India - Days 6 & 8

Our second village was named Dongaun and was actually just down the road from Domegaun.  Jesthrie's mother was actually from Dongaun and had agreed to accompany us to the new village (as did Jesthrie).  When we arrived in the second village, we started with a walking tour to get an idea of what the village looked like.  Donguan was significantly larger than Domegaun so the tour was pretty long.

We actually found that we were struggling this first morning.  We were still somewhat traumatized about having to leave the first village unexpectedly and one of our translators that we had come to rely very heavily on was moved to another team due to a misunderstanding among the local Indian leadership.  Satan was really using these two things to distract us and keep us from God's work.  We had pulled right into the home of a believer family and dozens of people were already gathered at the home.  We decided to excuse ourselves and pile into the back of the jeep to spend some time in prayer.  We again had been led right to the home of a group of believers.

In these Indian villagers, the people are led to believe that they are not smart enough to study God's Word.  They are told that they must wait for someone trained in the Scriptures to come and teach them.  Problem is that this only happens a few times a year so the people never really learn and grow.  We had combatted that in Domegaun and had taught the villagers how to study God's Word on their own.  We decided that is where God was leading us again.  Am pulled a group of the women together and studied with them while Kaylee and I did a program with the children.  The girl in the picture below is Jesthrie and you can see that she actually helped Am lead the study!  Here are some pictures of Am with her group of women and Kaylee with the children:

My favorite person in Donguan was a boy named Rauel.  There were a lot of older people in the village who just did not understand that we did not speak their language.  They would walk up to me and get very frustrated when I did not understand what they were saying.  Rauel followed me around and kept telling people that I was American and that I didn't understand them.  Rauel's dad was a school teacher and he was VERY smart.  He knew quite a bit of English so we had a lot of fun talking.  Here is Rauel:

Our second day in Donguan was spent at the house of one of the wealthier families in Donguan.  The man had a lot of land and used it as a place for the villagers to gather when a pastor did come to town.  He asked if we would come to his house and do some Bible studies there.  Am and Kaylee took one group while I took another and we spent some time training more believers in how to study the Word as a small group without needing a pastor to always be there.  These people were so hungry for God's Word and asked great questions.  In total between the two villages, we discipled over 50 believers.

After the Bible studies, the men wanted to show us their old church building.  One of the older men (had to have been in his 90s) had been the village pastor many years ago.  He brought us a journal where he had recorded all that had gone on at the church all of those years ago.  While we understood little of what the man said, it was extremely precious.  When we arrived at the church, I just wandered right inside.  One of the local men walked up to me and kept saying something in the local language.  I finally got one of our translators over to me and he explained that the man was telling me that the roof was very bad in the building so they always prayed when they met in there that the roof would not cave in on them.  Awesome!  Here we are at the church:



As I mentioned above, Rauel's dad was a teacher at the local school.  He had asked if we would be willing to come and speak to the children at the school.  We had originally said no due to the issues at the previous school but the man kept insisting and we eventually broke down.  It was the end of our last day of ministry so if we were going to get kicked out, now was the best time to do so.  The kids all gathered in perfect lines outside the building and listened as Kaylee told them the Gospel story (which was quite the challenge as we were told we could not use the name "Jesus"). 

After we were done, the headmaster explained to the kids that Christianity was good just like Hinduism is good and Budism is good.  He then had the kids meditate and recite a Hindu prayer for us.  It was confirmation that our job was not done.  The teachers did treat us extremely well and gave us gifts of flowers and then had the kids demonstrate a local game that they play in which the girls tried to catch the boys as they ran from one end of a field to the other.  Only one girl at a time could be chasing but she could tag another girl at any time at which time that girl would take over the chase.  Here are some pictures of us at the school and the kids playing the game:

While it was very difficult to have to leave Domegaun mid-week, we ended up having a lot of fun in Dongaun and really felt like God used us there.  In both villages we felt like we were leaving people who now had the tools they needed to study and grow in God's Word.