Back in the States

We reached Harrisburg safely around 11am today! Praise God for a safe trip! Stay tuned for some reflections about our trip and news about Re-Entry.

Our Ministry in the South

Gabby sharing from the Word at a small "cottage" meeting. Afterwards the team had the chance to pray for many of the people attending.











The team with the PTL pastors from Tamil Nadu. The team had a wonderful time of fellowship! We were able to encourage the pastors and pray for them.

The team ministering in Tamil Nadu.

Sacrifice

Missions involves sacrifice. I’m not talking about what the YES team has given up or suffered during our time in India. I’m referring to the Indian missionaries with whom we are living and working. Most of the servants who are ministering with Pocket Testament League India are missionaries. Many have moved many miles from their southern state of Kerala to enter the ministry. When the team had a chance to visit their home state last month, I was struck by the amount of “comforts” they have chosen to give up.

Kerala: “God’s Own Country” is a lush, beautiful land with an almost tropical climate. The vegetation and gorgeous flowers make it a paradise for birds and other animals. The cool night often arrives with a fresh breeze that renews one as they sleep. Also, with a sizable number of Christians in this state, the church has grown and flourished. Life seems to run at a slower pace without the traffic and pollution of the city.

As the team finished our trip to the south and stepped off the train at the Delhi station, the wave of heat struck us by surprise. The vast differences of the south and the north became so much more apparent. I realized in a greater way how much the people of PTL have sacrificed by leaving their beautiful Kerala to minister in Delhi. Paul’s radical statement in Philippians 3:7-8 comes to mind. “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.”

May we too, realize that knowing Christ Jesus and making Him known is the greatest profit. And may we be empowered to consider all else loss compared to Him.

Please pray for us as we finish our last week here. Pray that God may direct our paths and work through us until the end of our trip!
-Heidi

Purposeful Prayer

Purposeful Prayer

Well, we ended our time in Kerala and with bittersweet excitement we boarded the bus that would take us to our next ministry opportunity in Tamil Nadu. Since we've been here, we've had a chance to visit different pastors in the community and encourage local believers by sharing with them our lives and Biblical truths. We've enjoyed times of sharing and prayer meetings in different cottage meetings. And we've been blessed to see God's hand working in people's lives and people receiving answers to prayer. But what happens when the healing doesn't come? From the very beginning our team has been struggling with this question. We know that God gives us authority to bind strongholds and disease....and He even proclaims that we will do even greater things than what Jesus did...So what do we do when we pray in faith and the healing doesn't seem to come. Do we give up? Ask for more faith to believe? Say that the will of God is for this person not to receive healing? What to do? As I struggle with this question I am reminded of my mother's sickness and how much we prayed for the Lord's healing to come. I'm reminded of the faith in which we all prayed in and how much faith she herself had that she would receive the healing from the Lord. However, the healing didn't come. There was no miraculous cloud that came down and lifted her from her deathbed. Instead, she died July 16th 2001. So what to do now, as our team faces similar situations? People coming from all over with various diseases various problems expecting healing from the Lord. Do we cease the prayers in fear that maybe the healing won't come? or do we continue in faith proclaiming the word of the Lord? As our team has gone to different places, we are reminded of the apostles who spoke the word of the Lord without fear and proclaimed healing as if it were so. And we choose to believe that in the end it is the work of the Lord to bring healing and deliverance in His time. We choose to simply be the vessels for which the message is delivered. We are encouraged by the prayers that the Lord has answered quickly and visibly and we stand in faith knowing that all prayers are heard by our heavenly Father. And for those times in which it seems that our prayer was not answered, we say that the will of the Father is greater than our own. We thank the Lord that He is the author and perfector of our faith. So as Hannah did in 1 Samuel 1: 17-18 after she made her plea to the Lord, we go in peace and lift our downcast faces and rejoice in the sovereignty of the Lord.

Please Pray:
-That we would be focus to do the ministry as our time here draws to a close
-That our final weeks with our host families would be a time of encouragement
-That we would continue to operate in unity; being bond in the love of Christ
-That we wouldn't take any unwanted "critters" back home with us
Praises:
-We praise the Lord that He has enabled us to work in all situations; being blessed and being a blessing to others
- We've been traveling a great deal and the Lord has kept us save in all our travels
-We've seen the Lord's hand changing people's lives and providing everything from housing, finances, healing, jobs and restoring broken families. We praise the Lord for His handywork.
Blessings.
-Gabby

Sweet Kerela 1

The Beach!

All Aboard.....

All Aboard.....

One of these is our train..... I think

Gaby, Heidi, John V, Samuel, and Josepth talking about last minute details and watching team luggage. They Rock! We love you Josepth!

What is this? hehehe That's right packaged Indian train food! Yum Yum. You know you want some!

I wonder what Jose is going to do now.... okay TMI
After 48 plus hrs on the train, John V. our outreach coordinator is wiggin' out. hehehe We love you John....

We had a great train ride and again saw more of India's diversity and beauty. This place is precious to God, keep praying for this Nation.

