One week from this very minute, Daryl and I will be on a LONG flight from Chicago to London! It's hard to believe our trip is finally upon us after months of planning and dreaming! I am excited, but now a bit overwhelmed with all of the last minute details (packing, shopping for gifts, getting shots, making sure I have converters and adaptors for electronic devices that will work, getting projects at work completed before I go, preparing 10 sermons to preach while I am there, keeping on eye on the weather forecasts in India, etc.).
I'm really excited that Daryl can join me--especially since this will be his first foreign mission trip. It will be a GREAT experience for him in a lot of ways, but I can't imagine a place where he would have greater culture shock (and jet lag) than India. I expect India to be more different than the US than anyplace I have been before. We'll see. It will be really interesting to see what Daryl thinks of it all.
Most of you know this, but we are going to visit Ricky Gootam, a young man about Tom's age who used to be the campus minister at OSU for the Stillwater Church of Christ. Ricky went back home to evangelize his native India a few years ago, and we have kept in contact with him since that time.
He does great work there, from preaching throughout the region, preaching on national TV (with a viewing audience of 10 million people), teaching through Bible correspondence courses (2 MILLION enrolled) and running an orphan's home for about 50 children. I'm really excited to see all of that for myself!
I do hope that you all will check our blog often while we are gone and not forget about us! We will do our best to keep you informed as to what we are doing. We will be 11-12 hours ahead of you, so you should be able to check our blog daily and see what we did that day if you want. We are hoping we can figure out how to download photos on here too!
PLEASE keep us in your prayers! Pray that God will bless us and use us to bring glory to Him on this trip. We want to preach the Gospel, encourage and build up the local churches there, encourage Ricky and the other evangelists AND encourage all of you by reporting on the great effect that God is having on people's lives in India. Can't wait! See you all tomorrow!
Grace and peace,
Steve
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2 comments:
very exciting. so wish i could go too! what a great experience and opportunity this is....
let me know if i can help with any last minute preparation...
God Bless, nellie rae.
steve,
take care of the preacher for me. i love him very much and i want him (and you, too, of course) to come back home to us!
i'll be praying for both of you.
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