E-Pray February 2018
Hello friends!
Thank you so much for all of your praying these past months! We had a very wonderful trip with our team! We returned a few weeks ago and finally have adjusted and feel a little more like ‘normal’ now!
John remained in India and will be there for probably another month or so. He is working on many different things, besides his usual visiting and meeting with the SERVE India workers. Please keep praying for John, for health, favor, and wisdom for all of his interactions. The teacher training project is still on hold for now, as long as the officer we have been dealing with is in office, or until we are led in a different direction. We know that it is not ultimately up to him and we are trusting in the Lord’s timing and best plan to accomplish His purposes.
As usual, there are tooooo many things to tell you about our trip! I will tell you about one of my highlights…
We were scheduled to take a boat to visit our friends on the island that is about an hour off the coast. We just love visiting this community! We have a good connection with them and were really looking forward to seeing them again. But, sadly, the morning we were set to go, the only boat that is allowed to bring visitors out was not working. So… change of plans… we had the day free, what were we going to do?
We have many workers in that area, so John started making some calls to see if we could visit with any of them. There was also a family in that area that John had been intending to meet but thought he would not have time until the team left. And, interestingly enough, while we were at the guesthouse earlier in the week, that we ended up staying at in the tribal area, we were able to spend some time sharing a meal with the family who was in charge of the guests and found out that they were relatives of this family that John was wanting to meet! These new friends really encouraged John to meet with the family if he could while we were in their area. John made a call to them and they invited us to come visit their family and their whole community. It worked out really well and we were able to visit some of our workers and still have time to visit this family.
We were so surprised that when we went later that day we were greeted by the family and about 60 members of their community! We had such a warm welcome and totally enjoyed our time with them. We ended up having a service, sharing music and much encouragement centered on Truth. Several of them spoke English well so it was a blessing for the team to be able to communicate with them at a deeper level. At the end of our visit they invited us to please come back the next day for lunch, so we did!
I really love that although we live completely around the world from each other we can feel so much like Family! One thing that we found out while spending this wonderful time together was that one of the sons of the family had, only 6 months ago, lost his wife due to complications from having their baby. Their little baby boy is healthy, which helps, but the grief of all of the family is still very deep. When we were getting ready to leave, the mother of the young mom who died told John, with tears in her eyes, how very grateful she was that we came, and that just to have us listen to their story and pray for them and care for them brought much needed comfort and healing to them.
Wow, thank You, Lord! We feel so grateful that we were able to be a blessing to them while they were such a blessing to us! and that all of this was His plan… little did we know! Please keep this family in prayer.
Thank you for your partnership with us in all of this!! We are so grateful for you!
Many blessings, Much love!
The Nanda’s