HAPPY NEW YEAR!

On my! Its almost been twenty some day since I've posted! Well a LOT of stuff has been going on. Warning you right now though, this post is going to have a LOT of pictures!

Christmas Meetings
So between the last post and now, I've been all of the following places for Christmas meetings (see last post for the Christmas meeting at the DeAddiction Center):

Mangolpuri



Badli



Baktavurpur

[That's me preaching there!... for like two mins...]

Kamal Park
(no photos =[)

Wazirabad


Hahaha at the end a drunk guy came onto the stage and started dancing.

Rohini



Sonepat, Haryana



These are also pictures of the kids at the orphanage at our Sonepat Church.

Samalkha, Haryana
[ :( no pictures of here either! ]

All the meetings went well. I had told you in the last post that I would be speaking at the Baktavurpur Meeting. The message itself was okay, unfortunately, somehow they ran out of time and out of my allotted 30 mins, I got a total of 7 mins! So that was a little messed up, but its forgivable.

The camp at Wazirabad was really cool. It was at a CRPF camp, I don't know exactly what that stands for letter by letter, but basically its Delhi's military RAPID ACTION FORCE. So if there is a big riot and police cant handle it or some terrorist attack somewhere, these are the guys who show up first. Almost 500 people from that camp attended the meeting. The Commanding Officer of the camp was also at the meeting. He was really impressed and told my uncle he had never before heard things like what my uncle had preached. Hmm, sound like a framiliar sentiment?

Most of these meetings had cake and tea at the end. Unfortunately, there seem to be no pictures of me eating any cake!! What a bummer.


Real Challenge Youth Camp
Next up was the Real Challenge youth camp in Sonepat, Haryana.


From 29Th to 31st, we had an awesome time. And that is an understatement!

We went by car from Delhi. Its about a hour, hour and half drive from here. So had to pack ourselves into this car. There were also a bunch of people and stuff coming with us, so it was pretty jammed up in there...






In total there about 150 kids from our different churches in Delhi and Haryana and a few from some of the other churches around here.

My friend Stanley from Kentucky was the main speaker. He is doing his masters at Asbury Theological Seminary (same school that Leslie went to!!). He has a great heart for India and so he visits all different places in India and Nepal and all around the world preaching the word of God. He's a very active speaker and so he engages his audiences very well. You'll see what I'm talking about through some of the photos of him preaching that are coming up.





Haha... 25% of his message is conveyed through his actions!

My Uncle preached two of the sessions and I also took two sessions.



During one of my sessions, these birds decided to come in and interrupt me haha.


This is Muskan (Muskan is the hindi word for smile...) shes one of the kids at the orphanage.

Shes pretending to be mad that I took her photo :)

And this is Daud, the only boy at the orphanage. Hes so naughty- all 5 girls combined wouldn't match him.





Washing dishes! =]


Hey where'd the kid under my right arm go?

These were taken at night after one of the days of camp when we were just chilling and having fun.

As we were eating breakfast one day, Stanley opened his hard boiled egg to find TWO yolks! Pretty rare find:



On the 3rd day of camp Stanley and I taught the group the song Mighty to Save. It was such a hit! Stanley came up with some actions on the spot for the Chorus and even now, almost a week later, people are still walking around singing and humming the song. Rarely does an English song have such a profound impact as this song did.



As I said, in total there were about 150 kids there. In past years only up to 110 kids have shown up, so this was a record. Problem was, though, up till a few months ago, the whole church hall was available for the camp. To make room for the orphanage, they divided the hall down the middle and made the left side the orphanage and kept the right side as the church. So basically, now more kids had to sit in half the space. At night the boys slept in the meeting hall, and the girls slept in a similar sized hall on the second floor.


As you can see, they like having their pictures taken.

You've probably seen a pastor praying for a little girl, but have you ever seen a little girl seriously praying for a pastor? This is Susmita, shes one of the girls at the Orphanage praying for Stanley because he was having stomach problems the whole week:

What actually happened was that she came to Stanley and asked him to pray for her because her head was hurting. Stanley told her that his stomach was hurting and asked if she would pray for him first. She did, she put her hand on his head and prayed for him! Then Stanley prayed for her and asked her if she felt better. She considered for a moment and truthfully answered that it hadn't gone away. So he prayed for her again and told her to report back after 10 minutes whether her pain had gone or not. And that's where the above picture took place. She came back and told him that her headache was all gone and asked him how he felt. He told her his stomach still hurt and so here she's praying for him again. None of this was staged, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time when this happened.

