Returning Home from the Mission Field

Team 1921 is in the air and on their way back to the US. Please pray for their safe journey.

The last couple days in India were packed with inspiring meetings and worship. The team observed the monthly pastors' meeting where Pastor Daniel teaches and trains the pastors in Everlasting Life Ministry. They joined the monthly worship celebration on the 15th. One of the highlights was watching a family give money to the widows.

The team will be landing in Frankfurt in a few hours and then heading for Detroit. They are scheduled to arrive home in the afternoon. I know we are all anxious to hear more stories from their trip.

Here's a photo from a house church worship earlier in the week.


Thank you for your continued prayers for the team as they journey home and for Pastor Daniel and Everlasting Life Ministry.

Visiting the Taj Mahal

Yesterday, the team joined the voices of our brothers and sisters at Everlasting Life Church for the big monthly worship celebration. This is an amazing experience.

The team, along with Pastor Daniel's family and some friends, traveled by bus to Agra. They visited the Taj Mahal today. It truly is a wonder of the world.

The team will be worshiping at a new Everlasting Life ministry church in New Delhi. After lunch, they will head to the airport to catch their flight home. Today, we have some pictures, but we'll have more stories about the last couple days soon.

 

 

 

Please pray for safe travel for the team and for God's continued blessings on the work they have done.

Final Day of Clinic

The team and local church members completed the final day of the clinic seeing 205 people. And the declaration I received was, "We had a great day!!!" I think three exclamation marks must mean it really was. Even though the power was out for half an hour on an overcast day making it very difficult to see, it was still a great day. They only had to turn away a handful or people, which is always difficult, but impressive that it was only a few.

Sandy had to dig deep into her bag of tricks to supply needed glasses as they were finishing up.

As a reminder, the glasses that are distributed are donated by people that no longer need them (likely because they've gotten new ones). Please save your old glasses and donate them! Someone that has never had access to glasses can use them. If you'd like to see how they go from someone's junk drawer to the face of someone at a MOST eyeglass clinic, please visit the MOST eyeglass webpage. You can also visit MOST Ministries in Ann Arbor and see it in person. There are incredible volunteers that take the glasses and clean them, find the prescription, sort them, and pack them for mission teams. You can also donate your time to helping. In addition, teams take witnessing gifts with them (bracelets and puppets). Maybe you aren't called to go on a mission trip, but you could help make some of these supplies. That's on the website, too! Or, ask a member of the current or a previous mission team for some information. We always hear that there are go-ers and send-ers. The send-ers are very important for the mission trips, whether it's your prayer support, financial support, or volunteering in one of the ways mentioned.

The clinic could not be successful without all the volunteers. So many people from Everlasting Life give their time the whole week to help at the clinic. This picture shows the translators and doorman. But there are many additional people that help, including the lovely ladies that make food for the team.

I'm told Madhu was a great helper!

We praise God for the success of the eyeglass clinic and trust that He is working on the hearts that heard of His love this week. Speaking of praising God ... the team is heading into worship at Everlasting Life Church. Today is their monthly celebration where many of the home churches and members from different geographic districts come together in worship and Holy Communion. Often, Pastor Daniel baptizes new Christians at this service, as well. May God bless this time of worship.

We also pray for safe travel, as the team will leave after worship to head to Agra for their visit to the Taj Mahal.

Also, our team has provided some bios so you can learn a little bit about those that are called to serve. We haven't gotten them all yet, but go read them on the Meet the Team page of the blog.

Day 3 of the Clinic

Today was another great day at the clinic with 143 gospel presentations and 187 pair of glasses dispensed! We can only imagine how both these things change the lives of the people receiving them. Many of these people have never had glasses before. Some of the women can now see again to thread the needle on their (manual) sewing machine, which is the only income they have. But more importantly, all of these people have heard the hope we have in Jesus. This is what changes lives!

The team thought we'd like to see some pictures of the hotel, and I think it's a great idea. So, here you go.

Here's a cool story. While at the hotel, Clay and Ray ran into some India folks from Buffalo, New York. They are visiting a friend and his wife that are local teachers. Our guys told them about the eyeglass clinic and that they are Christians. The guys said, "When I was in Kenya, nobody would help me but the Christians." He teaches English as a second language. Clay said, "My wife, Lori, does that for the Japanese internationals." And Ray said, "My wife, Traci, does it for the internationals, too!" They exchanged cards and then Clay and Ray went back to their team meeting. God works in all interactions, not just to the specific people receiving glasses.

Here's another story for you that takes us all the way back to our last trip, 2 years ago. Our driver invited us to his home one evening and we met his daughter who was bedridden for a long time with an infection in her leg. We had the privilege of praying for her while we were there. She was a beautiful, young lady with a wonderful smile, but you could see what a burden she was carrying of the illness she had. Well, fast forward two years and she came to the clinic to meet the team. While she still walks with a limp, she is doing well and is also newly married. Praise the Lord for His healing of her.

