Hi to all who see this post! =D Julia (one of my travel buddies visiting from Canada), myself, friends I'm staying with here and many pastors from this area and surrounding areas went on a recent venture to several villages about 3 1/2 hours away from Vizag. I've included a copy below of one of her blogposts of our journey. Please enjoy this...I couldn't say it better myself!! =D Yay for copy and paste!
""Hello everyone! the trip to paderu went very well. It was just over 4 hours of basically off-roading that got us to the heart of the mountain range thats splits andre pradesh and orissa. Paderu is hardly a village though; its more than a village, but less than a city. There's a school there, government offices for the area and some residential. The hour and a half drive up the mountain to get there was beautiful. I've posted pictures on flickr; we saw miles and miles of coffee plantations, sugar cane fields, rice fields, and a lot more jungle. Black peppercorn plants grew on most of the trees. It was so lush and wild i felt like we were in the movie King Kong.
Once in paderu, we dropped our overnight bags off (so basically everything i'd brought, except my camera) and continued for another 45 min. to a remote village. i dont know the names of the villages we visited. A pastor from the US, Larry, had joined us on this trip, and he ended up dedicating the church along with Yesupatum. There was a lot of singing and dancing, the joy was infectious.
We had a lot of fun clapping and watching the people praise God for providing them with a church building. One that would last many many years. They were a really fun body of believers to celebrate this with. I told Cecilia that if I had to go to a tribal village for church, i'd go to that one. :) We spent a good 4+ hours there, then returned to paderu to get our stuff and head to another church. A Bethany House of Prayer (one of the many churches started by LnC) and there we hung out for a bit while Yesupatum organized our rooms for the night. He had found a room for Larry and himself, but because us girls had been a last addition, he was trying to secure a room in the same guesthouse as them. He took Larry to the guesthouse because he wasn't feeling to good, and so Ce and I hung out in the church for a good half hour. The other people there were shy, but we exchanged smiles and laughter. Yesupatum had picked up a snack for us and there was a huge plate of papaya for us to eat. turns out, we both dont like papaya, so we ate more of the indian style onion rings-aka little bits of onion and other veggies deep fried with salt!!! and talked about any bad toilet stories we had from previous travels. (we had had a little issue earlier that mroning that sparked the topic) as you can imagine, from travelling the middle east, i had a few to share. thank goodness for the language barrier!
That night (Yesupatum had gotten a room for us) as we were laughing about something that happened earlier, Ce all of a sudden lost the happy look on her face and pointed to a rat scurrying across our floor. We both didn't really know what to do, so we picked all of our stuff up and put it on a table, then prayed that our new friend would not return to find some snacks. We ate a supper of super oily homemade french fries, then went to bed. We were expecting it to be really cold, so we both wore several layers of pants and shirts and were sharing the bed. Thank God, we were both warm the whole night.
In the morning when i walked into our bathroom, i noticed that the bar of soap that had been left out had been enjoyed a little to much by our friend. he had chewed 3 of the 4 sides of it, but thankfully had not left any presents for us. We were so thankful that he hadn't disturbed us that night! Answer to prayer.
That day, we went to another church dedication, where we learned that most of the pastors in these small rural villages are under the age of 25! The one at this church seemed to be maybe 22ish. They are so young, and yet Yesupatum assured us that they have been called by God to do this, and the people they pastor over respect them. There is such a need for spreading the gospel in these villages because the communist group, the Naxalites i think they are called, control a lot of it, and they are like extremests who take part in many violent and horrific crimes. They prey on Christians, and try to take control of the small villages. Since there is not a lot of government involvement in these rural areas, witch doctors also control a lot of the people. they basically do run the government here. We saw spirits being rubuked from people and Yesupatum commanding them to leave. It was scary and yet beautiful. Just the name of Jesus is enough to cause the evil spirits to flee. About 6 women came forward to be prayed over, and Ce and I just watched from the front as the pastors who had come with us caught the women, laid them on the floor and prayed for them after the spirits had left. Crazy stuff. But its biblical. Look at Acts, its all about how the disciples lived and did performed many signs and wonders; including healing the sick those tormented by evil spirits (chapter 5:12-16).
After leaving the village we went to the church again, and Yesupatum spoke a message of encouragement and boldness to the many pastors who had met there. They had come from all over the area to hear him speak. Seeing grown men completely humbled in front of God and worshipping Him completely ignorant of whats going on around them was so refreshing and humbling to me! They live such different lives than those of us in Canada or US. Life out here is so much wilder and unstable, there are still people groups in the mountains who have never heard the gospel and they live in such darkness. They are spiritual people, but they have filled that void in their hearts with a wrong kind of spirit. They are hungry for Jesus' hope and love. The pastors are excited and passionate for this cuase, and Yesupatums' message really stirred them.
We were going to go to another area for about 50 baptisms, but Larry was tired and we needed to head back home. We ate and left, and i'm glad we did when we did, because all of us were exhausted.
