We're All Gonna Get Super Fat

Day 1 in Chennai is in the history books - and what an incredible day it was. 

Once we all returned from the walk around David's community and taste some cultural treats (fried bananas, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, sweet Indian fudge), we took the opportunity to rest up before lunch, which consisted of dumplings, noodles, rice, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and a whole bunch of other stuff (I told you we are all gonna get super fat).  If you haven't guessed yet, the food is incredible.

We had an opportunity today to go out and gather some ministry supplies.  Final purchases:  2 guitars, a guitar/keyboard/vocal amp, mics, cables, power strips...and all for less than half the price of what you would pay in America.  Ridiculously awesome.  And little did we anticipate how wonderful those purchases would be immediately.

Tonight was one of those awesome God moments that only the Holy Spirit could've come up with.  The plan was to have dinner with 6 village pastors (and their wives) - and we did - but we did so much more than that.  After meeting in the new living space upstairs, we had the opportunity to hear from David and the pastors about their testimonies and then we shared ours as well, followed by the team's rendition of "Daniel and the Lion's Den" (now a comedy).  Then, beauty happened.  The village pastors blessed us with one of their praise songs in Tamil.  I have no idea what they were saying, but "Hallelujah" was repeated...and it was beautiful.  David then asked us to share a song as well.  Your India 2010 Team belted out a beautiful version of "How Great is Our God", accompanied by the two new guitars.  Once we finished that, David asked if we knew "There is Power in the Blood" - which we did - and we started playing and singing in English.  Then, David motioned for us to stop singing (we weren't THAT bad) but to continue playing and the pastors and their families took over singing the same song in their language.  I think you can see where this is going...at one point, we all started singing "There is Power in the Blood" in our own language at the same time.  It was beautiful and holy and LOUD.  Amazing.  That pretty much kicked off a spontaneous time of worship that included, "Amazing Grace", "How Great Thou Art", "Jesus Name Above All Names", "Blessed Assurance" and "He Reigns" (and about 20 others).  Both churches had a worship leader who passed off leading songs from the two guitars.  Both churches, together, two different languages, worshiping our One God.  And forget 14 + 6 pastors - there were at least 45-50 people in that room.

It was a great moment of fellowship and worship to kick off this great week of missions and ministry.  We wish all of you could've been with us.

Tomorrow, we have an early morning as we will be leading an hour-long program at a public school for 500+ kids, and it will include some skits, some lively songs and a message from Pastor Tim.  We'll follow up with another program, at a different school, in the afternoon.  Our evening will conclude with a program and an evangelistic ministry opportunity at a slum church. 

With all of this, we need prayer.  Please pray:
  1.  For strength and energy for the team
  2.  An ability to communicate with the children in a way that will be fun and meaningful for them
  3.  Creativity in preparing these different ministry outreaches
  4.  The Slum Church outreach - that many will come to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior

Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement.  Fun fact:  If you want to know what time it is here in Chennai, take your local time (as long as it's Eastern Standard), subtract 2.5 hours and then change the a.m. to p.m. (or p.m. to a.m.).  Love you guys - check in with you tomorrow.

-Jeff