little to do with what we see on the outside, and all to do with what He is doing on the inside…     He is pleased by our obedience more that ‘what’ we actually accomplish.  And in all the time we spent packing with you there was so much joy!  Think about the time spent together, in families and in our church family.  All of that was good!  Also, all the time spent in prayer is never wasted with the Lord!

Thank you, dear friends for walking along side of us for this whole adventure. We can now set it aside and look toward all the other adventures the Lord has coming up for us!

One of those adventures, I am so very excited about, is that I will be joining John in India for 2 weeks, leaving at the end of this month, and that our son, Josh, will be able to go with me!  We will be accompanying a small team from our church in Milwaukee.  The purpose of this trip is mainly to love, encourage, and teach our national Pastors.  Please be praying for us, Pastor Marc and his wife, Nancy, Pastor Matt, Paul, and his wife, Jolee, and our friend from Bangladesh, we will call S.  It is going to be a very packed schedule, with the potential of speaking to literally 6 – 10,000 people!  Much of this trip will be to train and inspire vision to those who already know the Lord, so they will be better equipped to love, encourage and train others.  There are always opportunities to talk with those who don’t know Jesus, everywhere we go, so please pray for our every opportunity to bring Light to their deep darkness.

Oh, we are sooooo excited!  Thank you so much for praying!

Also, please keep praying as we are continuing to prepare for our Summer Missions Team Project 2011. We are so, so amazed and thankful that our Red Rose Dinner   fundraiser went very well!  It was a lot of work, so good for our team to work together, and so much fun!  We had some great volunteers who helped us with the cooking, decorating, set-up, and emceeing, and so many generous donors and buyers for our live and silent auctions.  A very humble and grateful THANK YOU to all of you!  What a great blessing for us all!!!!!    (And we did get the funds we needed to be able to go ahead and purchase our airline tickets soon, to beat the price hike!)  We are so grateful! 

          We know that our lives are in the Lord’s hands, and we are so glad that we can live it along side of you.  Thank you, again, for your part in this with us, so we may rejoice together in all that the Lord is accomplishing through it! 

                                                                    His great joy, Love, The Nanda’s