Going. Going. Gone overseas.

My Dad is leaving for India today for a two week mission trip, along with several other people at my home church. I am so excited to see what God is going to do in and through him! My dad was born in Indonesia as a missionary kid. They lived in a two room house (at most...I can't exactly remember) with dirt floors. For fun, he climbed banana trees. They returned to the states when he was 9 because of some health issues with my grandfather. He hasn't been back overseas since.

I can't imagine how that is going to feel when he steps off the plane into a world so similar, yet so different, to all that he knew for the first 9 years of his life. Even still, I can't imagine what God is going to work in him. I have a great sense that it is finally time for God to reveal himself, and His will to my dad. (If I could only describe all that he's been through the past 10 years.) I believe with all my heart that he will do whatever God calls him to do.

My heart yearns to see Him move in a mighty way, so please pray that He will do so. Prayer is a powerful thing.

Also, my Dad is leaving for India tomorrow....and I am not. I went to the same area two years ago, so it has a special place in my heart. I long for it. I am eager to see the faces of those precious people that are so etched in my memory, but more than likely that day will not be until we reach heaven...at least I know I will see some of them. A few weeks before we came, several men had killed all of the Christians in area we were in at the time. (We didn't find this out until the day we left.) So the people that gave their lives to Christ those weeks were literally saying that they were willing to die for their faith, for Christ. I will never forget them.

I saw poverty like never before.

I saw a joy greater than I could comprehend.

I saw need in the eyes of so many people.

I saw many remote villages.

I saw faith in the midst of suffering.

I saw a miracle happen here.

I saw this woman give her life to Christ - no one else in her village did.

"Though none go with me, I still will follow"

I saw light come into this woman's eyes when I told her what Jesus did for her out of love.

I loved these precious children.

I saw this girl begging for money on the side of the road and it broke my heart.

I know my Dad will return different. And I'm excited about it!

Hopfully I will be going back to India this fall. There is a group from my area that will be doing some church plants, and I pray that my husband and I will be able to go with them!