Wings In India - Ninth Report 23 Mar 06

This is the eighth report from India. It was filed by Ann Edenfield Sweet on March 21, 2006.

Email Message #8 – March 23, 2006

I am sitting outside our rooms with Paul and Doug. We are boiling water, Doug is trying to cool the water by pouring it back and forth into our cereal bowls, and we are refilling our water bottles. My legs are elevated, as all our legs and feet are swollen.

Today was another wonderful day. We drove about 120 KM to Pastor Michael’s church in Tammampatty We arrived in the town and were greeted by Hindu’s celebrating a special ceremony. There were hundreds of people on the narrow road leading to the church. They had brilliant pinks, yellows and blue colors on their faces and were singing. Their temple was just past the entrance to the church, so as we parked and tried to enter the church, the Hindus lined up and I took their photo. I couldn’t help but think how ironic it was that I was taking their photo, with their faces filled with colors of Hindu ceremonies, outside the door of the Christian Church. On top of all the commotion outside the church, what permeated the air was the loud singing of praise songs coming from the open doors of the church. I took that photo for Pastor Michael, in hopes that when he sees those faces in photos, that soon they will be faces inside in church.

Because of this Hindu celebration, many of the men from the area did not come to our training. Apparently they had pressure from family members not to attend a Christian gathering, and it would have been difficult for them to pass through the streets of their neighborhoods, seeing their Hindu friends celebrate with colors and walk past them into the church. We took this turn of events to talk about the importance of ministering to the people who are in attendance, and actually if the 300+ people they had expected had attended, it would have given limited space for all the activities we were able to do with them.

This was our first, full, Wings Training School.

This will need to be completed later. I want to send this message out so will do so without it being finished.