Panjwani - May 2, 2008

From Shannon:

Thank you, thank you, thank all of you (!) for your prayers. We have entered into a very difficult time on many fronts.

I will say I have been tempted to be very discouraged by the teen-age girls. Even Pummi (who is very strong) seems to be too busy these days and is not putting the Lord first in coming to house church or discipleship or even Bible club very regularly. This is very unusual for her. She did come this morning and said her mother has been quite sick and she also has been sick for over a week. I encouraged her again in putting the things of God’s Kingdom first and then He will multiply her time for other things. She needs to make better choices with the limited time she does have.  She does work hard in her home and in the fields daily. Nayna has just returned from her in-law’s yesterday I heard yesterday. I have yet to see her.

Bible club is running well, but numbers of children are down somewhat. Again maybe harvest season, but it seems the ground is very hard right now. Please remember Soni in your prayers. She is the girl who professed faith during VBS. She came to meet me once and wanted to say she has not gone back on her profession, but I realized she somehow misunderstood that she could not continue idol worship while at the same time proclaiming Christ as Lord. I again explained to her the way of salvation by faith through Christ alone. I have not met with her since and need to find time to go to her home. Guddi is also remaining very busy and has charge over her entire house. She finds it hard to get away to come for teaching.

On an encouraging front, there are several ladies from a far away village who have come to the Lord and many have taken baptism (They came to Christ through a woman named Sunita, I think). They come about 2 hours travel by foot and by train to the big church on Sunday but have never had anyone to disciple them and admit that they don’t understand anything that goes on in the church.

I have wanted to teach the first of these ladies who became a Christian (Sunita) for the last 3 years, but she (and now these other ladies who have also become Believers) can only come in time for church on Sundays and then must catch their train immediately afterwards, so there was no time for me to teach. But just 2 weeks ago we revisited this issue. The women asked if I could call them for teaching on another morning of the week. We decided on Saturday mornings. They will come to our home, and Gloria (the nurse from Minnesota) has agreed to help with childcare so I can teach the ladies from 9-10am. I have also told Pummi and Sunita (the lady who works with us) about this meeting, because these village women are just like them—illiterate, from rather backward villages, and many are the only Believers in their families. I think it might be very encouraging for all of them to meet together since the Christians in the church here don’t really accept these village Believers from Hindu backgrounds. This coming Saturday is supposed to be our first meeting. Please pray that all may come and also for the teaching, as I speak in Hindi, and their mother tongue is a dialect, though they understand Hindi to a good degree. It’s just hard for me to understand them sometimes!

Again, we stand in such need of your prayers. Dinesh has been able to share with many people in the hospital since we returned, and one or two men have really become interested. One man whose name is Anil almost died from a snakebite but was treated here, and God raised him up. Dinesh shared with him, and he apparently became a Believer. He has been coming regularly for teaching, but again, he comes from quite far away. Pray for Dinesh. His heart is so much in ministry that it’s hard for him to have his heart in medical work these days.