Reflections Of India, Before I Go Again...

Today I leave for India with my oldest son. Over the last 10 years I have had the opportunity of traveling to India to conduct mission trips 15 times. I am truly blessed!

This morning as I was running, I began to remember the experiences and feelings that have impacted my life. As I share some of these, please know my heart: God gets all of the glory. I am only a carrier of His Presence. I have had the privilege to:

• Run for miles along the Indian Ocean in the south, and hiked for miles in the Himalayas in the north.
• Preach the Gospel to crowds of thousands, and sit on the dirt floor in houses of poor farmers to share the Gospel.
• Ride multiple times on the Indian Railway, including a 37 hour journey (the very first time I rode the train in India).
• Hold and pray for a special-needs boy as his family received medical care.
• Sit with a village official in his home and pray with him to commit his life to Christ.
• Stand under a banyan tree and share Christ with 12 women, and watched as seven committed their lives to Him.
• Raise finances for a well in a village that had no fresh water.
• Preach in hundreds of churches, homes, and open-air meetings.
• Sit in the executive office of one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in India, and pray with him to commit his life to Christ.
• Go house to house in a leaper colony, praying for and hugging the leapers.
• Dine in the homes of Indian church planters, hearing their stories of God's moving.
• Run on city and neighborhood streets, praying as I ran for the people and the cities.
• Speak at the chapel service of one of the most prestigious Indian medical schools, where over 400 doctors, patients, and staff heard the Gospel.
• Minister and conducted medical camps in an area that was ravaged by a 100-year flood.
• Walk through dozens of schools, encouraging and praying for students and teachers, and sharing the Gospel.
• Organize and conducted hundreds of free medical camps in villages.
• Direct money raised from supporters to equip several sewing centers where a skill is taught to young women, and who hear the Gospel as they learn.
• Stand on a mountainside and see the remains of a village that was completely covered by a mudslide, where 46 people died.
• See and experience countless miracles of physical healing, restoration, and demonic release.
• Hear countless stories of God's daily provision and the opening of doors, from a former Muslim Believer who daily lays his life on the line to reach the 1.3 million Muslims in his city.
• Baptize former Muslims as new Believers in Christ!

I could go on for pages... Remembering God's faithfulness in all of this makes me glad that I will go again, and give myself for the sake of the Kingdom! As my wife is fond of saying, "When Brad goes to India, God shows-off, and he gets to be a part of it!"

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