Note:  I’m actually writing this from the comforts of home.  Most of the team arrived home safely on Sunday the 12^th.  Tom stayed behind for a few more days to finish up work on this mission and to do some detail work for his next trip.  Tara stayed behind and here future travels this spring and summer includes another mission in India, some time in Nepal, and a trip to Africa.  Joel and George stayed behind for a trip to Calcutta where Joel will visit the orphanage he was adopted from when he was just six month old.

Following are some various “God Sightings” from the mission trip.  They aren’t necessarily in any given order and there are many more than I can chronicle here.



Matt leads the children in a prayer of salvation.



One morning we arrived at the school we were to set up our clinic in only to find the classrooms locked up.  There were school children hanging around.  Technically, they had the day off from school, but they came to see what was going on.  Matt saw the kids, about 40 of them ranging in age from around five to ten years old, grabbed Hemanta and said, “Let’s get warmed up on these kids!”  Matt then proceeded to share the gospel with the kids, using a giant Evangecube.  He led them all in prayer when he was done and they all prayed to receive Jesus Christ.  Matt and the kids then proceeded to play Simon Say’s and In-Out.  To watch Matt with the kids of India is a truly beautiful thing.

Matt continued to interact with the kids, playing In-Out with them. 
Matt was a kid magnet no matter where we went.

On the second day I had a man of about 50 accept Christ.  I think he was about 50 but it’s hard to tell age here.  Life is so difficult and back breaking for them that there are many times that you think you are talking to someone in their 60’s and later you find out that they are only 40.  It’s the miles, not the years.  Anyway, we finished prayer and as we shook hands and parted ways he kept repeating, over and over in broken English, “I am filled with joy, I am filled with joy.”  I can hear his voice as clearly now as I did that day.

George sharing the gospel in the home
of our bus driver's extended family.

On our last day in the field we were invited to our bus driver’s family home for tea.  This is a great honor and they were incredibly hospitable, something we Americans can learn from.  God put us in the home of these Hindu’s, and George shared the Gospel with them using the giant Evangecube.  George was able to do it in such a way that it was non-offensive to our hosts.  We may never know how many of the extended family actually accepted Christ, but they all prayed as George led the Sinner’s prayer.  The opportunity to plant seeds in this way is the whole reason to come to India.



People registering for the clinic at
our final site for this trip.

We worked with a large number of translators during our four days in the field.  Sometimes you might have the same translator all day, but usually you would work with three or four different translators.  On our final day I worked with four different translators, including a young man of about 20 years old.  He is a nurse at the Baptist hospital in Tezpur.  We were sharing the gospel with another young man of about the same age and at the end of the presentation the young man spoke to my translator for several minutes.  My translator relayed to me, “He knows about Jesus and would like to follow him, but he is afraid of his family.”  The two young men talked for a few more minutes.  They then both got out their cel. phones and traded information and my translator said “I will help him.  If his family kicks him out, he will live with me.  He wants to pray now to receive Jesus.”  We prayed together and then my translator and the new believer went off and visited privately for about 20 minutes.  That I happened to have a translator willing to open his home to a complete stranger and that, as it turned out, these two would live and work in areas where this would be geographically feasible, was definitely a God thing and touched me very deeply.