An Awesome Day of Celebration

This morning the team divided and conquered attending several Bethesda ministry slum churches across the city. A few even stayed behind and attended an Int'l Expat church that met in our hotel. The team members were able to preach, teach and lead bible studies in several church locations with the assistance of Bethesda ministry translators.

This afternoon gave the team some free time for a variety of activities. Several of the group traveled to the outskirts of Bangalore to see the Bethesda Seminary and to visit a terrific ministry called House of Hope (newarkmission.org). Here we toured the facility seeing what Mr. T Raja has done over the last year, visited Gracie (a cute young girl whose life was saved by an operation funded by several Joy India team members two years ago) and gave gifts to the orphan children. This amazing ministry picks up those who are dying and destitute on the streets of Bangalore then either nurses them back to health or gives them dignity in death for terminal cases.

Late in the afternoon a large portion of the team traveled to the Bethesda Orphanage, run by Pastor Thomas Moses (son of Christopher Moses). Here we sat and watched as the children each gave us their name, their school grade, quoted scripture and books of the bible followed by a time of singing praises to the Lord. Then we gave each of these precious children a bag of gifts prepared by the fabulous Joy India Gifts Committee (Lu, Sue, Pat, Faye, et al).



Last on the agenda for today was an evening praise and celebration service by the entire Bethesda Ministry team (pastors, wives, church staff members, seminary students and orphanage children). We were moved by their genuine gratitude, their desire to pray for us and their request to pray for them as they minister in the slum areas of Bangalore. Our own Dr. Darry (Oops, I mean Barry) Creamer preached a terrific message from Psalm 103 on God's grace and compassion for each of us.

For our final clinic day tomorrow in Hosur our hearts are filled with God's grace and compassion for the sweet people of India. The Lord has done a mighty work in the lives of the Joy India 2007 team and we have been uniquely privileged to be a part of God's phenomenal work in this country.
.
.
The link below will take you to Today's photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/94059942@N00/sets/72157594479186622
.
.
The link below will take you to the video updates for Joy India team (requires Quicktime): http://www.firstdallas.org/Missions/