Families living in the KH for now.

These ones (plus many more families) spent 4 days on the roof without food or water.   They shared amongst themselves collected rain water.  Despite losing everything - smiles!

Relief supplies

One night it thundered and the little boy (sitting in front) got so afraid he forgot God's name and yelled out "oh dear God of Paradise!"

 

Working despite the flooding

“Hindi,” said the man when asked by the publisher if he read PJ.  “Tagalog?” asked the publisher.  “hindi!” he replied.  “English?” the puzzled publisher asked.  “hindi!” he replied again.  Confused?  Well, in Tagalog “hindi” means “no,” which can be confusing if your language is actually Hindi.  This week we went to encourage some of those brothers and sisters who were trapped on the roof for 4 days (see pictures below) and are now temporarily staying at the KH.  These included pregnant women, toddlers and newborns.  I asked the group in the picture if they were at all discouraged because materially speaking, they had lost everything,  but they all happily yelled, “No! we feel stronger.” Notice their smiles . . .they described the nights – while wet and shivering  from the cold and to drown the silence and the children’s fear, they sang Kingdom songs.   We came to encourage them but instead left encouraged ourselves. (videos above show what a signal 2 typhoon is like, made from my condo)   The week was full of studies with intense questions such as, “when was the Granth written vs when was the Bible written?   how were the Bible books collected/put together? (wow!  has anyone ever had to explain the Bible canon in PJ or for that matter, in any language?), why does our holy book (the Granth) differ from the Bible?” or this comment, “while my husband was reading the granth this morning I told him about what I am learning in the Bible, I am confused because why does the granth not tell us . . .,” and he responded with, “lady, you learn the Bible but leave me out of it,”  and she is telling us this on the 3^rd visit.  Or this one, “so are you saying that those who do not study the Bible will die?  I mean, what is wrong with our holy book?” (3^rd visit without starting a lesson in Bh book).So I get a good spiritual headache but we are trying to slow down the studies (believe that!), they are jumping into hardcore meat regarding Bible vs their holy book but without having a foundation on the good news.  So I say it again, the ministry is intense.  These calls “make me” do research.  Love it! Monica mentioned a few weeks back is studying every week.  The men from the “public talk” experience are also studying weekly.  A new study (3^rd visit) has been telling her friends, “they tell us that God did not write my husband’s destiny “ (died a few yrs back) and then asked us, “but I’ve believed in destiny (kismet) for 40 yrs, even though you tell me this, I can’t get it out of my head.”  Again, we tell her to be  patient in taking in this knowledge – we’ve only studied 6 paragraphs in the Bh book.  What is so interesting about this ministry is that these immediately compare what they are learning to their own beliefs, and thus come to the conclusion that one must be true and the other false, which in turn scares them away from us.  It’s a case of too much too soon (3 visits!) – thus we gotta slow them down and lay a foundation.  But even after 3 visits or so, these ones are already preaching to their friends and family either here locally or in India, not because they believe it is the truth, but because they are in wonderment . . .”ਇੱਦਾਂ ਕਦੇ ਹੋ ਸਕਦਾ?”,”could this really happen?”