Well it's still weekly...

Important news just in...

Better than the weekly update from me why don't I share a little bit from the update I just received from Steve Bock - and friend and staff member at WBC who recently hosted a group of Cross Current Students in India.

Steve shared about the staff training times they attended. The pastors he connected with there conveyed the disappointment many young leaders faced when they could not attend our training programs. Now I've been to these programs and it's not like the programs you may imagine. There's no parties and movie nights, go-kart racing or special events designed to maintain the interest of the youth. While these things are necessary to engage our culture it is not the case in a place like India. Instead these are intensive training sessions, prayer times (which by the way they had to limit to not begin before 4 or 5 in the morning because many of the youth were getting up too early to pray) and worship. I wish every young person who wanted to come to these programs could. Instead we only accept 4 from each church. That put in on the pastors to tell tearful youth they could not attend these sessions. It gives me some new drive to tell people that it only costs $10 to remedy this problem!!!

One of the neat things is the Steve B went with Terri and me to India for the first camps in 2003 and hasn't returned since. At one of the training programs they asked how many of the attendees of the program had been campers at that original camp and Steve shared how dozens of hands went up. It's neat to see the students become the teachers!!!

Here's a MONSTROUSLY ENCOURAGING UPDATE FACT. Currently they are tallying the number of campers that attended in May. Between 65,000-70,000 campers will be counted. How do we not know you might ask? What kind of ministry are we running that we don't know the simple stats like camper numbers. The answer is simple. In one case we sponsored 50 campers at one church however, after several visits to our office in Trichy the church had collected enough material for 250 campers! Talk about 5 loaves and 2 fish! While it is true it cost approximately $5 to send a child to camp in India the churches we sponsor always seem to find ways to extend the influence and reach more and more children. I hope that can finally put to rest the criticism we constantly are confronted with that contributing to projects like this creates a dependency on North American dollars. Those who make these accusations obviously have not met our partners in India. These churches are not asking for handout - they want tools to reach more people. And this money sent does not make life easier for them. Instead they work harder and longer, stretch further and bear more fruit.

I like this... Steve B shared a little about my friend Thomas. Thomas is one of the 15 full time staff in India. He is a wonderfully gifted song writer (you should see and hear him - the kids just love him). One of his songs is the story of the David and Goliath. Steve B started to draw the connections between David and Thomas and suddenly I could see why Thomas connected so deeply with this song (and sang it all the time). Like David Thomas is the youngest in his family. While growing up he felt he was too weak to do anything (did I mention he grew up in an orphanage because his parents - who were pastors - could not afford to feed him). However, God used David to do incredible things. And that's what Thomas has done - he has personally influenced thousands of children.

I could go on and on but there's work to be done. Please pray for us as we try to spread the word and raise the necessary funds to see this move ahead. I wonder if the window of opportunity is nearing a close. Already we are hearing rumbling of coming persecution. Now is the time!!! Gotta go!