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.
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The link below will take you to Today's photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/94059942@N00/sets/72157594479186622
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The link below will take you to the video updates for Joy India team (requires Quicktime): http://www.firstdallas.org/Missions/

God's Work Continues Unabated

The day began with a tour of the Bangalore Baptist Hospital. This 160 bed hospital founded by Southern Baptists in 1973 has grown from a small clinic to an advanced acute care facility offering a broad range of medical services for the region of Karnataka.

After completing the hospital tour each Medical team traveled to their respective clinic locations for an abbreviated clinic day. Dr. Barry Creamer is also conducting training here in Bangalore for a group of seminary students. He is covering many topics including Preaching and Theology.

One of our teams had planned to staff a new clinic location scouted out by J. Kumar, another local pastor in this area. Unfortunately pastor Kumar received several threats both veiled and direct regarding his desire to have a Christian medical team support this specific slum area. Although he had submitted his request through the community leaders locally and though they had given him the proper approval to conduct the clinic, forces were present who did not desire this free community clinic to happen in this location today. The team led by Dr. Sonya then shifted to an alternate location and by God's grace still were able to see a significant number of patients.

While this region appears to be much more open to the gospel of Christ, there are still reminders that Satan doesn't sit idle but actively seeks to thwart the work of the Lord. Please continue to keep us in your prayers for protection, for health and for effective ministry.
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The link below will take you to Today's photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94059942@N00/sets/72157594476947369
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The link below will take you to the video updates for Joy India team (requires Quicktime): http://www.firstdallas.org/Missions/

First Day in Bangalore

We finally had a semi-leisurely schedule yesterday as we travelled from Bhubaneswar to Bangalore. There are many on the team with sore throats, sinus colds and coughs, although all are well prescribed & dosed it still takes a day or two for recovery - please continue to pray for good health and a strong finish to the mission.

The medical teams finally worked independently for the first time here in Bangalore. The Bethesda Ministries of India organization, who coordinate some of our clinic activity, led by Pastor Christopher Moses, is well-organized and they have 5-6 years of experience working with us. Here we always find ample translators and support staff in all the appropriate languages for this region (Kannada, Tamil, Telugu & Hindi). The most exciting aspect of working in this region is the opportunity to directly share the gospel of Christ and even to pray with our patients. We will report on the number of those that prayed to receive Christ later this week.

Today was an awesome clinic day, our combined teams saw over 800 patients bringing our mission total to just over 4600 to date. We finally received our one lost piece of luggage which contained eye glasses and began to prescribe these today. Our pharmacists will be up late tonight restocking medical bags from a record number of prescriptions over the last two clinic days.

Should be an exciting next few days. Keep us in your prayers as we minster to this community.
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The link below will take you to Today's photos: http://flickr.com/photos/94059942@N00/sets/72157594475118555.
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The link below will take you to the video updates for Joy India team (requires Quicktime): http://www.firstdallas.org/Missions/