INCREDIBLE INDIA

I'm melting.... melting..... MEELLLLTING!!!!!!!!!!

Despite the blazing heat, the India team is still standing and thriving. As a matter of fact were on VACATION!!! Don't worry it's only for a couple of days.To start it off we enjoyed an amazingly cool two and a half day train ride with air conditioning and semi-authentic Indian food. Then we were overwhelmed with the luscious palm trees, the refreshing backwaters, and the beautiful clear blue sky of the state of Kerela. From splashing one another on the gorgeous beaches to taking boat rides through the backwaters our team has definitely had an amazing time of bonding and just being. It was also a great opportunity for us as a team to experience conflict and learn even more lessons on flexablilty and grace.Instead of just going to a hotel for this time, we recieved the priveledge of experiencing southern Indian culture first hand. The team stayed with our outreach coordinator's family for the majority of the time and had a blast. This was a great bunch of people and the team made immediate bonds with the family. We ate real southern Indian food and enjoyed countless tasty fruits like: Mangoes, Jack Fruit, FRESH PINEAPPLE (my mouth is still watering), and many others. This time has been fruitful and fruit producing for all of us as we continue to aim to be living sacrifices before God and humble servants towards one another.

Jose


PS I did want to give the Bolivia Team a shout out and SAY...... We miss you and love you guys, continue to grow, glo, and .....yea anywayz Continue to be a blessing were you have been planted

Picture Extravaganza!!!

John V and Tim smiling at breakfast time on our way to the villages for outreach. John you know you want some!

















Here is a picture of one of the most used ways of transportation
here in India. HOLD ON!!!

















Pastor Manoj and family at their home in Kutar. We miss you guys.

Students at the school in Kutar. These morning drills were no joke. Left... Left.... Left... Right..... Left...

Okay, Okay it looks like were at the beach. But were not. Actually we are standing on what used to be a village and market until a crazy river that originates in Nepal came through and wiped it all away.

















This is not what it looks like. Tim and I would never leave the girls stranded in the middle of nowhere! Seriously! hehehe

Life on the outskirts of the village. These two were very hard at work and busy, but they totally wanted us to take their picture!

More Vacation Bible Camp action. This is the team teaching the campers "This little light of mine..." Let it shine.. Let shine... Let shine... You know you want to sing along....

Presenting..."Tim and The Cuties" There debut album comes out this fall. Not really, but this picture is cute. This is Tim with some of the Sahihabad pastors daughters after a celebration march around the community.

Gaby with some of the children at Vacation Bible Camp. Okay, Does Gaby or doesn't she look Indian? Please post your response on our comments section!

Preach on preacher boy! This is Jose sharing the Word of God at Christian Fellowship Church. "Every two seconds a person on this planet dies, are we taking every opportunity possible to share the Gospel of Christ" -jose

THE FAITHFUL PRAYER TEAM

These ladies rock my face of. They meet everyday, except Sundays, to pray! Straight up Pray! Lets take a lesson from these spiritual warriors.

"Outreach-ing"

Hello again to all of our dedicated friends! Yet another rapidly moving week has passed since our last appearance on here. It has been a week of more stretching, bonding, work and lessons learned from experiences that will last for the rest of our living days. One of our weekly activities involves going to a major shopping area and distributing the gospel of John booklets. We do this by pairing up and positioning ourselves at the busiest spots that are not too close together. We thank God for His marvelous protection and provision during these times of outreach. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will anoint the words on the booklets to speak directly to the hearts of those who read them. Also, please pray that all the final preparations for our trip to Kerala will come together in the next week. Thank you all for your time, love, support and prayer. Believe me when I say that we can feel the prayer working. God bless you all with incredible measure,

Tim – on behalf of the India team-

Cell Ministry

So dear friends, the time has come for me to let you know how the team is doing. Well, we are all still alive and have most of our appendages intact. Lately, we’ve had the opportunity to spend some time participating in different church ministries. Cell groups are ministries that take place during the week. It is like a Bible study only it’s mainly geared to empowering others to reach out in their own communities. It also helps to keep the believers connected and offer opportunities to those who are unable to attend church Sunday morning. It has been something that our team has been involved in since early on. Recently, I’ve been encouraged by some of the testimonies that have come out of the cell meetings. In one cell, there was a believer whose family was having problems with persecution, due to the fact that they were Christian. For 15 days the people in the village had been throwing rocks at their house and giving them threats. The believers were at the point of moving out of the area. When they shared this at the cell meeting we were able to pray for them and ask God to place His hand over them and the situation. We claimed victory in Jesus name and asked the Lord to bring a release of His peace down. A few days later, we were given the news that since that time of prayer there had been no more threats or rocks being thrown at their house. I praise the Lord because more and more, He is bringing to my mind that He is a prayer answering God. There is nothing so big or too small for Him. Knowing this, I ask that as you remember us in prayer you would pray:
-As we prepare for our trip to the South, God would keep us safe, as there has been much flooding due to monsoon season.
-God would continue to give us grace as we deal with the culture and our host families
-That we would continue to work in unity as a team

by Gaby Pabellon