Tuesday in Calicut, India

Well, tonight we wrapped up our "mission trip" though the mission is never over until Jesus returns.  Tomorrow morning we meet for a debriefing and then we make the long journey to Cochin to the airport where we will sit all night until about 4 a.m. when we will board our Qatar Airways Flight to Doha.  Then we will travel from Doha to JFK and from JFK to Reagan National in Washington DC where our trip was delayed, we had to buy a hotel room, and 6 new plane tickets to get to India.  Finally, we will fly into Jackson, MS at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday night.  

There were many struggles and hindrances along the way to get to India.  We left Florence, MS on Monday morning at 6:00 headed to India, and we made it to India.  We finally arrived at 4 a.m. on Thursday morning.  We have worked hard at discovering and building relationships.  We have been able to share the Gospel in depth with several Muslims.  We were able to sit down tonight with the Muslim Imam and answer his questions and misconceptions about Christianity.  We were able to present the Gospel to him from several different angles.  As we were presenting the Gospel to him, about 20 Muslim young men had us completed surrounded listening intently and very silently to every word.  They were hungry!  

After the Imam walked away from our hour long debate, we were able to give out six Bibles in Malayalam to the young men who have walked with us all week.  We gave away 2 MP3 players with the New Testament on them.  We also distributed to each one a couple of tracts written to enlighten Muslims about the Truth of Christianity.  J. Shorter and S. Roberson went to another nursing school tonight to share.  They also were able to give a lady they befriended at a local dress shop one of the MP3 players.  

The Word of God has been proclaimed.  The Word of God has been distributed.  The seeds have been planted.  Pray that God will bring someone along to water them.  Pray that the seeds will take root, sprout, and grow to bear much fruit.  We prayed that God would bring out the man of peace.  We believe that it is highly likely that the man of peace is among those guys that we spent the majority of the week with....guys that we did not know Thursday, but guys that we got to know since Thursday.  Pray that God would speak very clearly to their hearts, that they will find the truth, that they will meet Christ, and that they will be the ones who reach the Mapilla people for Christ.  

God is Sovereign.  His Word will not return void.  It has been a challenging, difficult, and sometimes uncomfortable journey, but it is our prayer that it will prove to be the beginning of a harvest among the unreached, unengaged Mapilla people of Calicut, India.  

   

To the left you see the weapons of our warfare tonight:  6 Malayalam Bibles, 2 New Testaments on MP3 players, and about 50 tracts that discuss the validity of the Gospels and the fact that the Word did become flesh and His Name was Jesus.  

To the right you see us with the Muslim Imam

we got to share with for over an hour.  Pray that God will stir in his heart a desire to know the truth about God.   

Monday in Calicut India

Well it is past midnight in Calicut, India...so I guess it is really Tuesday in Calicut, but I haven't been to bed yet so in my mind it is still Monday.

Today we went over an hour away to meet a Muslim who converted to Christianity years ago.  He has a literature distribution ministry and he gave me about 50 tracts that we could look at and hand out to Muslims in Calicut.  I really liked him.  His name was K.K.  We hope to be able to order some of his tracts and literature before returning to India.  

A camel on the Arabian Sea's Coast

This evening me, K. Vance, J. Shorter, and S. Roberson went to a nursing school where J. shared her testimony and K. spoke.  There were about 60 something girls who attended and they both did an excellent job of speaking.  

K. Wade ran into his cricket friends on the beach and, after spending the week building a friendship with them, was able to declare the Gospel to them.  He also asked them some questions about Islam which they did not have answers to.  They decided to call their Muslim Imam and ask him, but K. Wade couldn't understand his english over the phone so he said he would come to meet him on the beach tomorrow night.  I would be surprised if he showed up, but pray that if he does, God's will be done.  These guys are in the photo below so that you can put a face to them as you pray.

Tomorrow morning we are going to the market place to give away a Bible and an MP3 player New Testament to some ladies J. and S. met.  The middle of the day is up for grabs and tomorrow night is our last night out on walkway in front of the beach witnessing.  This will be the time for us to leave Bibles, tracts, and MP3 New Testaments with our new friends.  Pray that God will do a work in their lives and that they will respond rightly.  

Thank you for your prayers.  We have all remained healthy which is hard to believe when you consider what and where we have been eating.  Check out this fish.  

Yes...that is the whole thing.  We didn't eat him.  Our Indian brothers did though.  Tasty huh.  Anyway, we have remained healthy and we have planted many seeds.  Pray that they will take root, grow, and bring forth great fruit in the months and years to come.  

Sunday in Calicut

It is Sunday at 2:15 p.m. in Calicut, India.  I just returned from a church service at a local church. 

In a couple of hours we will be hitting the streets again in Calicut to share the Gospel with more of the Mapilla people.  Things have really picked up overall.  This morning K. Vance and K. Wade went and played cricket with some Muslim guys that we met last night.  They said that they had a really great time.  

This picture is of Fahat.  He seemed to really connect with us and I think things got even better after he spent the morning with K. Wade and K. Vance.  These guys actually said, after the cricket game, "you are the nice people."  He got my email address last night and I am sure he got contact information for the other guys as well.  Pray that God would begin to speak very clearly to Fahat and the other Muslim men we are meeting.

  

We also were blessed to be able to share the Gospel from 3 or 4 different angles with some middle aged Muslims last night.  We knew they believed in creation and the fall of Adam, so we talked about the blood that was shed in the garden in order to provide a covering for the nakedness of Adam and Eve and tied that into how he shed his blood to provide a sin covering for us. We also talked about how God provided a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice in place of Isaac and tied that into how our sin causes us to be under the knife like Isaac, but God provided a lamb...Jesus Christ.  We were able to share with them the Gospel and that is what we were called here to do.  God will use the Gospel to do what He wants to do.

    

Muslims do not generally convert to Christ on the spot.  They have to hear, consider, think and then hear some more.  Usually it takes more than 6 months.  Pray that God would work in the lives of these people and that they would be impacted by the power of Christ.  Pray that they would continue to correspond and ask questions over the next months.  Pray that God would call more individuals from our church and from other churches to come into this city to share the Word of God with the Mapilla people of Calicut.  

Thank everyone for their prayers.  They are really being felt by us.  Pray that they will be felt by the Muslims here.