After many hours of traveling beginning on Thursday, June 14, we finally arrived in Patna, India on Saturday morning. This was one of the first pictures I took on our bus ride from the airport to our hotel.
We met up with our team of a total of 79 missionaries (including our team of 15 from Boone) at our hotel and quickly got thrown into our adventure. We stayed awake, although we had only slept a little in the various airports and on the plane. We had breakfast, an intro meeting, put our things in our rooms, and loaded up the buses to head to a women's conference.
The picture below is of the busy street right in front of our hotel. Busy sounds fill the air and the constant sound of car/motorbike/bus HORNS are always heard out on the street.
On Saturday we participated in the largest women's conference in the history of the city of Patna. Here are a few pictures:
People were bused in from all over to attend the first conference of its kind!
They welcomed us with flower necklaces and celebration. We were ushered right to the front where we sat for the conference.
It was hard to stay awake after being up for over 48 hours and sitting in a room with well over 400 people and the temperature being over 110 degrees! We stayed hydrated, that's for sure!! It is very hot and humid in India in June, especially when we were wearing traditional Indian dress.
One thing that stood out to me, was the warm hearts of the people of India. They are true servants with the most humble attitudes. They made sure we were treated with the most respect and honor, although we were there to serve them. It was a truly humbling thing to experience. No matter what location we were at, the hotel, the church, or the orphanages, the Indian people were always making sure we were ok and places to sit and something to drink.
People were piled in to the church from wall to wall...men, women, and children. An incredible moment during the conference happened when one of our speakers, Hannah, an incredible woman on fire for God, turned and addressed our American team and said, "Missionaries go pray for someone!" First of all, I have never referred to myself as a missionary, but at that moment I thought to myself, "I am a missionary and I am on the mission field." We were in an incredible place literally serving as the hands and feet of Christ. Secondly, as I turned around to see the response of the women to the message, I was in awe of the Spirit of the Lord moving in that place. Every single person in the room was standing, with both arms raised, eyes closed, and in full worship of the Lord. What an incredible moment!!
As our team moved throughout the room to pray for women and young girls, we found ourselves climbing over chairs and people just to reach out our hands and embrace women who were experiencing God for the first time. I had the opportunity to pray for so many people, it is hard to put into words everything that we experienced, but I'll share just a few stories.
One woman who was blind in one eye, received her sight...WOW is all I can say. I know that there were countless amounts of miracles that took place that day that we may never even hear about, but they happened and God was experienced in a new way and for the first time by many people.
Another woman was prayed for by several of our team members and when they asked if anyone needed healing, she identified a pain in her side. We laid hands on her stomach and began to pray. After several minutes, she moved her hand to her knees, and then again after minutes of prayer moved her hand to her throat, and then to her back. We wondered if she understood what we were praying for so we four someone to translate between us. She explained that as we were praying the pain would cease in the area we were praying over and jump to a different place on her body. We stood her up in the aisle and a group of us laid hands all over different parts of her body where the pain had been and PRAYED! We prayed and prayed and prayed until each of us felt a release in our spirit, as if it was finished. When we opened our eyes and asked how she felt, she proclaimed that Satan had had a gip on her life and on her body, but now all pain was gone and she had been set FREE!! All of our arms shot up, including hers and we praised the Lord in our own mini-revival experience right there in the aisle of the church.
I have never experienced such an immediate urgency to pray for people. As I approached each woman and/or child, it often took me a moment to even bring any words to my mouth to pray because I was overwhelmed with their reach and hunger for God. Although they often had no idea what we were saying to them or praying over them, they believed in a BIG GOD and knew in their hearts that we were joining with them in experiencing God in a powerful way! I truly believe that even if we didn't have someone to translate as we prayed and laid hands on people, they received a transference of the Spirit of God through us, and they understood.
Day 1 in India complete (day 3 so far of our overall trip). More pictures and stories to come.
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