Hello JULY!

Hello July!

July has been a great month! There has been a lot of great work going on here but also a break at time too! It's been really nice!

So I will attach the Pr@yer update so those of you who might not get it can see and if you already have seen it can continue to kneel :)

but before I do that......

keeping in the blog fashion i guess i should give a quick update that doesnt make it into my e-mails. Things here are great! Today I had a really good language lesson with my helper and look forward to going to teach ESL tonight in a slum neighborhood my teammate and I have started working in. Oh and a prasie! I was going to have a boss change take place but the Lord has been really cool and the higher ups have allowed the boss of my team to stay the same :)

Hello!

So these last few months have been very busy! I know it has been a while since I last wrote. There has been some amazing stuff taking place here so here is few things that the Lord has been doing here J


1. A team of four amazing godly women from Liberty University came to work with my team on our “Teach to Reach Team”. Teaching to reach is teaching ESL and bible stories along with ESL. The girls were here for two weeks. Two of the girls stayed at my roommate and I’s flat and the other two at our teammate’s flat. In the morning they taught Vacation Bible School to immigrant children from Nepal in a low income neighbor hood. The girls were amazing! The place where the VBS was held was at a new planted fellowship that meets in a basement. The first day we arrived there were power cuts so we taught the VBS in the dark and by candle light. The girls were great and even with the CRAZY heat in the basement, no lights and no fans it went amazing. The week of VBS was really fruitful and helped to get the fellowship known in the neighborhood. In the evenings the girls taught ESL, ESL was great we had a few parents of the children come and a lot of young adults.
One amazing story from that week is about a young woman. She is from the highest caste here, and is Hindu yet she just felt drawn to the fellowship and to come hang out and learn more about who Christ is. She has faced opposition in her family because her father is a religious leader of some sort in their area and her hanging around believers brings disgrace to her family. Even through the opposition she still came and even helped to serve food at meal time (since she is from the Brahman caste we were told that serving food to us she was defiling herself). This young woman needs a lot of prayers! Please pray for her to learn more as she reads the bible and learns about the person of Christ. It seems that sometimes it is easy for a Hindu to just add Jesus to the many gods they already worship. Please pray for the Lord to show himself greatly to this young woman.
Please be praying for the new fellowship that’s just been started, pray for it’s leadership and the members. Please also pray for the children and the young adults in the neighborhood that came to VBS and ESL that the truths they learned would be upon their hearts and would tug at them.

2. A new neighborhood! My roommate and I have been working together in a neighborhood for a month or two now. There has been mixed responses, some people have been coming out of the wood works in some areas to come a learn while another part it was not well received. Both of these responses is all a part of the work here but with the type of work I am doing there is a fair amount of integrity involved in teaching ESL through stories. We want people to know we are teaching practical English but bible stories too, we don’t want to hide the fact that we are using stories to help teach. Please be praying for our national partner in that neighborhood. He is a great man of the Lord, please pray for our work with him to continue to be fruitful and glorify the Lord. However sometimes it seems like he is mainly wanting people to come to his church and that is his main goal…..so it’s almost like my team and the pastor are working towards different goals. Our goal is to get into the neighborhood form relationships teach the word of God, and go from there….we are not concerned about talking about churches from the get-go. Last week our national partner wasn’t able to meet up with us when we went in, but through it just being two young Americans we were able to spend more time forming relationships with the people we teach. There is a family in that neighborhood that has adopted my teammate and I as their two daughters. We spent a great amount of time cooking together and hanging out. Please pray for that relationship and for opportunities to continue to share the Lord with them.

