From Birthday Parties to Late Night Worship, God Uses Them All

1 Timothy 1:12 says, "I Thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service."

This verse has been the backbone for me this last week, and what a week it was! Sunday was a more laid back day for me. I spent a lot of time in prayer, getting ready for the week ahead of me. As usual, we had our youth group at 5 pm. It was a huge blessing to see the faces of those we are pouring our lives into. There are a few youth in particular who have been coming every week, and it's amazing to see how God is working in their lives. He has been teaching them many things and revealing Himself to these youth in such amazing ways, but I have been learning almost as much as them. The biggest thing that God has shown me through these youth is pure joy. I see how joyful and thankful they are now that they have found Christ, and it's contagious! There always seems to be laughter and a reason for praising God when we are with them.

Monday was the highlight of my week by far. Monday night we had a joined birthday party for Tanya, Cayla and Alena. We were planning on playing games, having some snacks and sharing testimonies, but I felt that we should have more of a hangout night with the youth, so I mentioned it to the team, and they agreed. We had music, some snacks and refreshments, and some of the team members (specifically the birthday girls) shared their testimonies. I was on the turntables for the majority of the night, so I had the opportunity to talk to some of the youth while showing them how to use the turntables. I was talking with one boy when Gillian approached me to tell me to pray, because there were four people sharing the gospel in different parts of the apartment, all at once! When I asked who was all sharing, I was blown away. Three of the people were from team, but the fourth was a young man, whom I will call DJ, that has recently accepted Christ. He was leading one of his friends to Christ! This was by far the biggest highlight for me so far this entire time here in India.

The rest of the week was spent doing personal evangelism, and two programs. Unfortunately, I haven't been feeling very well for a few days, so I missed the programs, but I was eager to go out and disciple people, so I saved all my energy for that. Most of my time was spent with Jake discipling DJ. We have been sharing stories from the bible with him, doing small bible studies with him (which are lead by Jake, I'm mostly moral support), and just encouraging him to keep his desire to serve God.

Saturday evening was also another highlight of the week for me. A few people from team (Kimmie, Alena, Gillian, Jake and myself) have started a youth group in a friend's house nearby. We get youth from a church in the area and play games, sing songs, laugh, joke, and praise God. Then we split boys and girls, and we talk about God, what we have been learning, and what we would like God to teach us. It's a huge blessing to see all these youth serving God in the ways that they know how.

Praise Items: For DJ and how God is already using him; the youth groups that are being started; that God is using our team in amazing ways.

Prayer Requests: For health on our team. A few people are feeling a bit under the weather; for more contacts for our team; for boldness in our faith and readiness to serve our God with our lives

"..Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord."

1 Timothy 1:2

-Posted by Ryan Martin

Well another week has come and gone, and we come closer to the end.
We had quite a interesting weekend with finding out on Friday the 5th that the uncle who lives in the flat that us ladies had been living in was coming home on Tuesday. The rush was on, we needed to find the guys a place to live, pack, clean, and move in only a few short days. Well, God is so good to us. here in Mumbai it is moving time, no one wanted to rent to us for two short months and lose the security of having a year long renter. On Sunday in the morning we ladies had a fellowship time and prayed about it. Everyone was praying about it because we were running out of time. By 2pm the guys were moving into a flat a few buildings away. The land lord relented. So we continued on with moving, being finally settled on Monday the 8th.

That same day we did a character development program at a school for tenth grade students.
We had an interesting set up, instead of all their classes joining together, we had four individual classes. We were all split into different groups and went to teach the classes in small teams of four people. It went well and we were able to develop some contacts in those groups.

Some of us girls have had the opportunity to start a bible study with some girls from a local church. We had a great time on just this past Friday as we met for the first time. We thought that it was going to be a girls bible study, but were quite surprised when several guys showed up. All was well, a couple of our guys came and did it with them.

This weekend there was the Hindu festival Mahashivaralhri. Maha means great, shiva is a god of the hindus, and ralhri means night. The last one may be wrong, sorry. So there was a festival for shiva, so on Saturday a parade came through our street. We had noticed earlier in the day there was an elephant on our street, which was the first time any of us saw an elephant in our little area. It was funny to watch the parade, because unlike our parades where traffic is shut down it was still running. Rickshaws and motor bikes were trying to get on there way, but it was very slow going.

Well that is really all that I have for this week. It was a good week. So I would like to ask if you all could pray for our continued health, and for our contacts and relationships with them, we'd all be very grateful.

- Gillian