My Worship Revolution

That’s right, tonight is the final of our 5 crusades in and around the Repalle area. Tonight I will be giving the message and Dave will call people to respond to Christ. Of course, by the time many of you read this in the morning we will be done with our last crusade and on our way back to Tenalli for more ministry there.

It’s been a rough couple days with lots of people feeling sick. I was happy to have made it through relatively unscathed…until today. Nothing to sever, but let’s just say the grape juice we had this morning didn’t stay down very long. The team went to another wedding this morning and I hung back with a few people to get some rest. I feel much better at this point.

This has definitely been significantly different from anything I have ever experienced, but I have been loving it so much. It has stretched me and I have seen Gd work in such amazing ways through myself and others on the team. On Sunday morning I helped lead half the team as we visited a church in the area. Wow, is there a big difference between the way they do church and we do church. We got there and the church was empty. After about 15 minutes, the pastor got on a mike that could be heard by the whol village and let them know church was starting. We got to meet Suresh’s brother, Sudheer, who translated for us and did some preaching. They really know how to celebrate in their worship here. After Sudheer preached for a while, Chris Hoff and Jessica Mcgrath did awesome jobs giving their testimonies. Paulaa then did an amazing job preching the word of God.

While she was preaching I went to ask one of the translators who was sitting by the pastor if we could invite people forward and pray for healing. He told me that would be fine, an oh yeah, you still have another hor you can fill. So he told me to preach and then invite people forward. That wan’t in the plan! So after Paula we sang another song for them, than I refered back to Psalm 61 which Sudheer had talked about earlier. I talked about Jesus and his healing of the paralytic, and then had a call to pray. Many came forward and our team got to work. It was an awesome morning. The morning was capped off after church when we gather to pray for a man lying on the ground. Our team stepped up to pray and we experienced a radical deliverance for this man. He was set free right in front of our eyes from demonic strongholds and it truly was a life changing experience I believe for several there who had never experienced such a thing. Spiritual warfare is a very real thing and is much more prevalent here than in our American culture.

Much of our team is beginning to feel much better. Please pray for the strengh to finish strong. As I said, it has been an awesome trip for myself, but I do miss home quite a bit. I’ve had the chance to talk with a couple guys on the trip and we shared the same difficulties in missing our loved ones back home. I look forward to seeing family and friends when I return. One thing I have learned is how much harder it is to be away now that I’m married. This is the first time doing something like this since getting married a year and a half ago, and I look forward to spending time with Rachel when I get home. I was actually surprised to hear that many of the guys on the trip who have been married much longer than me on this trip have not been away from their wives for this long either. Just know that if you are reading this and you have a loved one here, you have definitely been on their minds and you are missed.

So here we go.  Tonight we head out to save some more souls, then on to the pastors conference among other things in Tenali.  I’ll try to keep you posted!