This is the fourth report from India. It was filed by Ann Edenfield Sweet on March 20, 2006.

Email Message #4 – Ann – March 19 & 20, 2006

Shelly’s message was very descriptive and so well written. There were only a few more comments that I wanted to make about our visit to the rural village last night.

We visited this rural, Hindu village. Rev. Glory had very intentionally chosen this village for outreach, as the main occupation of the men is being fortune tellers/communicators with the dead. They do witchcraft and black magic and Their Hindu temple has several smaller temples inside each one, with the final temple a small, dark, space. Their God is darkness. Symbolically, this represented the ultimate challenge for us, as of course as Christians we want to bring Christ, the light of the world into this darkness.

Rev. Glory, and his “white missionary”, an albino pastor, had diplomatically first entered the village with government officials. After many returned visits, they had built such a strong relationship with the people that they invited us back for the official meeting/greeting last night. It is hard to believe that were the first people EVER to bring the Word of God to them! What an incredible gift this was.

Monday – Wings Training School

This morning we did our first training school for over 120 rural, area pastors. Rev. Glory was hoping to have about 50 pastors, so was VERY pleased when so many people showed up. They traveled long distances to join us. Many arrived on motorcycles, foot, bus, and auto-richshaw. (This is a 3-wheeled vehicle with open sides. We will take this auto-richshaw to the orphanage of prisoners tonight, so will have a change to experience this form of transportation.) They sang, prayed, and met for about one hour before we started the training.

We shared the 4-parts of the Wings Party with them. We first had them experience a few minutes of each part, and then talked about why we did it the way we did. We tried to be culturally sensitive, and shared that although we did it one way in America, hopefully we would give them ideas about how to apply our ministry to their ministry.

We first sang two songs with them. We divided the group into two teams – a “Praise Ye the Lord team” and an Halleluiah Team. They thoroughly enjoyed singing and they stood as they sang their part. Soon they were laughing, singing, and having a great time. Our second song was “Shake a Neighbor’s Hand”. This song challenges the participants to shake as many people’s hands as possible during the verse, then give a “High 5”, pat a neighbor’s back, and lastly look face-to-face at a person, smile, and wave their arms in the air while singing, “Jesus is a friend, He’s a friend next to you”. They had such fun and had never done such interactive singing. I explained that we started a party with simple words and motions, and that everyone could stand up and sit down, or shake a hand, and the simple, fun songs break down barriers right away at a party.

Next we had the pastors act our the Parable of the Sower. They were seeds, rocks, birds of the air, and Rev. Glory was the “sower” who sowed the seeds. We took the words directly from scripture, but had them become “seeds”, “thorns”, the rock, etc. They had more fun growing like seeds, stomping the ground to stomp the “seeds”, and said later that they had never acted out a scripture passage like that before.

Next we played a few games with them. We divided them into 4 groups by their birth months, to demonstrate a simple way to divide a group. We brought blue tarps, so played games with the 4 tarps and balloons. They bounced the balloons, tried to get them high in the air, and tossed the balloons tarp-to-tarp.

We next demonstrated a craft idea. We taught them how to make butterflies out of newspaper. Two piece of newspaper are folded accordion-style and then held together with a piece of wire. The pastors helped one another to create their butterflies, and were SO proud of their simple, yet beautiful creations. Again we talked about the symbolism of the butterfly indicating resurrection, and how this simple craft can be used to give a powerful message.

Rev. Glory later said that he didn’t think any of the pastors had ever played like this. He actually thought that everything we had shared would be very helpful for the pastors.

Rev. Glory, and his orphanage staff, had fixed a very special meal for all the pastors. The Wings team dished up the food for everyone, and the pastors sat in groups and were asked to talked about why we had chosen the parable of the Sower, they were to discuss who had planted the seeds of faith in their lives, and they were to discuss what we had shared with them.

Rev. Glory was very pleased about the training seminar. Many of them had to catch the 2:00 bus, or otherwise the next bus to their villages would have been a 6:00 bus. They shook hands, hugged us, and were so appreciative.

Now we need to pack up for the Wings Party at the orphanage for the prisoner’s children.

In His love,

Ann

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