All of the individuals who will be going to India this Decemeber met last night with Raj. Now, I mentioned a little bit about Raj in my last post, but overall, this meeting was for him to lay out some more details about what each of the teams (tech, water, construction, justice) will be doing and where they will be located. I can’t bring you the whole meeting, so I thought I would give you the top ten highlights for me last night:

10. Sitting next to my Father-in-law, Ron Twedt, realizing that we are going to be doing this together!

9. Getting excited about going to Little India on Saturday to dive in the culture.

8. So excited to get more details on the two villages that we will be ministering too, Karai (10,000 people with the closest well 1.5 miles away – we will be ministering to some of the prostitutes here) and Vellavedu (here are the brick kilns where the bonded slaves are starting at ~3 years old, around 5,000 kilns each with 50-100 people in them).

7. There are 28 states in India (compared to our 50), Tamil Nadu is one of those states, and has 30 districts. . . . last year in just 1 of those districts there were 1,000 baby girls killed right after birth. . . infantcide. . . . you do the math

6.  There are around 4,600 levels in there cast system. . . . that is, . . . the level of worth of someone, Raj told a story of when his shadow crossed over someone of high cast, . . . . . he was severely beaten that day. . .

5.  The fact that we as white people. . . . . are actually above the cast system – somewhere between human and divinity. . . . . nothing like the humility of undeserved deity status.

4. So what do you do in your country to reach the lost?  Well, I said, here at GCC we use culturally relevant media to connect with those outside the church, and we have small groups, and lots of service opportunities. . . what about you? Well, we raise the dead, heal the sick, and cast out the demons. . . . . Yeah, I guess that will work too!

3. The opportunity I may have to eat BBQ rat! — because their field rats are the size of our cats!@!! and they eat them!

2. They will not risk their life by becoming a Christian because of what you teach them, but because of how you treat.

1. Hearing Raj pray in Tamil, and feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit. . . . . I am completely confident that God is going to show up through these teams in a HUGE way!!!!