Greetings from Encounter Revival Ministries! The team is doing wonderfully, enjoying ministry in Pennsylvania! We just returned a few months ago from our two-week mission trip in Hyderabad, India! ERM takes a yearly overseas mission trip to allow team members the opportunity to experience Christianity as well as missions in a foreign culture. This travel year the Lord led the team to India, allowing us to take part in an incredible miracle He has begun there.

Banjara Tribal Ministries is a CHRISTIAN orphanage with presently close to 2,000 children spread across three campuses! It is truly a work of God’s hand to see a Christian orphanage in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim country. This was my second opportunity to visit BTM and it once again was absolutely incredible! I will share a brief overview with details of some of the memories that have personally changed my life forever.

We arrived Saturday morning at around 3:00 to get settled into our “dorms” on BTM 1. I was so excited I could not even sleep, so I stayed up in eager expectation to see the 900 children wake up and the campus once again being filled with precious children. As I waited I looked over the campus viewing all God had done and provided for His children. As I stood on the third floor smelling the very distinct smell of Hyderabad, I heard this defined horn calling the Muslim followers to bow towards Mecca and worship. My heart immediately sunk as I imagined the thousands of people, who at that very moment in time, were bowing their hearts as well as bodies toward a temple to worship their god. As I scanned once again across the campus, my heart grew in hope for the spiritual condition of the country. As I was doing this, the Lord reminded me that I was standing on property where children were taught about the unfailing love of Jesus, and one day they would go out and spread that great truth to their family and friends, being missionaries to their own home land. These are people that I could never reach and gain respect to speak to even with the greatest amount of money I could imagine.

During our time there we had the privilege of hosting a Pastor’s Bible Conference for 100 pastors in the area that preach the Word of God to the many illiterate people in their villages. These pastors are the only hope in spreading the Gospel throughout the thousands of villages and towns of India; it is our privilege to aid them in knowledge and skill to allow them to be more effective spiritually to their society. During one of the sessions Christopher invited them to come up to the stage where the team was standing, so that they could pray on our behalf. They gathered around, asking God to guide and direct our lives according to His sovereign will. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life to see dozens of pastors that receive persecution for their faith, raising their hands with an indescribable look of godly passion on their faces, lifting my life up to the throne room of God!