2 Days and Counting

Two days and counting until we leave for Calicut, India bright and early Monday morning.

I am trying to post a blog every morning along the way to keep everyone interested and willing to pray updated as we lead up to our departure. I plan to continue updating (hopefully daily) once we arrive their late Tuesday night CST as well as follow up after we return on April 30.

I want to continue to encourage you to forward this blog to as many people as you will and ask them to do the same so that we can have as many people praying as we possibly can. We really, really need your prayers. As we go to these Mapilla people (a group of 10 million Muslims on the Southwest coast of India in the Kerala state) we desperately need you to pray that God would open their eyes to their need of His Gospel.

Over and over again, I am reading accounts of Muslim people groups have visions and dreams. These visions are very consistent. Usually they consist of a man in white, with a white beard, and white hair approaching them and informing them that a foreigner will be coming to them soon to give them His Word, the way of salvation, and or knowledge of God. If you read Revelation, Jesus is described as having a white beard and white hair. This opens the door for missionaries to show Muslims this description of Jesus (Isa) in the New Testament.

These visions and dreams seem to be getting more and more prevalent. There is a video that the International Mission Board put out recently about an unreached people group who had been told or impressed that a foreigner would be bringing them some precious news soon. Though the video does not explicitly say this information came about through a dream, it gets the point across that we desperately need the Mapilla people to be bathed in prayer now, after we arrive there, and long after we are gone. We need them to know that something precious is coming their way…the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If you are interested in watching that IMB video, you can paste the following link into your web browser and watch away.

http://www.imb.org/main/downloads/flashvideos.asp?filename=/files/67/6716/6716-37913.flv

Tomorrow is Sunday and it is hard to be focused on preaching when you know you are leaving on Monday to go into uncharted territory. Today I am trying to get some grass cut, wrap up some last minute things, and spend some time with my parents, my wife, and my three boys. Later this evening our good friends, my mentor, and missionaries to the Dominican Republic, Gene and Julie Pickern, will be coming in to spend the evening and the night with us. They are home for Easter and for some doctors appointments. They are going to spend the night with us and attend church at Cleary in the morning. It will be good to see them again.

Pray for us and keep passing the word along. We are at 2 days and counting! Until tomorrow…