SERVE India

Dear e-pray friends,
Thank you, thank you! for your prayer for our trip, we are so grateful that it went great and was full of blessings. The team was wonderful, we all stayed healthy and safe, which we never take for granted, and we were able to do just about everything we had planned, which was a lot to fit into 2 weeks!
We were especially thankful that we were able to visit and encourage many communities that were affected by the cyclone. While we were there we were able to give away literally 4 tons of rice! and many blankets and clothes. Thanks, again, to all of you who gave so generously! John will continue to work on some of the other opportunities that we hope to help with… We will let you know as those get worked out.
It is always difficult to even begin to tell you about all of what we experienced on the trip, each day full of different joys and challenges… One of my highlights this trip was definitely our journey up into the mountain village where one of our Pastors has been working for a few years… what a privilege to see these dear tribal people, many of whom have embraced the Lord, as He has embraced them! Please praise the Lord with us for His mighty work in their village and for their faith to be a beautiful witness to the small tribal villages nearby.
We always love to share our team members’ thoughts each trip so you can hear from their perspective, too! We will share from several of them over the next few months.
Thank you, again, for your prayer for us, we are so grateful for you!

His JOY, Much love,
The Nanda’s

(Oh, yes! & one very exciting bit of news! … our 2nd son, David, got engaged to be married this summer!!! We are so happy to be welcoming Jamie to our family!!)

Thoughts from Rick…
One day back from another 2 week trip in India. Tired and relieved to be off the plane and back home. Seems like a blur thinking back to the beginning of the trip. Where did the time go? So many things stand out for me on the trip, but here is just one…
The Coconut Village, hurricane ravaged, trees toppled, brick walls taken down, homes destroyed, livelihoods taken away. We were there to hand out rice, blankets, and sari’s and to show the love of the Lord to this almost totally unbelieving village.
What stood out to me was the line, or should I say lack of a line, of people crowding, pushing, and yelling, wanting to be at the front… and all just for a 10# bag of rice and a blanket. But that bag of rice will help to feed a family for about a month! It’s so hard for me to comprehend not knowing what or when your next meal will be.
As I handed the bags of rice to each one who came up, it struck me as odd that no one would even look at me, and that there were no smiles. It’s like they just wanted that precious food and then get out of there. Talking to John later about it, he said that they never get anything like this, it’s all new to them, and that they are probably embarrassed, and really don’t know what to think of it all.
There also was a Government official on hand who John said wanted to be there for a “few” minutes to observe what we were doing. He ended up staying close to an hour! He said, ‘No one ever does anything like this for our people. You spent all that money and time, to come to India, all the way from America to do this!’ He was touched at this show of love and compassion for their people. He also noticed and commented (which I did not know at the time), that the rice we gave was a superior quality rice. Usually what they get is the ‘bits and pieces’, which is a lot less quality of rice.
We also had an opportunity to tell them about the Lord’s love and sacrifice for us, and because of that love we were able to come to India to show them that love for them. Just pray that each seed of rice that they received in love, that as they eat it, that they will think about the Lord we talked about, and that the Holy Spirit will somehow use it to bring a lot of those people to Himself.
Personally, I want to thank all of you who support the Nanda’s and SERVE India. Because of your support and prayers, lives are being changed over there.