3. My little sister from the village was able to come and stay the night with my teammate and I. WE HAD A BLAST! We played field hockey in the hallway, watched Hindi cartoons about The Jungle Book, ate some really good food and a great time with the Lord. She is six and is on fire for anything about the Lord. When my teammates teach bible stories to the women from the church in the village she learns them too. A few funny events about her staying here: she was introduced to Jelly Belly Beans! She loved them, I look them out as a treat after we ate. She was amazed that each had a different flavor and loved all the flavors she had. Watching her face at each new one she tried was hilarious. Before we ate anything thing, a snack, supper, or breakfast we had a wonderful prayer time. When it came time to go to bed we prayed and the girl was so funny…..she thanked God for every major appliance in the house (the fridge, the microwave, the oven, the stove that we made tea on, the AC, the fans, my laptop that we watched the show on and the water pump). Along with her prayer of thanksgiving for the material possessions the flat has she prayed very specifically for each of her family members and for her aunt Sarah and aunt Stacey (my teammate that lives in our flat too). In the morning I made us some pancakes, the kid loved them! She commented that they were very sweet and that she really likes American food.
4. The team!
There were going to be some changes made to our team because of the Company Reorganization that takes full effect in a few weeks. I had some thoughts on the changes that might take place with the changing of supervisors. There have been a few meetings about what the Teach to Reach team would look like under different supervision and through a lot of prayer and petitioning the supervisor change will not take place and the team will continue the work it has been doing.

5. Kristin, my amazing teammate and the goal of Teach to Reach!
Kristin has a house-helper that is from a M neighborhood and through that relationship Kristin has been teaching ESL through stories like crazy in that neighborhood! Since the team is based out of a Urban mega city there are many different people groups around us, with so many people groups it is really helping us to gain ideas on how to format our curriculum when we do publish it. The goal of the team is to write a ESL curriculum that other workers on the field can use with volunteer teams when they come out. Since there are many M’s working with many different people groups us being able to give notes or make story/ESL sets for certain people groups really helps more people out! Through volunteer teams connecting with more national people over here there are more opportunities to share the Truth.

6. A BOX! So the other day I received a very large and magnificent box from NDBC in Dunedin, Florida! They sent many amazing things that I love miss, and help make things here even more enjoyable. The two things I have most enjoyed as the bible study they sent and the picture book of bible stories to help in the ministry here. Other amazing things found in the magic box were sweet and sour worms J beef jerky, nerds, crystal light, oatmeal and a few crazy items from the Moon Pie company along with my favorite……CARDS from the fellowship members and a picture! I really loved working there leading up to my departure from the states and am overwhelmed by their gifts of love!

Prayer request!

1. For my relationships with national friends. Please be praying for continued boldness but for sharing that is lead by the Lord and is intentional. Lately there has been some really great conversations with my friend B from the village but please continue to pray for her and as Truth is revealed. When I think of my chats with me I am reminded of the parable of the Sower. I pray that she would be the sees the grew in the rich soil. (Matt. 13:1-23)
2. Team work!
Please pray for our relationships as we work together that my two teammates and I would have mercy, grace and love towards one another.
3.
Travel Mercies- I fly to Thailand for two weeks for meetings about the reorganization and some fellowship planting training. Please ask the Lord for an amazing time of fellowship with fellow workers and that I would learn as much as possible while I am at meetings. After the meetings and training finishes I am flying to Australia to see some friends for a vacation. Please pray for safety as I travel and for a great time. I will have a 15 hour layover in Malaysia I cant wait to explore but would ask fro prayers as I explore the new country alone.

4. Please continue to pray for my family in the loss of my grandmother. Also please pray for my dear friends/ adopted family in Florida as Jen goes through chemo.

5. My best ol’ pal Heather is moving back to America in a few days. Please be praying for her as she says goodbye to this country she loves and prepares for life back in America. There are a lot of exciting things happening when she moves back like her wedding in October and family get-togethers. I am going to miss her like crazy too, some days she’s the one besides the Lord that really gets stuff that’s going on here and can offer some practical advise......godly advise. We were best friends in college and I was shocked when the Lord sent me to this part of the world but happy to know she would be a few hours away. Please pray for the ministry she will be able to do back in the US, please pray a prayer of preparation for the work.


Alright so this was a longer e-mail than usually! I hope you all got through it….if not thanks for trying to

I thank all of you for your prayers and your hearts that are here involved in the work. May the Lord richly bless each of you!

In the next e-mail I cant wait to tell you about an amazing servant of the Lord that is the leader of the new fellowship his story of coming to the Lord and service is amazing and inspiring.

Notes on the brain this month:
A heart song: Instead of a Show, from the Limbs and Branches album by Jon Foreman
A heart verse: Acts 28:1-10 It’s one of my favorite stories in the bible and shows the amazing healing power of the Lord