Good Days & Other Days

Time has gotten away from me, it has been a week since I last wrote. We finished well in S. India. Thursday morning we spent an hour of our training time going over all the places these men are training and talking strategy about the future. They now say that they are training in 35 different locations and have 9 more in the planning stage. One man continues to talk about needing a training center and more funds to carry out the trainings since they are footing the bill for all the trainings they are doing. I had a frank discussion with them about our financial policies and how I thought they should proceed with the resources they have. One man said that I had an American perspective on all that and I agreed but reminded him of the scriptures we have looked at previously concerning finances and that perhaps I also had a biblical perspective. He quickly saw my point. I talked about how through multiplication they could do more training while doing less themselves. They are just beginning to get that concept in practice. All in all it was a very good discussion. They have a big vision but need guidance to carry it out well in a non dependent way.

As well as the training went in S. India it went in a different direction here in N. India. Only a few of the students had done their pre-assignments so they were not well prepared. I was quite surprised since they had done well in the past. I am not sure what the problem was. They had a meeting to talk about it after we left for the day and I am told they were quite repentant and made commitments to do better in the future. But it still meant we had to train with the students poorly prepared. This is the way ministry goes. Sometimes it is great and sometimes not. But God is gracious. I had to remember all the times the Lord has been gracious concerning my inexcusable failures. Overall, I think that we accomplished a lot in spite of the setbacks. We made significant progress in understanding how to preach the Psalms. The students are going home with renewed commitments and a fresh look at the grace of God.  

We had planned to do a conference with the Church of North India pastors starting tomorrow. But last week a major lawsuit by one of the constituent groups within the CNI was settled, after decades of fighting. The small group took many of the church buildings and parsonages and many pastors were put out in the street. The whole denomination is in turmoil. So, the conference was canceled. We now have 3 days to kill until we travel on to Thailand. We do not understand but as usual we just follow what the Lord provides.  

Al