Examples of God's Grace

I'm thankful to be able to write these blogs and encourage others in their walk with the Lord. It's nice to be able to reflect back on the week that the Lord has given and clearly see His hand at work in these children's lives and also in my life.

Each day is full of various tests to my faith and my patience. As serving the Lord is not an easy task especially when He has placed you before 70+ children, all of who have different individual needs. At times I get frustrated at the disobedience of some of them while at other times I am so happy to see the sheer enthusiasm they have for the Lord and the desire to learn from His word.

"If anyone wishes to come after Me (The Lord Jesus Christ), he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." - Luke 9:23

It's interesting to see the daily routines of the children, as from a young age they are given a lot of responsibilities such as washing clothes, various cleaning duties, helping in the kitchen, gathering grass feed for the cows, etc. But yet there never seems to be any grumbling as they always seem to be doing their jobs with joy. It's a valuable life lesson to learn. Comparing it to New Zealand where my mother would run around after me, I feel as if I've missed out on this.

The girls from Bihar

A few months ago Raju visited some believers that he knows up in the northern state of Bihar which boarders with Nepal. They then visited several families in the area who were in severe poverty, literally mud huts and only the bare essentials. The women would go out and clean the roads of dust and various bits of rubbish as their day job while searching for anything of use. Not to mention that the area of Bihar which they were in was very dangerous as there would constantly be different groups fighting.

There was certainly no hope for a reasonably good future for their children. So after some discussions it was decided that 18 children would be sent all way down to Hunsur to the children's home that Raju managers. So 14 boys and 4 girls left their mothers and fathers behind in the hopes to not only be educated, fed well, clothed properly, and be surrounded by a safer environment but to know that they will be in amongst other believers was no doubt reassuring for them.

They all arrived at the children's home two months ago. Unfortunately they only know the Hindi language and it is very different to the language spoken in Hunsur which is the state language called Kannada. So these children find it very difficult trying to learn at school or interact with anyone as they can only understand very little. However, a simile always breaks through any language barrier and these children have so much joy in their hearts that they are always smiling. The girls constantly show so much kindness towards me and love to follow me around, it seems that wherever I am I look down and there they are looking up at me with a big simile. 

Every Sunday afternoon their parents phone and talk with them and as you can imagine there are always tears flowing.

Taking the Sunday morning message

Last Sunday we had an excellent youth meeting and I went away from it really encouraged that the Lord is indeed working through me to minster to the needs of His people. Around 60 youth from the Hunsur assembly packed into a small room with a solid hour spent in God's word. We looked at 2 Peter 1:1-11 on how we are to be fruitful for the Lord then we did a short study on the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Each day in India is a blessing as I'm constantly pushed to abide continually in God's Word as to yield any fruit for Him. Two hours in the morning and then another two in the evening of study in His Word. In New Zealand it's difficult to find the time for this amount of study. But in India it feels as if time slows down, maybe it's because of the much simpler lifestyle with less distractions.