BAM

Lately God has been teaching me a lot about pride. I never really thought I'd had a problem with it, but when you're not watching out it can creep up on you.

Sunday I was asked to preach in a Nepali church in Mumbai, and as I was praying about what to say, all I heard from the Lord was the word pride. I knew that God had already started speaking to my heart about it, but I didn't think it was that big of a problem area in my life. As I wrote the sermon God really convicted me of each scripture that He pointed out. I ended up just doing a study on James 4 that morning.

Today at a networking meeting/Christmas outreach prep, after I finished wrapping care packages, God pulled me outside for a chat. I had a good cry as I poured out my frustrations with team members, and a better cry as He convicted me to love them and stop letting stupid things get in the way of our team unity. It's amazing what a long conversation with God and a few tears will do for the soul.

As I was repenting of my pride, He told me to look up Proverbs 12:4, and it was like BAM. Cleansing conviction. I was previously not only frustrated with everyone on the team, but I had also been acting like quite the know-it-all... And still I didn't understand why I felt so disrespected at times. The verse pretty much summed it up in a sentence. Here's my situational paraphrase:

It's better to be humble and have the respect of your brothers, than to have a big mouth and give them every reason not to.

Anyways, I don't know exactly why I shared all that, but since God's teaching me about pride, I guess I'll just get over myself and be open.

And it's only week two! I'm excited to see what else God has to teach me on this journey.

From the Tea Corner

Wow!

So much has happened in the past couple weeks, I don't even know where to start. I guess the beginning is probably a good place.

While in transit to Mumbai, we found out that our housing fell through and our contact had to find something else for us. He did a great job of securing something else, but again the owners changed their minds. We ended up staying at a hotel for one night, and our contact found us an apartment that we could use for a couple weeks. We cleaned out the dirt and trash ridden apartment, not even daring to touch one bathroom. We worked on it for two days, and after it was spotless, the landlord decided not to let us stay there. It was a combination of the stress of her mom passing away, and the stress of having unwelcome foreigners in her apartment building.

Our contact brought us then to the Salvation Army hostel, which is located in the historic architecture-esque area of Mumbai. We even took the train from the station in Slumdog Millionaire almost every day! The hospitality of the people working there was amazing, and we were all extremely blessed to have been able to stay there.

Boy was it hot though! We never stopped sweating the entire time. Actually no, a couple of us stopped at a Café Coffee Day, and we ate at an air conditioned restaurant. But at least we never dealt with dry skin!

We worked alongside YWAM Mumbai in their different ministries, and got to partner with them in prayer. One of the first things we did was prayer walk through Kamathipura, one of the biggest red light districts in India. We also helped with their street kids, slum kids, HIV/AIDS, and prayer ministries.

The thing that touched my heart the most was simply being able to pray with Hindu families who were going through hard times. The ministry that YWAM Mumbai has already been doing with them has opened their hearts to Jesus, and helped them turn to Him in their time of need. In the future we are praying for those families to reject their idols and worship Yahweh alone, because He is the only one worthy of their praise, and the only one whose love can make them righteous. Praise the Lord for those guys in Mumbai doing His work there!

Today is our first full day in Kathmandu, and we are loving the weather and the culture already. It's cool enough during the day that we can wear jackets, but not so cold we must. At night it is chilly enough to get cozy with a hot cup of tea and a warm sleeping bag. I'm personally so glad to feel like it's really Christmas!

When we took the bus yesterday, we were all struck by the fact that the bus actually stopped and waited for us to get on, and one of the guys working on the bus helped us put our bags on the top! We aren't stared at quite as much here, but we are definitely not inconspicuous.

We are excited to get started today. We will be working with women rescued from trafficking situations, and maybe even going into clubs looking for girls to reach out to. I'm excited to really get into the anti-slavery aspect of the trip, especially seeing how our contacts already have the tools to rescue and rehabilitate the people they rescue.

Thank you so much for your prayers, and please keep them coming! We are going to need all the prayer backing we can get.

Prayer points:
Healing for Meredith's stomach
Overall health for Jake and Marissa (and the whole team)
Safety for the team and the people we'll be reaching out to
Lots and lots of blessings poured out on YWAM Mumbai and Kathmandu!

Thanks, and have a wonderfully blessed day :)

--God is my strength