The meetings were awesome. God really changed some lives. As the days go by, more and more testimonies are coming to light of people who God seriously just touched during those 4 days. For example, there was one boy at the camp who had grown his hair our slightly and had a nice big stud in his left ear (ear-ring?- but not a ring...) to signify that he was a rebel. I had met him before the camp a few times and he came across as a decent guy but just one of those care-free ones. Well by the last day his life was really changed, he got up and gave a testimony, all crying and everything, about how God had really just brought to his conscience what he was doing with his life and made him realize that he wasn't going in the right direction. The testimony by itself is one thing, but if there was no change to prove it, then obviously it means nothing. Yesterday, however, his Pastor told me that he had come to church as a new person. He got rid of the ear-thing and cut his hair and in general had a noticeably new attitude. Hopefully God will help him to straighten out the mishaps in his life and help him continue on his new life.




The last day was awesome. They gave Stanley and Me these mementos for having preached in the camps. It looks pretty awesome:


At the end all the kids were mobbing us for autographs and numbers! It was pretty insane:

Some of them even wanted us to sign their bibles!


It was pretty sad when we were leaving...


Those are all the orphanage kids. From left: Daud, Maloti, Joba, Anchal, Susmita (tall), and Muskan (short). Anchal and Muskan are sisters from Uttaranchal and the rest are from West Bengal. The tall one in the middle is Stanley (obviously) and the one on the far right is my buddy Dilan.


Stanley was in Delhi for a few more days after the camp. But soon, he too left...

Its okay Stanley, we'll have more camps...


Watch Night Service
The next big event was the night of the last day of camp. It actually had nothing to do with the camp, except for the fact that we had to get back from Sonepat to Delhi before the watch night service started later that night.

For those of you who don't know, the Watch Night Service is usually held from 9/10 pm 2/3am starting on 31st Dec and ending on 1st Jan. The intent is to come together as a church and share what God has done for each person or family. Then usually the church will crossover into the new year worshiping God. It's a great event to really look back and ponder how good God is in our lives.

Needless to say, it usually also involves food. =) In my church in New Jersey, each family brings one dish and at the end (at like 2 in the morning) we all have fellowship together. Here in Delhi they had food first around 10pm and then meeting after that (coffee and cake mixed in :D )

In reversal of roles, my uncle got behind the table and was serving everyone :)





Taken during worship, everyone was having a great time!


Other Stuff
Even with all the meetings and stuff going on, we've been getting plenty of opportunities for fun.

Like the other day Stanley and Pastor Scott Martin and his family came over to our place.


The game? Try to throw that thing into the next person's mouth =P


ehh... close..


This one is just funny!


That was close...



Photo time, but of course SOMEONE looks at the wrong camera...


How about we just say that all of that was just an attempt to stay warm?

Temperature wise New York may be colder than Delhi, but in reality, we suffer more here because the outside temperate and the inside temperature are pretty much the same. In NY that's not the case, so its survivable. But here, we have to go around all bundled up all the time. Deko:




All normal daily "home" clothing =)


What's Next
To tell you the truth , I really have no idea what is next. We may just be traveling around Delhi visiting people for the upcoming newspaper celebration.

At some point between now and February 10 I will be visiting Kota, Rajasthan. But the dates and times for that still need to be settled.

Around January 20th a guy from Texas will be here taking class on "Deeper Christian Living." Its a 5 day program that our church here is organizing for about 100 people in a camp like fashion. Since the guy is American and will be speaking in English, this will be a very useful seminar for me. Above and beyond the usefulness of all other meetings, I mean.

Speaking of other meetings, I'm starting to be able to understand a lot Hindi now. I'm notice that I'm not completely lost when my uncle or other people are preaching in Hindi =D




Allllrighty! That's all for now. You are probably tired of reading anyways.

Just as I ask in every post, please continue to keep me in your prayers. Especially last few days I came under the difficulties of a cold and fever and such. Its not completely gone even yet, so please keep that in your prayers.

Even though I ask every week, its not just mere formality. Each day here in India is full of surprises. You may have heard about the bomb blasts in Gauhati, Assam. Its scary to think that I had been there, IN GAUHATI, just 3 weeks ago!!

Anything can happen anywhere in India in the blink of eye. Its only God's mercy and the fruit of your prayers that nothing bad has happened to us yet.


God Bless!

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God Bless You!