India Team

Welcome to the India Team 2012 page.

Here you can keep up to date with all the news from the team and read daily blogs when we are over there. The most exciting news at the moment is that we have the dates we are going! We will be leaving the UK on Wednesday 9th May and returning from Kolkata Wednesday 23rd May.

The purpose of this first team is to be a strategic team. To develop the partnership we have with Big Life Ministries and to see the best ways we can bless and help them. But to also see how the life and ministry of Big Life can influence and encourage us here at ABC.

Please keep checking this page for updates on the team and where we are with fundraising and how you can support us in prayer.

March 2012

We have raised all the money we need! Thank you to everyone who has donated money and blessed us with this!

April 2012

Prayer requests from the team:

Andy – For leading the team – for wisdom, compassion and understanding. For health before the wedding and the ability to cope with the poverty and need that he will see.

Janet – An excitement for how God is going to use her. Confidence to respond to the challenges. For the team to gel and do God’s will while they are in India.

Zoe – Concerns about the heat and the challenges of different religions.

Yvonne – For her health – that she would not fall ill with her leukaemia.

Clive – that Marilyn would be safe here and that he would not keep others awake with his snoring! But also that he will be able to serve in the way God wants him too.

Maureen – Someone to look after her dog while she is away. To learn to be compassionate both in India and when she returns. A chance to give back to God.

Steve – To have his heart broken and changed. Really feels that he is going for a reason – not entirely sure what yet. For his family while he is away and also for finances while he is away as there will not be his income coming in.

3rd May 2012

Here is our Programme for when we are out in Kolkata. Please pray for us as we are serving in all these different areas.

10-05-12  Thursday   :        Arrival  /  Rest  / Orientation

11-05-12  Friday       :        Visit to GNCEM Mobile School

12-05-12  Saturday   :        Rest /Sightseeing /Shopping

13-05-12  Sunday     :        Church Services

14-05-12  Monday     :       Visit to Big Life Ministry fields

15-05-12  Tueaday    :       Visit to Big Life Ministry fields

16-05-12  Wednesday:      Visit to Freeset

17-05-12  Thursday   :       Visit to Big Life Ministry fields

18-05-12  Friday       :       Visit to Big Life Ministry fields

19-05-12  Saturday   :       Rest & Reflection

20-05-12  Sunday     :       Church Services

21-05-12  Monday     :      Visit to Freeset

22-05-12  Tuesday    :      Visit to National Fellowship-Church planting ministry

23-05-12  Wednesday:     Reflection/departure

May 11th 2012

Hello from a very hot and humid Kolkata, West Bengal. We are currently in 42c/108f We have had a very busy few days but have seen and done wonderful things. Travelling over here was fairly stress free, which was a huge blessing.

Our first day in Kolkata was spent resting and getting over the 24 hour travelling. Very much needed sleep, and praise God both the girls room and guys room have AC!

Friday we were privileged to spend the day with Good News Childrens Education Mission (GNCEM). We have visited 6 different schools today all part of and run by GNCEM.
God is amazing and has done things here beyond what our western hearts and minds understand and can even comprehend!!!

We where met at 8am by a bus to take us to the mobile school, full of street and dump children, what a Baptism of fire it was full with over 60 small children crammed onto a bus that in the UK would only be allowed to sit 15, and they where all over us all. They lead all of the team to seats and pushed the other children off them so we could sit down, it was is if we were royalty. We then travelled with them to see their school with them for 3-5 year old’s. They have up to 80 at the mobile school (the mobile bit is them picking up the children). We were asked to teach the girls and boys some songs, of course we hadn’t prepared for this as Andy said we would only be helping, bit it was great to be thrown into it. We played games with the children, duck, duck, goose. However the word for Duck and Goose are the same in Bengali! So the next time we did cat, cat, dog! After this Stephen did the ‘coke-rocket’ with Mentos and spoke about how with God in our lives we overflow with his love for him and others. This demonstration was so well received by Pastor Su Bil, the founder of GNCEM, Stephen had to do it at every place we visited. But it was a very powerful time.

