Impartation

June 27th, 2010

For the past few days, we have been in an area where there is no internet receptivity.  Which feels so weird.  Picture this…

You drive down a rocky dirt road.  Small mountains surround you with greenery of many sorts: grass, coconut palms, small shrubs, oak trees.  No signs of human life. (which is nice cause in the cities their form of trash pick up is to litter.  Then apparently approx once a month or so the city comes by and tries to clean up the mess.)

Then the road turns and a village appears.  The houses are made of one of three options/types of materials.  Some are made of bricks that have been hand made and baked.  Some are made of slabs of granite that they have stood upright and put right next to each other then filled the vertical cracks with mortor and put a roof on it.  Then some still are made of wood and mud.  Yet interestingly enough, these villages all have power and Dish satellite!  It just doesn’t feel right.  But no internet.

Anyway, the past few days have been powerful times of impartation.  I had the privilege of teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit to other students there.    From there we’ve learned more and experienced more of the supernatural personally.  The Lord audibly gave Ravi detailed information regarding each person who came on this trip.  Including issues to be dealt with and future destinies to be called forth.

It has been so neat to hear so many of the things that God is going to be doing in peoples lives and to see people charged with the power of what God truly thinks about them.

On top of that we were able to go on a safari and visit a palace.  It was a wonderful time of both ministry and fun.  And on top of that in the mountains it was such a wonderful temperature for the middle of June.  It was like 60-70 degrees.

We finally ministered to a village where they were not very receptive at all to the gospel.  They were literally opposed to us.  For the most part…

We got to share the gospel with the kids at the local school.  They all listened and prayed at the end.  Then before too many came to oppose us, we had a brief gathering for the adults.  About 30 came to hear.  The gospel was preached.  About 4 clearly got the message and got saved.  One was a teenager who rose his hand way up in the air and prayed loudly the prayer of salvation.  It was really neat to see such boldness, even in the midst of strong peer pressure.

Then one night, I was trying to get reception on Ravi’s phone to email Joy and Ravi and I went on a walk.  As we were walking the opportunity arose and I got to see a demon, with my own eyes.  He was actually a long way off, and appeared to be afraid to get much closer.  He kept sort of pacing and eventually left.  The demon was afraid of those who know the true God dwells within them.

Only a few more days in India, and then I am heading to Texas for a little vacation with my beautiful wife and kids!  Pray for everything to be released and imparted that God desires.  And for safe travel from India back to the states.

Blessings to you all!  -Pastor Mark

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In the Mountains of Ooty

June 22nd, 2010

We drove for a really long time.  Started late, but that seems to be the norm.  Stopped frequently, and even got a flat tire.  Third tire, third vehicle to get one so far.

We (the Fenlasons and I) got to spend the day talking with Ravi on the way here.  It was great.  Then, when we got to the mountains it was beautiful.  We saw peacocks and deer and monkeys.  It reminds me much of Colorado where Joy and I met.

One more highlight so far I wanted to mention was hearing Ravi’s father’s testimony in person.  It is a little long to write tonight, but here is a quick gist.  His dad, Joseph, was born into a Hindu family who worshiped the snake God.  When he was one years old, he was dropped on accident and broke his shoulder.  The snake god priest said the snake god was not pleased with him at all and one day he would come against the snake god temple.

In order to please the snake god, his parents never took him to the hospital, so still today his shoulder is crippled.  Joseph grew up hating Christians and even stoned them.  Then one day he got saved.  He was banished from his family and grew in the Lord at a seminary.  Then he got sick from Cholera and died. He was dead for 2 days.  The students in the seminary cried out to Jesus on his behalf and theirs.  In the mean time, Joseph had a vision in heaven where Jesus told him that he had not called him to heaven yet, but to the earth.  Then he woke up in the mortuary next to all the dead bodies.  He screamed in fright. Then the Drs. came and rescued him.  To this day he has a death certificate.  He then went back to his home village and shared the gospel.  So many got saved that they went to the snake temple and killed the snakes and turned the temple into a church!

Our education continues again tomorrow, and now we have new villages to reach where Kingdom Foundations has no churches currently planted.  It is going to be a fun week.  Pray for us for abundant success this last week we are in India.

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India Trip

June 21st, 2010

Hopefully many of you have heard updates of sorts already, but here is an official one directly from me!

With two nine hour flights and couple hour layover in Germany, and including the time change it took us 2 full days to get to India.  We arrived after midnight in Bangalore, India.

I am surprised that the weather is not nearly as hot as Florida.  It is supposed to be the rainy season.  It’s been somewhat overcast, but not too much rain.  The weather has almost been cool at times.  Tomorrow we are heading to the mountains for a few days.  It is actually supposed to get cold there.  Ha, ha!

The past few weeks have been great.  We learned a lot about the Hindu religion, including the fact that in their old manuscripts include a reference to a blameless god that will come and be born of a virgin.  That has been a useful piece of info and helped to lead a local governor to decide to choose Jesus as his Savior.  We have all been stretched.  It has been really good for us all.

There is a team of people on the trip.  Many are from the university from which I graduated.  Some are from other countries in South America.  One lady is actually the sister of the director of the movie “Finger of God.”

Our days have consisted of evangelism training during the days to effectively reach the Hindu people.  Then in the evenings we have either been going to house to house in the villages or strengthening local churches that have already been planted.

We have already seen some amazing miracles and salvations.  One lady had a weird fever which effected her joints.  She had the fever for 3 months and could not bend her arms.  Upon praying for her, she received full mobility immediately and the fever was gone!  We have also seen a number of fevers break during outreaches to the villages.

Almost every home that we have entered has become a Christian home by the time we leave.  We split into groups and each group hits a couple of homes.  We have seen two sets of blind eyes healed.  Many times we have seen pain leave people’s bodies.  It is always amazing.

One of my favorite memories so far was seeing a man go from being an Atheist to a believer in 5 minutes.  Then right after that we prayed for he and his wife.  He was surprised to feel pain leaving his body so quickly and then his wife who was suffering from insomnia due to excruciating knee pain was totally instantly healed!  Daddy loves to pour out his favor when the lost come home.

We have been to two main temples here in India.  Each time we go declaring the power of Jesus.  We met a Hindu monk today.  I got a chance to talk with him about Jesus.  He was amazingly interested.   He said he really liked Jesus.  When posed with the question, “What do you do with the fact that this Jesus that you like said that He is the only way to heaven?” He came up with a very round about answer, “It was good for him to say that then.”  It was a neat adventure, but he seemed to have it settled that Jesus was just one of the many incarnations of the true God.

Today we also went to a Leprosy Hospital.  It broke our hearts to see these people with missing limbs.  I took many pics to show later.  We shared the gospel illegally and well over 50% got saved.  Maybe even 70%.  We gave them some food and prayed for each person.  One person’s arm grew in length and mobility.  It was pretty cool.

Most of us are pretty tired of rice and curry by this point, but this weekend we were able to eat at Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonalds.  But even at Pizza Hut they managed to put curry in the first piece I tried!  Back to rice and curry for the rest of the trip.

Let me know if you have any questions.  I am going to try and post regularly for the rest of the trip.

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