SERVE India

Hello friends!
I am happy to say that John is home! We are keeping busy, catching up on all the details of what has been happening in our lives, what the Lord has been doing in the work in India and through the AllNations House. And, we are so thankful that we were able to spend some wonderful time with all of our sons and their families for Easter! (We have the most perfect 3 grandchildren!) Thank you for continuing to pray for our family, that the Lord would be honored by all of our lives.
The first news we want to share with you is the amazing and wonderful praise that one of the students that has been coming to the AllNations House for this past year has decided to follow the Lord! He was even able to be baptized last month and we are rejoicing!!! /Thank You, Lord!!/ We just love this student! He said that he had been earnestly ‘looking for the Truth’ the last 6 months and knows now that he has found it. Please pray for him as he continues to grow in his faith, especially in this time before he leaves campus at the end of the summer. Thank you for your continued prayer for all of the students coming and going from the ANH each week and for our Friday Night Gatherings that have averaged around 50 students each time! We continue to be amazed at our Lord’s work in hearts from all around the world! Thank you so much for your prayer!
Now, on to news from India…
One of the most important ways that we have tried to serve our Workers in India, since the beginning, has been providing valuable teaching and training for them. Most of them have not had the opportunity for any formal training so they are eager for any chance to learn more. Please pray for the Lord’s guidance as we are working on some new training opportunities for the Workers. Also, we are making plans for our Women’s Conference that we will hold next January. This will be a powerful opportunity to encourage and train women. Please pray for the Lord’s guidance as we are preparing for the Women’s Conference. We will share more about these opportunities as more of the plans are set in place, but we really need your prayer during this planning and preparation time!
Thank you so much for your prayer! We are dependent on our partnership with you and we are thankful that is how the Lord made it to work, so we can all share in the joy together. We need you and really cannot go forward or be effective without your partnership with us! We are so thankful for you!
We have a few more team members to share thoughts from our recent time in India. Please continue to pray for all of those who we were able to love and serve. Thank you!
Many blessings, Much love! The Nanda’s

Thoughts from Emily…

I was overwhelmed by hospitality and love in India when we visited different places and friends. They greet visitors and guests so well.
A time that stood out to me was when we went to a group meeting in a village and they had just found out that morning that we would be coming. They bought flower necklaces to welcome and greet us with and made us feel so much at home. Afterwards we were able to pray for and spend time with the group and it truly felt like home. They talked about us being a part of their family. The next day we were able to share a meal with the Worker and his family and experience even more of this wonderful hospitality and love. They opened up to us about their grief because of their daughter-in-law who had passed away months after childbirth. We were all able to gather together and pray for them.
God continues to open my eyes to ways I can show hospitality and love to others better. It was so powerful to have this family be vulnerable and really open up about their grief and loss and ask for prayer, and share that we were a blessing to be with them in this time of grief.
We have brothers and sisters across the world who are our family. The blood of the Lord is what brings us together and makes us family. I was so powerfully reminded of this in India.

Thoughts from Katie… (a fellow classmate & dear friend in the TESOL program at campus who joined the team for a few days to conduct research at a school we visited)

It was so sweet to connect with Terri and the team. Besides a Canadian couple I connected with my first time in India, this team was the only non-Indians I had ever encountered and I felt like it wasn’t quite real. Americans-eating American food, some processing this foreign world for the first time, all looking to God to use and grow them on this trip. It provided a very different set of lessons and experiences.
But seeing Terri and doing the research with her was truly a breath of fresh air. I could have held her tight and never let her go if God let me…especially when the team headed on their way to their next station.

Lesson: Psalm 73:25

I left the Nanda’s house processing this prayer “Lord, I praise you for the Nanda’s and their work in India. I know it brings You glory. I ask for wisdom and humility to know what kind of work, I, as a westerner, can really do in India. How do I compare to this short-term team? What is your will for my connection to India?”