The team enjoyed another house church worship in the evening (Pastor and Elizabeth do a home church every night, with about 5 or 6 hours of sleep every night. They each also do 3 services every Sunday in different towns.) Our friend, Meenu, shared a video on Facebook of the worship and they are praising God with these words ... Yeshu acha hain (forgive my spelling). My limited Punjabi recognizes this as "God is so good." And He certainly is!

Thank you for remembering our mission team in your prayers and supporting them while they're serving. They are just about to start their last day of the eyeglass clinic. This is often the longest day, so pray for their energy and emotions.

Blessings!

Day 2 is in the Books

Another great day at the eyeglass clinic. The gospel was shared 144 times. We pray for God to use those seeds that were planted to grow faith in the hearts of the people that received it.

I asked for more pictures, so you get the benefit of that request. Here's a day in the life ...

You can see that it was a full house. There are people in the balcony and waiting on the stairs and crowding the door. The door is controlled by members of the church to make sure the clinic doesn't get too full and difficult to run. Vision begins the process by accepting the registration forms from the people coming through.

Meenu is educating the visitors in their own tongue and preparing them for Traci who will check their eyes for any communicable diseases and other problems that may hinder their vision, like glaucoma.

Trisha and Melinda test for the right prescription ... both distance and reading.

Their translators, Emmanuel and Pyrenean, also work the eye charts.

The next station is where the gospel is shared in their native language, with Bibles available for them to take.

While that's happening, Sandy fills their prescription and passes them along to the next station.

Mark and Ray are helping perfect the prescriptions and get the right glasses for each person.

The last station is the fitting station where Gaylen makes sure the glasses fit the person and gets them cleaned.

And that's how the process works. By the way, most of the pictures are from Clay, so we don't get to see him working, but be assured, he is! 

Here are a few more pictures from the day. 

I'm told Kelly has to keep Mark in line.

As a musician, Ray seems to be inspecting (or playing??) an Indian percussion instrument.

A glimpse of the beauty of the land.

Thanks for joining me in taking a sneak peek into the eyeglass clinic. Please continue to pray for the mission and the missionaries. May God bless the work of their hands.

First Day of the Eyeglass Clinic

The first day of the eyeglass clinic was a success. Here are a few pictures from the day with a little commentary.

Team leader Kelly Bone laying out the plan for us. On her left is Traci from Kansas who is an LPN doing the nursing function.

Trisha and Melinda flipping for scripts. This is where the initial prescription is determined before getting a honed in prescription by trying on three pairs of glasses. For a better description of the process, visit the MOST website (link on the side and also in a previous post).

Gaylen McDonald fitting glasses. Doing a fantastic job of bending and forming eyeglasses to create smiles and great fitting glasses.

Here is Elizabeth sharing the gospel using an Evangel Cube ... it gives the gospel message through pictures, allowing the person to see a visual image while hearing the story. The good news of Jesus was shared 154 times today! Praise God!

After a successful day of the eyeglass clinic, the team had the wonderful experience of going to a house church and worshiping with the faithful members. Here are a few pictures of that. 

You can see it was a full house ... there are people sitting out on the sidewalk through the front door.

Pastor Daniel is preaching ... notice the cell phone light for illumination.This was his 3rd sermon in English. He is working hard to improve his English.

The Indian hospitality is alive and well. The team was served dinner at the home of Pastor Daniel's first new believer when he started his ministry in 1996! You can see that in traditional fashion, dinner was served in the bedroom/sitting room. The bed doubles as table and chair. 

In addition, the team also enjoyed some mango juice prior to evening worship at the house church.

It seems like it was a very busy first day, but God was in the midst. He is working and many are being blessed ... both Indian and American.

And for a little humor ... everyone was very impressed that Mark chose his shirt to match Pastor's walls. Can't wait to see what he wears tomorrow!

As always, thank you for your continued support and prayers for the mission team. As we are getting ready for bed, they are awake and getting ready for day 2 of the clinic. May God bless the work of their hands!

A Day of Worship and Preparations

Praise the Lord! Jai Masih Ki!

The team joined our Christian brothers and sisters in worship at Everlasting Life Church this morning (yesterday for them). There is something so moving about worshiping the One True God with passionate believers in another language.

There is always a very warm welcome for the members of the eyeglass clinic team.

The team enjoyed fellowship and great food on their first day in Dasuya. The hospitality is incredible and the food is delicious.

There was much work to do to set up the clinic for the hundreds of people that will come through the doors in the next four days. As an experienced leader and a returning member of the clinic at Everlasting Life Church, Kelly gave direction and made sure the team is prepared for tomorrow (again, it's today for the team).

Please pray for the clinic to run smoothly, for the team to have strength and stamina, and, most importantly, for God to move mightily through the clinic and volunteers to touch the hearts of the people coming to the clinic.