Dear friends:

wednesday night nicole and I took a very harrowing auto rickshaw ride
that took more than an hour in the worst traffic jam i have ever seen)
to arun's parents\the family home. they are all wonderful christians.
arun is such a good friend to nicole. the father is a pastor of 3 churches
and is gone have the week to village churches. arun's twin from Nice,
France had just bought the family a darling 1-month old puppy. nicole
was in 7th heaven holding and petting the cute puppy. arun's parents
had an arranged marriage and they had never met or spoken to each
other until at the wedding ceremony. this was an interesting conversation
to me.
having many churches seems to be quite common here -- to pastor
several churches and have many more village evangelists under you
pastoring churches. one man in our writers workshop has 80 village
evangelists under him.
so many things happening.
i will speak friday night at the closing ceremony of writers workshop.
we will play with the slum children and teach them for 2-3 hours on
saturday at our slum school run by manoj. i will cut the ribbon to
dedicate the new sewing center business of manoj (the man
who runs our slum school).

sunday morning lauren will bring greetings at the assembly of god church
between 7-9 am. then at 10-11 am, she or i will preach for the women's
fellowship class at the St. Thomas Tamil Cathedray. we will leave in 2 cars
by 11:30 am for the new slum church dedication. i will speak and cut the ribbon to
dedicate the new church and hang the worship banner. lauren will bring encouragement.
steve will preach. beryl will pray. we gave $500 American for the rental of the tents,
tables, chairs, food to feed 350 people.
monday we will speak and tell childrens story and cut the ribbon to dedicate/open the
new literacy center for a slum with absolutely no education that the YMCA
is opening... and the list goes on and on. every day of the weekend and next\
week there are 2,3, or 4 activities planned. stay tuned for the reports.
without yours and everyone's prayers, we could not keep up this pace. it
is simply overwhelming.
all of the hospital is talking about the ladies from america who came so late
at night to bring blood and pray for the patients -- they are saying it is the
prayers that healed so many people, including the woman that would have
surely died. the doctor is still amazed and giving praise to God. may God
truly be glorified and lifted up in everything. the girls are fine and being cared
for at the school orphanage. hephsibah is expected to return home soon.
this morning in class an indian from kenya, who has trained in ohio at Child
Evangelism Fellowship, and her husband worked with New Tribes Mission,
told me that she got the perfect opportunity to witness to a hindu woman in
our writers workshop. the woman asked questions and was very interested.
she also told me that one of the evangelists gave one of the young girls who
might be muslim or nonbeliever a Good News Bible. the lady said she is
thanking God for the evangelical way we are conducting the workshop and it
is one of the best she has ever been to. there are lots of workshops on every
possible subject in india.
as always, God is doing more than we could possibly ask or think. except
yesterday when i was alone and stuck in our hotel elevator during a power
brownout. fortunately, it only lasted 5-10 minutes and i did not panic, but i
was beginning to wonder if i would...

we are so thankful for you, God's faithfulness, and his mercies which are
new every morning. we are on the greatest adventure of our lives. at midnight
jacob and i will go to the airport to greet carol and tamara. pray that their jetlag
will be minimal and that they will have the energy and wisdom to do all that is
waiting for them next week.

love you all much,
elaine
elaine colvin
www.christianwritersinfo.net