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So this is the first time we have wanted to go on a trip of this sort and didn't raise A DIME!! We have always raised all the funds we have needed, even if just of in the nick of time. However this time we didn't. We sent letters and all the stuff we normally do, but nothing. We bought our tickets through a friends ministry with the idea that we would raise the money and reimburse her. However we didn't. I was totally stressed cuz we had never done that before either. We always raise the money buy our tickets, not the other way around. While I was in Spain, God was doing amazing things, my friend emailed me to tell me that the tickets were covered, they had a big donation. But we still needed the money to cover our stay in India. Ha!!! We didn't have a dime. We don't make hardly any money here in the states, I don't know how we survive, seriously, not with 9 kids. It is only God.
So we kept on going, praying that God would supply. about a week before our leaving I was crying out to God (stressed) about this trip. I wanted to be able to give our team the heads up that we wouldn't be able to go. We needed $1000 and had NOTHING. I had really been meditating on the name of God, "Jehovah Jireh" God my Provider. I don't really resonate with that name, and always struggle in this area. I asked God Sunday morning at about 6 am to please forgive me for stressing and if he wanted to provide, that would be great, we were going to spread His Gospel. However, if he would, would He do it Today! so that we could tell our team if we were going to be going with them or not.
At about 9am Bryan texted me from Church that someone had donated $1000 for our trip. Which is miraculous because we are new there and people don't know us. I know in India they experience things like this all the time (we do too really) but this time it was so much more. When we got to the conference there was a pastor who gave testimony. He said he didn't want to come. God told him to come to the conference and he decided not to. Then the Lord told him again to go. He didn't have a dime to get there, but he obeyed. He went to the bus station without any money and waited. This lady came to him and told him that the Lord told her to give him money for a bus ticket!!! He came to the conference, we met him!!! He didn't even have money to get home! He said that the teaching was such a blessing, God knew that he needed to be there!
Here we were, tickets paid for, and doubting if we should come cuz we didn't have the $1000 for the hotel and food in India. Dumb! This man was BEYOND blessed for what he learned at the conference and had we not obeyed and gone to India, canceled our trip, he would have not been blessed with the teaching and we would have never been blessed with his testimony. However, in India people struggle for so much more. He went with nothing trusting God would provide. Lesson learned (or so I think, I am really just like the Israelites) we had EVERYTHING we needed to get there and didn't trust!!!
India is deep in my. It has been amazing to see my hubby so deeply touched by this too. We can to bless others and got back far more blessing than we gave out. My mind is still overwhelmed by the time there, and I didn’t even really know what to blog. I don't know how I could explain India. It is nothing like the places I have been in Africa. A whole new world that is for sure. The sights, sounds, head bobbling, smells, tastes (all of which I enjoyed a lot, didn't loose a pound) but not too many words to describe, except Glorious. Isaiah says; His Glory fills the whole earth. It seems hard to believe in a place so dark that His glory still fills the whole earth, even the cracks and crevasses in India. However, I saw Jesus, in the faces of lost people. I saw Him lying on the sidewalk, sweeping trash, wading in knee high water and sewage, cooking on a little cart on the side of the road. I saw Jesus usher our bags in at the hotel, drive us to our destinations, preach on a Sunday, I saw him in the face of a little boy holding tight onto a motor bike full of other passengers. I saw Him most every where I looked, sometimes He was recognizable like in the face of our new family in India, sometime He was passed by like the poor old grandma begging on the street corner, BUT He was there!!!! Praise the Lord!
