Last night we lead worship for the students for the fist time, which was a shaping experience. It started with the fact that we had no practice time. Right as we were heading down to hopefully practice a little, Vejay, a 17 year old student of ours who we have made a strong connection with had gone to the grocery store and bought us microwavable pizzas. So we had to go back up to eat those. Bless Vejay’s heart but it was hard to call them pizzas to be honest. It was a struggle to get them down but Vejay had gotten them for us and we were very touched so we choked them down. After that we went down stairs again with not much time and thought we would maybe get a little bit of practice in but that wasn’t the case. The students were all down there practicing so when we walked in all eyes were on us. When we started setting up a lot of them (who came from no musical background) started “helping” us set up. They started plugging things in and turning knobs on the soundboard trying to adjust things (not really knowing what they are doing haha) so it took us a while to set up. When we were finally all good to go, we had a little under ten minutes before worship was to start, but since all the students were already in there, worship just got moved up about 10 minutes… so no practice time. We decided to just go for it, which didn’t really work. We were really struggling through the first few songs. It wasn’t just a lack of practice but I could hardly hear a thing. It’s really hard to explain but nothing sounded right. David was playing keyboard (and doing fine) but it pretty much sounded (to me alone) like he was randomly punching the keyboard. We were both playing in the key of A but I was convinced that we had gotten it mixed up and were playing in different keys, so much so that I just stopped playing guitar. Everything just sounded like a dissonant mess. I just wasn’t hearing anything right. Then others afterwards everyone said the guitar sounded fine with piano. Since I couldn’t hear anything right I couldn’t figure out the key to sing on pitch. Not to mention couldn’t feel the rhythm. Which is weird because I was up in my room singing and playing just fine not even an hour before. On top of being unable to hear, I felt sick and completely out of it as soon as we started; I would’ve done anything to get out of that situation but I knew I couldn’t. Everything just didn’t feel right, and there was just strong feeling of darkness over me. India is such a spiritual place and spiritual warfare is much more open and present here. So there was something not right spiritually, I felt like I was under attack. So this persisted for about a half an hour and was overall just a horrible experience and thankfully while I pretty much felt like dying, Stephanie carried the worship. Then something amazing happened that I will never forget, Stephanie just started singing “Hallelujah” to a random chord progression and the Indians joined in and started shouting “Esayah” (which is the Telugu name for Jesus, not sure how its spelled) so Stephanie started singing that over and over. Right then the power of the name of Jesus was made real to me. The sense of darkness was lifted, I didn’t want to end worship anymore, I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to sit in that moment forever. I could hear the music again, and started not only singing but shouting Jesus’ name into the mic with confidence. Whatever was holding me down, making me feel so horrible and unable to hear, was gone at the name of Jesus. Once again, it is so hard to express the intense spiritual darkness and simple inability to play songs that I’ve lead a hundred times that plagued me for the first half of this worship set. It is also hard to explain the overwhelming sense of freedom that fell over me every time they chanted Jesus’ name in Telugu. What flowed out from this was the most incredible time I have ever had in leading or participating in worship. Everything clicked, we went from hardly being able to slug through the chord sheets in front of us to playing completely on the fly making it up as we go. The Holy Spirit was leading worship through us. What developed out of this was a new favorite song of theirs. We would sing the “Na na na na na Hey” part of Undignified and then go into the music of Our God but instead of singing those lyrics we would simply call and respond with “Hallelujah” and “ Esayah.” This new song kept on building, the sense of joy every time the Indians would scream hallelujah or Jesus’ name back at me, getting louder every time was indescribable. It would build and build until I would scream at the top of my lungs “ESAYAH!” and more volume and joy came back at us than 15-20 young boys should be able to muster. It was incredible. These young man are coming from situations where they have overcome forces so much stronger than I had just experienced and were shouting Hallelujah and praises to God for the freedom they had in Jesus. It is amazing looking back at last night and seeing how the worst and most difficult worship experience I have ever had turned into the most amazing simply at the mention of the name of Jesus. So if there is anything I want you to take away from reading this is that there REALLY TRULY is power in the name of Jesus (in any language) and that “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed!” (John 8:36)

Yesterday was when we started teaching. It went really well for the first time. We only taught in the afternoon because a lot of the students still had not arrived in the morning (and I think there are still some coming). Up until that point though we had a lot of down time. We had done some training with the staff, taught some music lessons, etc. but hadn’t really gotten ‘busy’ yet. So it was a little frustrating at times because we frankly felt a little bored for about two days. However, in the midst of my frustration, thinking “God, we are in India, couldn’t we be doing something right now, instead of just waiting?” I walked past Kumar, a young boy who had finished the School of worship earlier this year and is now on staff. He had the biggest smile on his face as I passed him and I realized that he always does, they all do. It hit me all at once how encouraged they are that we are here. They had said it to us numerous times but it hadn’t sunk in. Kumar’s smile specifically has been burned into my brain now. I see it so often, when I pass him in the hall, when he is asking me to show him a G major scale on the guitar again, or when he is scooping out curry and rice onto my plate, which we eat at least 2 meals a day, (and my blood sugar is doing fine mom!) It has reminded me that it’s not about me, so what if my mission trip isn’t shaping out like I expected it to at first. I was reminded of the lyrics to the song I posted before we left, “I Will Follow.”

