Thank you!

We are now embarking on our third week here in Aurangabad and the time spent with Manisha and Shivaji along with their YWAM team has been so good. We have had many opprotunities to see God work in the lives of the team members as well as the lives of the Indian people.This week we will be taking time to rest some from a full week of Christmas festivities....as well as transition our team to a nearby village where our host Shivaji grew up. We will be putting on the hygiene course to children soon again as well as host a medical camp in villages. The open door for medicine is here and big and provides a way for the ministers in YWAM to invest build relationships here 'slowly slowly.'I am begining to see how this team was brought together for a purpose here in India and again and again I can tell Compassion is the thing on God's heart that he wants to pour out to these people. Keep praying He will be our source and that we'd see through His eyes these beautiful people he loves so much. Pray for times of laughter and Joy in the team! That we'd enter into his Joy! That's our strength. Love you all and thank you thank you thank you for you continued prayer and support of love and grace...

love and blessings

Let me know if you'd like an update from Christmas and I will e mail it to you! My copy and paste is not working right now! Much Love and Blessings this Christmas!

Christmas of Hope

This is a Christmas of Hope. A time of rejoicing. A season of expecting God's best. Abiding in His extravagant love. United in the Spirit.
This Christmas will be epic. Last night we had a gift exchange with the rest of the Aurangabad YWAM which was so much fun. We (YWAM Idaho) led the gathering in some Christmas songs like 'JOy to the World' as well as 'Emanuel' ....and then they invited us to sing and dance with them. It was beautiful. it was a time of refreshing...and rejoicing in the truth together that we are indeed in awe of our savior.
Thank you all for your prayers. Keep us in your prayers this week as we will be working with Manisha's sister Mungala and her tayloring ministry to the women in the slums, as well as a church planter. Tonight we will go out ans sing Christmas carols until like 4 am...I guess it is tradition! wow!!!!! so great. Ok...and then Christmas we will join a large gathering of many village churches for a Christmas celebration. This is The season to remember. Remember our savior. Our redeemer. Our friend.

He moved today in the hearts of these women in the tayloring class and I give God glory. Please pray for these women to choose Jesus as the one and only living God...to honor him and glorify him.

Much love and a Merry Christmas;
Bethany

most recient happenings in aurangabad: renewed mind

If you want to reduce the level of stress in your life, you must change the way you think because the way you think determines how you feel. And the way you feel determines how you act, which is why the Bible teaches that, if you want to change your life, you need to change what you're thinking about. This involves a deliberate conscious choice where you change the channels. You choose to think about the right things. Because the root cause of stress is the way we choose to think, we need to focus on the positive and on God's word. (I read this today in a devotional by Rick Warren and wanted to share it because it is so fitting for my life right now). God says to be transformed by the way you think and be no longer conformed to the world.

Being here in Aurangabad this far has been challenging to me in the area of leadership. I have found myself being stressed because I don't see things go as I percieve they ought to go and then I get stressed out. I am trying to learn how to love the girls on the team and motivate them to be obedient to God. To just let God lead them and move in their lives and rise up to take leadership themselves is so challenging but I understand how it is the best because that is how they learn.

Good things are happening here in Aurangabad. Today we spend our last day here at the Hotel and will be moving into Manisha and Shivaji's home with them for the next week as we serve with Manisha's sister Mungala as well as some YWAM church planters. I am really looking forward to this week as we will be closer to our friends and also get to build relationships with the YWAM staff in ministry. This past week we had our team member Menka join us after waiting on her visa! Praise the Lord, with her we are refreshed again and are looking forward to the things she will bring to the team. While we have been staying at the Hotel some of our team will be with one ministry while the other will be serving at a house church late into the evening. One of the nights this past week myself and three other girls arrived just in time to recieve food from Shivaji. We were so hungry we almost ate all of the food and after checking if the rest of the team would be provided food where they were, we went ahead and just enjoyed. When the team came home we found out they were hungry and had not eaten yet! Oh G's....well, they went and got food at the hotel restaurant and ended up having a divine appointment with the man who runs the restaurant. They discussed worldview with him and ended up praying for this Muslim man...going to bed praising God for an opprotunity. The very next day the man came up to tell Troy (part of dts staff) that someone came upto him and gave him a Bible at the market and then walked away. The man disappeared he said and linked the occurance with the prayer that Troy had prayed for him. He was so thankful and seemed excited to read the book. Please pray for this man, his name is Raul.

As for me, this week God has really been highlighting to me the importance of knowing who I am in Christ and has been giving me specific words for women who live in the slums and are trying to make a living for themselves. This week I believe the Lord will open up many doors for this.