We saw some monkeys coming back down the mountain, i have a video here:
Since being back, after supper yesterday, [C and I were] not feeling to well, and ended up throwing up a bunch of times last night, so Cecilia and I stayed home from the Youth meeting in the city today. Almost 1000 young adults tended and Yesupatum preached for a LONG time! Monika phoned us at lunch to check up on us, we were both doing better, but kinda fluish feeling.slept all day today, skyped my mom early this morning (4am) my time, and read my book a bit. I'm still really weak, but my stomach no longer wants to come up my throat anymore.
Thats the update of the past few days, we still need a lot of prayer! A lot of sickness is around us. The enemy is hard at work trying to discourage and distract.
Thank you for the prayers you have prayed, God is moving so much here.""
Once in paderu, we dropped our overnight bags off (so basically everything i'd brought, except my camera) and continued for another 45 min. to a remote village. i dont know the names of the villages we visited. A pastor from the US, Larry, had joined us on this trip, and he ended up dedicating the church along with Yesupatum. There was a lot of singing and dancing, the joy was infectious.
That night (Yesupatum had gotten a room for us) as we were laughing about something that happened earlier, Ce all of a sudden lost the happy look on her face and pointed to a rat scurrying across our floor. We both didn't really know what to do, so we picked all of our stuff up and put it on a table, then prayed that our new friend would not return to find some snacks. We ate a supper of super oily homemade french fries, then went to bed. We were expecting it to be really cold, so we both wore several layers of pants and shirts and were sharing the bed. Thank God, we were both warm the whole night.
In the morning when i walked into our bathroom, i noticed that the bar of soap that had been left out had been enjoyed a little to much by our friend. he had chewed 3 of the 4 sides of it, but thankfully had not left any presents for us. We were so thankful that he hadn't disturbed us that night! Answer to prayer.
That day, we went to another church dedication, where we learned that most of the pastors in these small rural villages are under the age of 25! The one at this church seemed to be maybe 22ish. They are so young, and yet Yesupatum assured us that they have been called by God to do this, and the people they pastor over respect them. There is such a need for spreading the gospel in these villages because the communist group, the Naxalites i think they are called, control a lot of it, and they are like extremests who take part in many violent and horrific crimes. They prey on Christians, and try to take control of the small villages. Since there is not a lot of government involvement in these rural areas, witch doctors also control a lot of the people. they basically do run the government here. We saw spirits being rubuked from people and Yesupatum commanding them to leave. It was scary and yet beautiful. Just the name of Jesus is enough to cause the evil spirits to flee. About 6 women came forward to be prayed over, and Ce and I just watched from the front as the pastors who had come with us caught the women, laid them on the floor and prayed for them after the spirits had left. Crazy stuff. But its biblical. Look at Acts, its all about how the disciples lived and did performed many signs and wonders; including healing the sick those tormented by evil spirits (chapter 5:12-16).
After leaving the village we went to the church again, and Yesupatum spoke a message of encouragement and boldness to the many pastors who had met there. They had come from all over the area to hear him speak. Seeing grown men completely humbled in front of God and worshipping Him completely ignorant of whats going on around them was so refreshing and humbling to me! They live such different lives than those of us in Canada or US. Life out here is so much wilder and unstable, there are still people groups in the mountains who have never heard the gospel and they live in such darkness. They are spiritual people, but they have filled that void in their hearts with a wrong kind of spirit. They are hungry for Jesus' hope and love. The pastors are excited and passionate for this cuase, and Yesupatums' message really stirred them.
We were going to go to another area for about 50 baptisms, but Larry was tired and we needed to head back home. We ate and left, and i'm glad we did when we did, because all of us were exhausted.
We saw some monkeys coming back down the mountain, i have a video here:
Since being back, after supper yesterday, [C and I were] not feeling to well, and ended up throwing up a bunch of times last night, so Cecilia and I stayed home from the Youth meeting in the city today. Almost 1000 young adults tended and Yesupatum preached for a LONG time! Monika phoned us at lunch to check up on us, we were both doing better, but kinda fluish feeling.slept all day today, skyped my mom early this morning (4am) my time, and read my book a bit. I'm still really weak, but my stomach no longer wants to come up my throat anymore.
Thats the update of the past few days, we still need a lot of prayer! A lot of sickness is around us. The enemy is hard at work trying to discourage and distract.
Thank you for the prayers you have prayed, God is moving so much here.""
Well, that's the end of her post. She also put up some great videos on her blog site. Her blog is called "From Cupcakes 2 Curry" and her web address is "fromcupcakes2curry.blogspot.com". Please check 'em out if you're interested! =D May the Lord bless you and inspire you to trust Him in a deeper way this new year!!
www.fromcupcakes2curry.blogspot.com
With much love and thankfulness,
~Cecilia
www.fromcupcakes2curry.blogspot.com
With much love and thankfulness,
~Cecilia
