Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.5.12 in Churches, India, Travel
When you travel, things don’t always work out as you had planned.I’m writing this note from my hotel room in India at the very moment when I had planned to be finishing my sermon at the pastor’s conference. But our plans were waylaid when we discovered that this is a Muslim holiday of some sort, and they have planned a huge rally …
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.4.12 in India, Prayer
“My wife secretly prayed for me."I heard the man say it as he shared his testimony of how he came to Christ from a Hindu background. His wife (who was also Hindu) came to Christ when someone shared the gospel with her. He was not happy about it, but he loved his wife and since she didn’t interfere with his idol worship, he made pe…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.2.12 in India, Theology, Travel
If you ever have a chance, you should visit the Taj Mahal.It fully deserves its reputation as one of the wonders of the world. Built as a mausoleum by grief-stricken Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in honor of his third wife, the Taj took 20,000 men 22 years to build. Except for the Shah’s tomb, which was added later, everything in the Taj is perfe…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 1.31.12 in India, Pastors
For the past two days we’ve been meeting with these pastors for a time of encouragement. They all come from the same general region of India. As you can see from the photo, most of the pastors are young, with perhaps a year of training, and nearly all of them pastor multiple congregations. Some pastor four churches at a time. Today they …
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 1.29.12 in India, Missions, Travel
On Sunday I spoke twice at the big tent that the local church had erected. To get there we wound our way through the city until we suddenly turned onto a compound owned by the Methodist Church. In the morning I preached to a few hundred. At night the crowd was considerably larger. Benny arranged things so that Josh and I arrived at the tent af…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 1.28.12 in India, Travel
We started with a real bang this morning.Benny said he would pick us up at the hotel about 9:30 AM. When he didn’t arrive at the appointed hour, we remembered his advice that in India you need to be like water, ready to “go with the flow.” As we stood outside the hotel, Josh and I watched the never-ending stream of people walking,…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 1.26.12 in India, Travel
7:30 AM Friday Mumbai, India Hard to believe but we are already on Day 4 of our trip to India. It took two days to get here, then we spent yesterday recuperating from jet lag (which by the way is very real) at a hotel in Mumbai. Josh and I came to India at the invitation of Benny Mathews, president of Alpha Ministries For those who do…