Vanakam

Vanakam to all of you.
That means good day/greeting to you in Tamil, the language of Chennai, India. Which is where me and the rest of my outreach team are right now...
We arrived last monday after a solid amount of flying, which was helped greatly by our personal tv screens with movies and games. mmm, Singapore airlines. We spent most of the next few days resting, we did a few short trips (in rickshaws=fun) around the area to get acquainted, and to buy our local clothing for ministry. The stuff here is pretty cheap, especially snack items which I like a lot. Not that we don't eat well. The food is amazing, we have rice pretty much every meal with differing styles of sauce poured over the top, but it is so good.
On friday and saturday we began ministry, which consisted of prayer walks around different communities, including a fishing village. Our translator said prayer walks are so effective here, because the spiritual realm is so real. There are temples on almost every corner, and houses have masks, paintings and symbols drawn on them. This culture and religion has been here for 1000's of years and it has such a strong hold on the people. But the God we follow is even more powerful, timeless and he is everchanging. I can see that people cling to such old traditions, whereas the real God wants to refresh and renew and have a personal relationship. Empty temples to uncaring gods shall be pulled down to make way for the living temples of our bodies. Normally, prayer walks are average, but here i know my very presence is uncomfortable to the enemy, and every step I take and pray over his ground is powerful and is breaking down the enemies forts.

Tomorrow we start a 6 day long Vocational Bible School for kids aged 3-14. The church that has organised it has a congregation of 40,000 or so Tamil speaking people, and an english service of about 2000. I think they are planning to have about 250 kids. I'm looking forward to it.
Continue to pray for me and the team, because as I said, prayer really is powerful.