After that we moved on to the Dasapara school for 5-10 yrs. This is a Middle School for children from the local area. They are taught all subjects and are given a broad education. They are currently looking to build a bakery to bake 1000 buns a day to give to the street children around the area. Also trying to get certification from the Indian Government so their exams can be accredited.

We then went on to see the baby care nursery 6 months to 3 years. They bring the babies who aren’t able to go to the mobile school here. They feed them and wash their clothes and teach them basic numbers and alphabets. One thing GNCEM are very passionate about is following and investing in the children from babies to adults. We met one of their teachers and church pastors who was 26 and had been a child of GNCEM from the age of 6!

Then to see their training building which is in mid-build. They want to use this for training people in Theology and also receiving teams. After that we went The Bill Education Centre, a boarding hostel for girls 10-16 yrs where the girls did different dances for us, then last but no means least we went to the boys boarding hostel The Good News Education Centre for boys 10-16 yrs again they danced for us. At all the schools we did songs, the coke rocket talk and we prayed and played games with all the children bar the nursery as the babies where trying to have a nap.
You have never seen prayer like this, the children pray here as if their life depends on it! so so amazing! Each of us has been touched in so many ways, I can’t even explain Gods power. These girls were praying as if their life depends on it, and for some of them it does! We were privileged to be there on their last day of school before they went home. Now home for some of them is a flat, but for a lot of them it is the street. For them GNCEM is a sanctuary. 5 out of the 7 of us had a word/prophesy/feeling from God that he was going to use one of their girls, Ibonni, very powerfully. Janet, Yvonne, Zoe and Maureen all prayed for her and it was a very moving and spirit filled moment. We didn’t realise but the whole school were watching from the balcony what was going on! We then sat down for a much need cup of tea.

After this we went to the boys hostel. Again we played games with them, to start with they were very stand-offish with us but by the end they were very open to us. We prayed with them and lead a song with them and again watched them pray with that same passion and zeal the girls did. It taught us all a lot about prayer.

The way this Mission takes kids from 6 months to 16 years old talk about looking after kids and changing kids lives forever with the amazing power of God. Talk about the power of their mission and the vision it takes WOW!

May 12th 2012

Today is another 42c day! However it was our rest/reflection and sightseeing day. It was great to drive around Kolkata, and an experience!, and get to see a bit of the City we are here to serve and an understanding of the context we are in.

We came back to a wonderful lunch and in the afternoon we shared a simliar story, song and ‘coke-rocket’ sketch to a group of Muslim children they have coming here to BMS every Saturday. What a joy it was to see.

We will, this evening, go and have a walk around Kolkata and spend some time as a team.

Appreciate your prayers for tomorrow as Clive is preaching and we will be at different Churches all day. Bless you all.

May 13th 2012

Please pray this morning for the ladies. They had lovely visitors: two huge cockroaches and a family of ants! Don’t worry they taught the cockroaches how to skydive.

We are just off now to Big Life church where Clive is preaching.

Clive’ sermon at Big Life church went extremely well. The Lord was working in many hearts. We all as a team had the privilege of praying for people and seeing people encouraged and challenged on things. Big Life church is an English speaking church and they sang modern songs, it was nice to be somewhere that felt familiar. We met a women called Helen who is from Essex, she is marrying a guy from Big Life Ministries called Patricke on 26th May. We were all invited to the wedding but will be back in England!

We then went to lunch to Gill Francis, Ben Francis’ wife. Good time of fellowship and relationship building with the ministry.  In the evening we attended one of their house fellowships. Apparently there was about a 1/3 more people there than usual as there were white people coming. The service was in Bangla but we understood and felt in our hearts what God was doing with them. It was roughly an 11 hour day.

May 14th 2012

Today was our first day out with Big Life. It was an evangelism mission. The Big Life workers had been to this particular village the week before and already made some relationship with some of them and found a few ‘people of peace’ who opened their homes to us. As a team we went off in 3 groups to different houses. One team went to 3 houses, one to 2 houses and one to 1 house. This particular village was a Hindu Village and on every street corner there we temples to Idols, all of them very ugly and scary looking.   One of them had serpents on the top which summed it all up for us really. It felt very dark spiritually in the village. However in the afternoon we went a played games with the children and young people. We played Cricket with them, no mean feat in 44c/112f! and football with the young lads. Strangely enough Andy, even though he hates football, was the only one to score against one of the locals who was a very good goal keeper, he managed to keep Stephen and Clive’s volleys out! They give out 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes to the children and adults who won the games. They take down their names so they can then pray for them and when they see them again they will know their name!