            “Whom you love, I’ll love, where you serve, I’ll serve.”

It’s been a reminder that the reason I’m here is Jesus’ immense love for these people, and if I am going to sing that song and mean it, I need to passionately love these people too. That means putting them above myself and my desires for this trip. Even if I leave feeling like we didn’t really do much at times, but we showed the love of God to them in a real way and encouraged them, then we did what God brought us here to do. I need to love because Jesus first loved me and that’s what a heart changed by Jesus does, it can’t help but turn around and pour that same love outward. It’s my privilege and pleasure to get to serve and love them like this.

            Wandanalu (Praise God)

            -Scott

Yesterday, many in the new batch of students at the school of worship arrived in Hyderabad.  We also had the opportunity last night (your morning: Midwest) to meet some Indian pastors.  We presume that they were bringing in students specifically for the school.  One man I specifically met is a preaching pastor of 4 churches in India.  Praise God for his ministry.  It was really cool to meet him and [try] to talk with him as we did.  Meeting a fellow brother from India who carries a similar burden as mine for the Gospel in preaching was really encouraging. 

So far, the school has just begun it’s curriculum, so our team just finished preparing some of our first pieces of ‘lectures/sermons’, whatever you want to call them.  I am very excited to share and teach about Scripture in my first lecture; Scott will be teaching on the Importance of Worship, and Stephanie will be leading a Bible study each day through the Gospel of Mark. 

You can continue to pray for us as we continue to teach and share on Biblical theology and Worship, as we are very new to this, and though it is fun, it’s intimidating.  We appreciate all your prayers and thoughts for us.

DTank
Symphony Theologica

Stephanie teaching classic VBS dance moves to an Indian pastor.

I finally got the internet to work on my computer so here is a picture of the team in India.

Today being Sunday, we went to church. They took us to an English speaking church they often go to and it was not what I expected. If it weren’t for the people sitting around us, I would have felt like I was at a church in America. They had lots of lights, played contemporary English worship songs, and the pastor was even American. The coolest part was seeing many different cultures and ethnicities there. There was much more than just American’s and Indians there. It was really cool. Also weird to see white people besides each other.

Another American came today who is going to be teaching with us. Her name is Esther and she is a missionary who just spent several years in Israel. We are really glad she is here because we are still a little nervous about teaching for two weeks. We are confident in what we know, we just don’t have a lot of teaching experience. So please be praying for us in that for the next two weeks. Pray that we would be confident in our teaching and God would be leading us in what we teach. Anyway students get here tomorrow and we are super excited!

P.S. I really wanted to be posting some pictures we have been taking but I can’t get my computer to work with the wifi here just yet. Hopefully I will be able to and can send you guys some updates with pictures and even a video or two. 

-Scott

We have safely arrived to the Covenant School of Worship here in Hyderabad, India. I have to admit that I am suffering from a little bit of culture shock.

Before leaving, everyone asked me about the food. And I know that’s the first thing several of you will ask when I return, so, the food here is crazy. There is curry on EVERYTHING. It’s really hot and my mouth is still burning from dinner a couple hours ago. Even breakfast was spicy.

When we arrived at the airport in Hyderabad, it was hard not to notice all of the interesting clothing for various different religious beliefs. We received a lot of attention for being white. Everyone was very friendly though. Driving to the school of worship was an eye opening experience. We saw a lot of shrines, trash, unfinished skeletons of buildings, and houses made from tarp and sticks. Please pray for this city and this nation. 

Today, we did staff training here at the school. There were four men who we taught songs to on guitar and piano. We also lead two worship sets. It was really awesome to feel God’s presence in such a bold way. 

Please continue to pray for myself, my team, the Covenant School of Worship, Hyderabad, and India. I will do my best to keep you updated with several blogs!

In Christ,

Stephanie

So we have made it safely to Hyderabad after a long few days of travel. We had some trouble in Mumbai with our tickets being canceled by the airline for some reason, but after several hours of running around the airport, we got it sorted out and arrived on time. 

So now we are here at the School of worship getting ready to start teaching. We spent today teaching some of the staff guitar and piano lessons, which was exhausting. I have taught guitar to people before, but never across a language, which made it difficult to teach certain things. Then not to mention how my fingers feel after teaching guitar for about 7 hours today, and leading two hour-long worship sets. 

Students arrive on monday and we start teaching on tuesday, so please be in prayer for us as it is a bit daunting figuring out what exactly we will be teaching for two weeks.

Today is the day! We are flying out this afternoon. David started his travels this morning and there were a few hiccups and had to change around his flights but everything is still good so far. Steph and I are getting ready to leave her house in Harrisonville to head to the KC airport to begin our 2.5 days of travel.

• KC to Newark,
• Newark to Mumbai,
• Mumbai to Hyderabad.

Please pray for safe and efficient travels, and we will update you all soon. Thanks and God Bless!