Day 6

India Time:

8:51 PM

(June 30, 2013)

CST: 10:20 AM (June 30, 2013)

Rejoice in The Lord always.  I will say it again, REJOICE!

I can not imagine any better way to have spent my Sunday.  We arrived in the Jarugumalli village a little before 8:00, about an hour before the service was to start.  The congregation has recently been started and is growing well.  They've even started talking about expanding the building.  We were greeted by some very shy children.  The boys warmed up pretty quickly when we started playing high five games; the girls took a little more coaxing.  

Our VBS before the service went well, and we had to wait for a few members to arrive before we started church, so the congregation sang for over an hour while they waited!  I could get used to this!  While I couldn't understand the words, the songs were so joyful and everyone was so involved!  Pastor Joythi played the drums, and another drum was passed around as well as a tambourine.  Everyone was singing and clapping and smiling.  It was a phenomenal way to prepare for worship!

I didn't understand much of the service apart from Brother David's sermon, but again, everyone was so involved and into what they were doing, you couldn't help being thrilled to be there.  I'm pretty sure I smiled the ENTIRE service!  We had communion today and it ran a little differently from how we do it in the states in that the pastor handed out the bread to everyone, Pastor Joythi gave us our bread and said the words of institution, and everyone ate together.  (Except the bread was actually good, not just the wafers we have at home.)  ;-)  The same procedure happened with the wine.  

After the service, we said prayers for individuals, took pictures with and of the kids, and signed Bibles.  We also taught the kids a few more games like rock-paper-scissors, and thumb wars.  Brother Nathan enjoys teaching kids all sorts of bad habits to leave them with like bunny ears.  If anyone could comment on a few other simple games we could teach the kids, we'd appreciate it!  Today we had a lot more down time with the kids after the service, and were drawing blanks.

From there we went to the village's doctor's house.  He currently provides the support for the pastor that is there and provided us with lunch.  They had a very nice house with tiled floors, wooden doors, and nice grates on the windows.  Lunch was great, too!  We took a lot of pictures today, and I can't speak for everyone, but we kind of felt like celebrities.  As we were leaving the doctor's house, another young woman from the congregation asked me to come to her house.  Normally we have to get going, but today Pastor Joythi said we could (it was right next door).  She held my hand the whole way there and said over and over how nice we were and how beautiful we were.  She was very sweet.

After a quick nap we headed off to the YSR gardens.  It was beautifully landscaped with a big fountain that ran right down the middle.  Apparently it was built in 2009, but wasn't running today.  Pastor Joythi explained it away as "this is India."  The garden was built along a dam for a reservoir, and we got to take a boat ride in the reservoir as well.  By the time we got back to shore, the rest of the pastors were there with their kids and wives!  A welcome surprise since we weren't sure we were going to get to see all of them again before we left the area.  The boys were all happy to see us and kept doing little things that would make us take their picture.  We walked across the dam to the Hindu temple which was very interesting as well.  Besides the gods, it was similar in a lot of ways to the Buddhist temples in China.  Ornate, especially in comparison to most of the buildings we've seen with lots of different animals carved into the structure.  (And speaking of, there were lots of monkeys around there too--I mean REAL MONKEYS!)  While it's always interesting to see how others practice their religion, it's also sad to know that they are praying to idols who can't help them, even with the smallest problems (let alone their greatest problem).

Got a little laundry done and we're all trying to get organized as tomorrow we head to Bapatla.  It's exciting to be heading to a new area and sad to leave our new friends at the same time.  Please pray for the churches in the Ongole area.  Pray that they receive enough and more to meet the needs of their growing congregations.  Please pray that their enthusiasm continues and is contagious throughout the area as there are so many in India in need of what our churches offer.                                                            

~Becky Haddad