After the games, in  which nearly all the village were involved in some way, they played the Jesus film for Children as there were lots of small children there. The child’s version takes sections of the story and shows the children in the crowds around Jesus and tells the story for the children’s point of view. The film was in Bangla but Stephen has bought a copy in English for 150 rupee’s, or £1.80. The film was about an hour long and we then left the village. The Big Life team will now follow up every week with the houses we visited and the people we met. It was a very long day, about 12 hours so are all very tired but it was amazing to see the model worked out. We have read about it and and seen it on a DVD but in real life was something different.

May 15th 2012

Today we started at 9 am. It was a 3 hour journey to the village we went to. 2 1/2 hour car journey and then 3o mins by boat. It was a traditional finishing boat, powered by a petrol engine. We were on the Bangladesh/India boarder, one side of the river Bangladesh and one side India. We stayed on the India side. Today was a medical camp. Big Life had never been to this village before. They set up camp under a large piece of tarpaulin, provided by the locals and the locals gave us all as a team chairs, a recurring theme when going anywhere. The village was a traditional mud hut and straw roof fishing village, no electricity or communication at all.

The village we found out was completely wiped out in 2008 with the bad flooding after the cyclone that hit and they had re-built all of it again. A lot of lives were lost.

After about 5 mins many of the village were lined up to see the doctor and get prescriptions. The doctors treats all kinds of illness’. They take what is basically a portable chemist with them and give out medication there and then. After they had this we were around to pray for people, the village was a mixed Hindu/Muslim village. A lot of people wanted prayer. We prayed for a man who’s leg was twisted and withered from birth, his name was Naran Sarda. We so wanted a miracle for Naran but nothing happened physically. However after Clive had shared his testimony and the Gospel with what was now a crowd of 50-60, Naran gave his life to Christ! The greatest healing of all, salvation. Clive spoke about how Jesus gathered fisherman around him, very culturally sensitive as most of the men were fishermen. The team split then into two one lead by Clive and one by Andy. We went to two people’s home’s who had invited us back to share with them.  Both Clive and Andy shared the good news of Jesus through reading scripture and testimony with the people, being interpreted into Bangla. We were touched by people’s openness to us as people, this was the first time most of them had seen White people and the first time they will have heard about Jesus. At the end of the day we found out that 12 people had become Christians and two house fellowships started, praise be to God!

Clive earlier in the week had had a picture/prophesy of Zoe painting and a huge crowd around her, this is exactly what had happened. Zoe felt prompted by God to paint the house that her, Andy and Maureen were at. It took her 12 mins to capture the image and by the time she had finished there were about 30 people surrounding her. It was a beautiful picture which she had inscribed ‘God Bless You’ at the bottom. One of the Big Life team then wrote it in Bangla above it so they knew what it meant. Zoe then presented it to the owner of the house who was watching with intent as she painted, he was very touched and in awe of it. He took it and showed his wife straight away. Big Life left some literature and some Gideon’s New Testament and Palms in Banlga for them to read. Some will then come back to the village next week and repeatedly to follow up and do some more evangelism. Eventually they will train up a person of peace in the village to lead so they can be self sufficient and only visit every month or so.

We then had to leave the village, we had a lot of the village followed us the mile back to the boat. Naran followed us all the way, walking with Clive and one of the Big Life Pastors, even though he only had one leg that worked properly and he was most probably in pain walking. Three of the villagers, including Naran, went on the boat with us back to car and waved us off!

What a wonderful day it was today, we were blessed to see it all happen and be part of the story of the people and their village.

May 16th 2012

Today we were meant to go to Freeset however under the guidance of Anou, the manager here at BMS, we didn’t go but had a rest day. After 4, 11/12 hour days we were all shattered and needed some rest. So instead we spent a long time in the morning reflecting on the the past few days and enjoying just being and re-charging physically and spiritually. Especially needed for the next two days with Big Life. We will go to Freeset on Monday as planned to see the work they are doing there.

