Visas, Bible Study and Fundraising

Hello, supporters and followers!

We are T-12 days from our departure to India and we are getting excited! We had another trip meeting last Friday that was incredibly productive.  Every time I (Whitney) meet with the Students, I get more and more excited about who God has called on the trip and what gifts they bring.

We started our meeting by going over a few details including the visa process.  It has been quite the challenge navigating the Indian Visa process - lots of forms, details and not the most streamlined process.  If you wouldn't mind saying a prayer for the whole process - that it would go smoothly, that everyone's visas would be approved, etc, that would be greatly appreciated.

Worship Team Practicing

We then broke out into our two teams - drama and music.  I went with the music team and it was a riot singing through some of the songs we'll be doing while on the trip.  We picked songs with lots of motions, fun parts, and it brought back a lot of memories from summer camps and children's programs.  Some of the students leading worship thought they didn't know the songs, but it turns out that we remembered most of them, even if we hadn't sung them in a while!

The drama team went over their drama while the music team rehearsed.  The drama team will be doing a "cooking show" drama that will show that there are hilarious (and sometimes disastrous) consequences when you don't follow the recipe!  The aim of the drama is to set up a testimony or two from our trip participants talking about why they chose Christianity and not another religion.  Many people in India are very accepting of Jesus, but to give up all other religions and to follow Christianity alone is a much more difficult sell in many cases.  We hope that our gospel presentation will help illustrate this, even though we may not speak the same language.

Working on our Bible Study Program

We then broke up into three teams, according to the age group the students would like to work with, and planned our evening program.  We will be working with students from ages 2-18 so there is quite a span there.  The first group, 2-5 planned lots of fun activities to engage the hearts and hands of the littlest kids at the children's home.  The next team, 6-10, planned lots of hands on games, activities and Bible stories to really get the kids to dig deeper in God's word.  The oldest group, 11-18, planned lots of fun outdoor activities, projects and study for the older kids.  I think each of our students will be great at leading the kids at the children's home.

And, finally, an update on our finances! If you are reading this blog, you're likely a sponsor or stockholder, so let me say THANK YOU! We have almost reached our fundraising goal.  I was overwhelmed this past Sunday when we saw $10,000 HKD raised after our first church service alone.  The generosity of the church and sponsors all over the world has blown me away.  That said, we are still (according to my calculations Sunday) about $6000-7000 HKD off of our goal.  This is totally doable, I believe! So prayers for additional fundraising would be appreciated.  Mostly, though, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity and partnership with us on this trip.

If you'd like to sign up to pray for us (officially) on our trip, you can visit the following link.

http://www.24-7prayer.com/signup/a3e64c

 Time slots are in 2 hour increments, and while we don't expect you to pray the whole time, we encourage you to be thinking of us and praying on and off throughout your two hour slot.  If you're not in Hong Kong, times listed are Hong Kong time.

Thanks be to God, and thanks be to the many people who have sponsored us, prayed for us, and blessed us with your love.  We are so excited to see how God will use us!

-The Team