Quick update. As you may have read in the news, there is much craziness in Leh right now because of a “cloudburst”. We didn’t have a team in Leh at the time, we are all fine, and God’s grace has continually been shown to us in our travels. Everyone on Massah is doing great! Thanks for your prayers.

Aaron

I am finishing up the end of a very hard week. I have been in a place that is very spiritual and full of drugs, especially chilum (a drug used in Hindu worship). I has been very hard to talk to people, but we have. We went to a small village and were able to talk to people. There everyone knew who we were and what we believed and we left on good terms. God can use any interaction and I pray he used these in particular. We have traveled back to the main town for a couple of days. Here it is hard to find a place to talk to people, but we have ran into people that we met in the village. Even though we did not bring up the Gospel on these conversations I know that every time they see us they remember what we believe.

The climate and mountains have been amazing. It is so beautiful here. Also we have had a lot of rain so we have walked across washed out bridges, driven over waterfalls on the road, driven over half roads with a hole and a 300 foot drop 6 inches away. Right now it sounds that the road that connects us to the rest of the group (which we wanted to travel on tomorrow) is washed out. I would like to end this with prayer for everyone’s safe travels as well as all of the seeds that have been planted while we were in India. May God continue to work in peoples hearts.

Oh India, you are nothing of what I expected. Delhi was worse then I expected and Dharamsala is better then I expected. Delhi smells so bad it tastes bad. I was wondering how I could be in this smell, dirt, mud, and what ever else that stuff was, for a month? Luckly we were not in Delhi long, but traveled quickly to Dharamsala. Dharamsala is up in the mountains and is very lovely. The forest and Mountains are amazing. It reminds me a lot of the California Mountains that I have been missing. It even adds a bit of Washington rain and Fresno fog (I am at home-ish).
We have been here for a number of days.  We have talked to a lot of people, and have given out 5 New Testaments. Some people are more open then other, but God can use anything. I would like to ask for prayer for the seeds that have been planted, especially the ones receiving books. Also since we are spending a lot of time in coffee shops, the people around us are often smoking (cigarettes and other stuff), so if you could pray for our groups discernment on who is really open and who is not. Also this is a spiritually dark place with a lot of idolatry and unusual spiritual practices, so if you can pray for God’s protection. Thanks for all of your support. I know that we would be unable to do what we are doing with out this prayer support back home. Thanks, and my God’s grace and peace go with you all.

So many nights we go out and talk to people who are enjoying the Tel Aviv night life. Last Thursday my team, four of us, went to the Tel Aviv port. In this area there are a lot of clubs. Clubs are very exclusive in Israel, so there are many people waiting outside trying to get in. Some  are at the door not paying attention to anything but the doorman. Others are waiting for friends to meet them. These people are totally willing to talk about anything until there friends arrive. The first thing we did was stop at a store to get coffee cause it had been a long day and its now midnight. There we talked to the two baristas cause everyone wonders why we Americans are out in the Tel Aviv night life. They often think we are on birthright, this allows us to explain our group, what we think and so on. Later we went to an area around a club. Elissa and I started talking to these three gentlemen who have known each other since they were boys. They were good friends. One guy did most of the talking; he is mostly happy being a secular Jew, but he has some issues dealing with hurt and loneliness. We were able to tell him about how we deal with these issues through our relationship with Y’shua. As we were leaving I asked if they know about Y’shua more then just from movies. They did not really know much. So I took out a Brit Chadash, a new testament in Hebrew. I told them what it was and that it has reliable and true information about Y’shua. They took it to looked at it and were very impressed that it was in Hebrew not English. After looking at it they wanted to give it back, I said I had one and that they should keep it. They said they did not know what to do with it while they go out, then I suggested that since it was small it could fit in a pocket. The end of this story is that the four of us talked, on a first name basis and everything, to 8 people about the gospel and gave out one New Testement, all in one hour. Wow God can do amazing things with a tired team of workers.

So last week we went traveling around Galilee. It was a lot of fun and created many stories and memories for our team. I am sure some will be shared by other members. For me the major impact was looking at the Israel-Lebanon boarder. This boarder was the spot of war only four years ago. From where we were, Nimrod’s Fortress, it looked so peaceful. It looked like a farmland and reminded me of home. I was thinking about how even though this boarder has created war there were no troops stationed waiting for the next fight. Yes it is being watched, but I am still shocked that there are no troops directly on the boarder. This is surprising since many boarders that have experienced less war and violence have more troops and or walls/fences between them. If you did not know what you were looking at you would not know it was a disputed boarder. Here is a picture from Nimrods Fortress. The left side is Israel and the right is Lebanon.

Our group has grown so much here in Israel. Much of it has been during our down times. We are 12 people from many walks of life around North America. We all come with our own stories and cultures. It is very impressive that we have formed a tight unit so quickly. The guys rutinely have prayer time together before we go to bed. As well, the entire group often spends our free time together rather then splitting into small sub-groups. We are all learning a ton about eachother though these unschedualed times. I know this will help us support eachother through the rough times that will be ahead of us. Please pray that we will continue to grow together and learn from eachother.