May 17th 2012

Today was a hard day for many of us! It was extremely hot and tiring. For a lot of us we struggled for the 8th day in a row of being over hot and tired. However we soldiered on.

Today we were in a village that Big Life had been to before. There were a few house congregations there. We were split into three teams and visited 6 houses. A great time spent encouraging the Christians in the town to continue in the Lord and to teach and preach the gospel to others. Also a great time sharing the gospel with villagers who were open to it and who had opened their homes to us to come in and speak.

Clive was training some of the Big Life Church Planters whilst the rest of the team were playing sports with the village. We had men and women, young and old playing all sorts of games and building relationship with them. Stephen was playing football with the teenage boys for about 2 hours! Bless him, He was shattered.

Clive had a blessed and wonderful time teaching, he was teaching on integrity, managing church growth and discipleship. They were hungry for this teaching and wanted to know God more and understand what He is calling them to do.

After a fairly long day we headed back to BMS and had a good time of reflection as a team. Talking about Big Life and our future partnership with them. We are very excited about a future with them and what we feel we can offer them as a ministry.

Pray for us for tomorrow as we go out to do another medical camp and help us to expect miracles and see God move in peoples lives.

May 18th 2012

Today was our last day out with Big Life. It was slightly cooler, 39c, which was a relief for some of us! We were told we needed to leave at 10am sharp, that is Indian sharp, which we figured out means ‘within an hour of when we said’.

Today we went to the North of Kolkata to do another medical camp. Big Life had never been to this village before. We arrived and Clive went off to train some more of the Big Life church planters, you can’t be called a church planter for Big Life until you have planted 5 churches! There were about 15 church planters there to hear Clive’s teaching. It was well received and they were hungry to get deep into the Bible.

When we arrived there seemed to be a bit of a problem with one of the village elders, or ‘dons’ as Gill Francis said, but the problem was if we had let him know we were coming he would have made sure there was hundreds of people to see us! The rest of the team were helping at the medical camp. The doctor, Dr T who goes out with Big Life, checked out over 100 people. We had a privilege of praying with loads of people and seeing them touched by the love of Jesus. There was one man who was fairly old and had breathing problems, after we prayed he said his breathing was much easier! Praise God.

Whilst this is happening Maureen has started a nail painting ministry. It has been really effective in other villages and they loved it here to. She painted over 27 pairs of hands whilst teaching the children a little bit of English and telling them why we are in the village. Yvonne was praying for loads of young girls and they kept asking for more prayer. Then she went on to skip with them and do a skipping competition with skipping rope made out of washing line. Stephen had the privilege of praying for loads of people and engaging in many different sports with the local teenage boys, getting them interested in what we were doing. Zoe was drawing a scene of Dr T giving out medication and people receiving it but then got all the children who were there involved by getting them to draw something. Janet was praying for many people and there was a huge crowd of girls around her just happy to be in her presence! Andy had the privilege of sharing the gospel with the crowd. The Zonel Leader for Big Life gathered all the people in and Andy read John 1:1-3 and told them who Jesus was and what he had done for them. After this the Big Life team started to give out Gideon’s New Testament and psalms, the people were fighting over them. They were falling over one another to get hold of a Bible, it was quite a scene. To see the hunger and excitement of learning about Jesus was inspiring and humbling.

After this we went a prayed for a man’s home, this was a new home who someone had invited us back to. After praying and singing the father of the household came out really wanting prayer. We prayed with him as he cried and was released from many things. What an honour it was to be part of that mans and villages journey.

Tomorrow we have a rest day, which is much needed i am quick to add. Andy will spend time reading over his sermon as will Clive, as Clive is preaching at 8:30 at Collinger Baptist Church and Andy at 10:30 at Big Life Church. All of team will be preping testimonies, readings, skits and songs to do in the churches. As we have found out if you go anywhere you are asked to share something! But the main thing we will do is re-charge. Pray for us that we will re-charge mentally, spiritually and physically.

