We were fortunate to be a part of something new to end 2012. Our home church is ROCKhabor and all of us came to India for the first time with our church on a two week mission trip. This is how we all came to fall in love with India and Suresh's far-reaching ministry. Now that we have been living here for 3 months, living and breathing this ministry, we had the opportunity to welcome 26 people from our home church for the same two week trip we have all experienced. This was a new experience for our church; to have members already here in India to walk alongside a mission trip from home.
We are close with several of the team members, so it was refreshing to see some familiar faces and to experience the ministry we love with these friends. All the new faces we didn't know were a joy to be around as well. Seeing them experience India for the first time and watching God working in and through them at each of the ministry events was awesome. Since the Residency Team does not usually do the two-week trip ministry stuff, it was a great reminder of how incredible Harvest India is and how God works through each ministry. The team spent half of their time in Tenali and half in the town of Peddapuram (4 hours north of Tenali).
Some of the ministries we did with the team included: food/clothing distributions, red light district, leprosy camp, sending time with the IPP women, visiting KSK college and seeing the new construction there, visiting elderly homes, HIV hospital, small crusades at villages, and going to village churches together. We also spent New Year's together with with the ROCKharbor orphans and HI staff that included communion, cake, dance parties, and fireworks.
We had been looking forward to the team visiting ever since we landed in October... praying, worshiping, and just being God's church together all the way over in India was such a blessing to the six of us. It was like we never left home. We all laughed together, cried together, sang together, ate Indian food together, made new friends and had an overall great time.
Thank you Jesus for bringing our friends here and back safely.
Thank you for blessing us with their joy and love for India.
Here are some photos from our time with the team:
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| The Team |
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| At the food distribution |
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| Food distribution |
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| Angela and one of the sweet elderly ladies |
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| Clothing distribution at Thota house |
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| Talia using her nursing skills to assist at the Leprosy camp |
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| Food distribution |
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| At the construction for the future site of KSK college |
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| Worshiping at a village church |
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| Suresh and Christina with the "Mother India" railway kids. The team served them a meal. |
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| Rockharbor orphans praying during New Year's celebrations |
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