Continue to pray that clarity would come for those on the team who don't know why they are here...that the Lord's vision for this time would be revealed. Pray for good health and that we would be obedient to what God is asking. Thank you thank you .

I am thankful for these girls, papaya, earplugs, morning chai, transportation, gracious leaders, many opprotunieies to serve, learning new songs with the children on the streets, and most of all ...His Presence.

forgive me for being choppy in my sentences... I had to be quick.... we are heading to the market today to seek out Christmas gifts for eachother!

Arrival in India

I arrived in India well and met up with my team with great excitement and anticipation for what this time will hold. Everything went well in getting our things and going through customs and then when we arrived at the Guesthouse we always stay at we were amazed to find they had given our reservations away. The man who runs the place also has another one across the street so got us situated there. We got some rest and then this morning ate together as a team in the little German Bakery here...delicious! Am looking forward to shopping with the girls today for their first Indian clothes and just being with them as they are being exposed to so many new things all at once. I described India last night this way: 'It is the place that your senses are perpetually provoked to a new limit you never thought you'd experience. Everything smells, looks, feels, and sounds so much more amplified here for some reason and I know that can be overwhelming at first. As for me though, I am full of joy to be here and am thankful. Very thankful. I will write more soon friends. Thank you for your prayers and support. God sure loves these people, it is beautiful. Today I read in my devotional about how Jesus took time away from the croud to be alone and in silence. Pray I would fight for this silence in this time and find more in my heart to be joyful about than I can even explain, or need to explain. Abundance is what he has in rest, joy, fellowship, and friendship. (please excuse this blog being kinda choppy! I don't have much time).

Refreshed

Ah what a good day. A refreshment and Godsend for sure. The team is in need of prayer for preparations are still under way for our trip to India in two days. One of our students still is in need of her outreach money and our international students are in need of visas. Please be praying that God's will is done. I got to play with the Meyer's kidos and got to go to a sending off Christmas party at their house! so great, so good for the staff to get away and just relax and laugh together.

The word of the day is to not worry and remember that He is faithful to His word! ....Oh, and Remember: He loves us. And he has given us his Love and the ability to let him Live through us and be people of love, hope, joy, and purpose in this world. Will try to write more tomorrow before we take off on a jet planePublish Post...

I'm blessed. Tonight I was so grateful to have shared special time with family and friends before heading out of town in the morning. Oh how he Loves us so...Is the song that comes to mind. All the details of the trip to India aside and just pausing to remember how much he loves me is so amazing. I want to thank you everyone who helped me remember that tonight! The prayers, encouraging words, warnings, affirmations were just what I needed without even knowing that I needed it.

Tonight I will rest well knowing that He is with me and that I rest in his shadow. It is good to be near him. For in his presence is fullness of Joy and at his right hand are pleasures forever.

A perfect example was made right before me today about how God works.

I have been working on a project for months now and finally today finished it. I called the person I had made it for and that person said they were praying for one of these for a while now! It showed me that even before we ask for something, God is working behind the scenes to accomplish His plan for His glory! He uses things we think are silly to make himself real. Trust him for that because today He may be using you and you don't even know.

Tomorrow I am reunited with most of my team as they come in one by one to Idaho for the last week in the states together. Sam, Annie, Beth and I will be traveling what I like to call 'gypsy style' across the great state of Washington for eastern territory! We were so happy to find out that Annie and Sam's youth pastor is moving to Idaho this weekend! I smell adventure.

Thanksgiving and other gerunds

So today is Thanksgiving...the official day to give thanks to the one who owns all of the cattle on all of the hills in all of the world! The King of kings and Lord of lords. He is good.

Today was a day, as I am about to embark upon a fresh journey of packing, brainstorming, and preparing...but also enjoying family over a lovely meal. I have been scurrying around so much lately getting loose ends tied up before leaving town and am looking forward to tomorrow. But for now, I just relax, tell my forehead to praise the Lord for all of his benefits...and be full of the glory of God! You know what that's like when you've done so much thinking and organizing that everyone and their dog can tell by the way your forehead is stretched!? Well...that's what I mean.

So, this is my first blog since the days of my DTS when I used Xanga. Oh that was oh so fun, and now the days of Blogging have captivated me and encouraged me to have one place to share my most recent wanderings, stream of consciousness, thoughts, musings, profound thoughts, and testimonies of God's great faithfulness. It is my desire to update it as much as I can to represent to all how good God truly is...day by day, moment by moment.

My little word of encouragement today comes from 2 Corinthians 3:17. "The Lord is Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty."

In two days I will be traveling gypsy style with some friends to Idaho where we will finish up preparing for our outreach in India which begins December 3rd. Pray for us.