May 19th 2012

Today was a wonderful day of rest. We had a good three hour reflection and time to discuss our report for Emit and the Church. We also spent time preparing for the services tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon we had a good time of relaxing and went to a shopping centre and had coffee. Good time of fellowship with each other and grow deeper together. We have all realised this week the value of spending quality time with other members of the body. Its great to spend time in fellowship encouraging one another, challenging one another and growing together. Its not always been easy however. But the value far outweighs any negatives.

In the evening we went to a western Italian restaurant called Fire and Ice, it was so good we have booking in for Sunday night also. It was good to give our stomach’s a rest from curry and have familiar food.

Thank you for all your prayers for relaxation and our sermons tomorrow. They have been answered!

May 20th 2012

What a busy day we have had. Clive preached this morning at 8:30am at Pastor Asit’s church, Colinga Baptist Church. It was a Bangla Service so Clive was interpreted. He preached on Acts 19, about the spiritual battle in Ephesus and related it to the spiritual battle going on in Kolkata. There are so many idols in Kolkata, most streets have a small temple to a Hindu god. Clive’s message was well received and encouraged the people to stand firm in Jesus.

We then went to Big Life Church where Andy was preaching. Zoe, Janet and Yvonne, plus Stephen, all shared Testimonies about their week with Big Life on the field. It was very powerful and special to hear what the team had experienced and how that had changed and affected them and the many ways that the Lord had touched individual lives and whole communities. Andy preached from Philippians 3:13 with real passion and clarity encouraging individuals and the Church and Big Life Ministries to ‘Press On’! We also had a word for Big Life as a ministry that Clive shared with Gill Francis, the word was greatly received and we give Glory to God for that.

We then had the pleasure of Skyping back to our wonderful church family. It was great to see so many faces we recognise and to feel the support and love of our family.

Clive spent an hour mentoring one of the Big Life leaders called Dep. Dep is a church planter and evangelist with Big Life. Clive had a great time sharing with him on a personal level and giving him encouragement and advice. After we all had a nap…the hard life of short term missionaries!

After we had gained conciousness we went to Fire and Ice again for some Dinner. We had to wait a while to get a table but it was great to have some more western food!

Tomorrow we are going to Freeset to work all day so pray that we can serve in anyway we can.

May 21st 2012

Today we went to Freeset. Freeset is a Christian orgainisation that helps women who have been forced into, trafficked into or gone into prostitution. There are many reasons why women will go into prostitution, lack of money, lack of opportunities, forced by boyfriends or husbands to earn more money. Some of the stories of the women were very moving.

Freeset started 12 years ago when a husband and wife, Kerry and Annie, from New Zealand felt a call to work in Kolkata. They moved to Kolkata in 1999 with their 4 children. They were youth pastors in New Zealand before with a large baptist church. When they came over to Kolkata they weren’t really sure what they wanted to do, but they knew that God wanted them to work with the street girls. They live in Sonagacchi, which is where Freeset is based. Sonagacchi is the largest Red Light district in Kolkata. So they set up Freeset which is a factory that makes bags, t-shirts, wallets etc. They use fair-traded and organic cotton and Jute to make their products. All of the Jute is grown around Kolkata and the cotton from southern India.

Every morning they have a devotion for the women and because of this many of the women have come to a faith in Jesus and experiencing new life.

They train all the women, about 170 to date, to sew and work sewing machines. They also train them to to work the printing machine which prints the t-shirts and bags. We were helping with a huge order of 12,000 bags they had to do for a Women’s Conference in the US.

We had to trim the bags of all the cotton left after it had been sewed together. A job that was not very exciting but a job that was valuable and needed doing. There were mountains of bags to do when we arrived and mountains of bags to do when we left! However it was great to spend some time seeing what Freeset do and also spend time with Kerry and Annie. Seeing and catching their vision, their vision to reach 10,000 women!

About an hour before the end Kerry asked for 2 people to go with him as he goes to see one of his managers. So Clive and Yvonne went with him. They went down a few alleyways that in the evening are full of women, about 600 women down a an alley  no wider then 4 ft.

We had a wonderful day serving and seeing the work that Freeset do and are doing.

Tomorrow is our last day of reflection. Pray that we can see the value of the work we have done and give Glory to God for that and transformation of so many lives by his wonderful love.