Traveling Mercies

Monday, July 10: We arrived in Delhi tired but safe. Fourteen hours from Newark to Delhi is a long time on a plane. It’s been a while since we had a flight that long. We are not looking forward to the flight home next week. Our flight to Colombo was delayed by 2 ½ hours so we got in around 6:30 pm and to our hotel around 9 pm. We were fully ready for bed but slept well. So far, our new jet lag diet is working quite well and though we are tired and not exactly on the right sleep schedule, it is much better than usual.

On Sunday, we traveled to southern Colombo to a boy’s home where several churches had gathered for a camp retreat. I was asked to preach, which I expected and was prepared for, but I was not prepared for the request that I preach back-to-back sermons, separated by a tea time. Thankfully, I had planned to preach a sermon I preached two weeks ago on Ephesians 1:11-14. I had been discussing the next two passages with my son, who was scheduled to preach them next. So, that is what I used for my second sermon. It seemed to go well, at least from my perspective. 

It was a great joy to be reunited with our Sri Lankan pastors. I was not sure what to expect since I had not had good communication with them since last February. Most of them had passed on the training and we only need to tweak a few things to help them become more effective. Unfortunately, none of them had received the pre-assignment so they were not prepared well. We gave them time in the afternoon to do the necessary preparations. 

Edie had several ladies to train and that seemed to go well although the timing was a bit off. They waited for us for over an hour and then had to leave early so Edie only had one hour to go over Jonah 1. But the Lord once again helped and progress was made. Hopefully today she will have 2 ½ hours. We would have liked her to have more time, but it is better than nothing. 

The couple traveling with us who are considering joining our team are doing wonderfully. They are a delight to be with and we expect that they will be good additions to our team if that is how the Lord leads.

Al