We traveled Saturday morning about 3 hours north of Hyderabad to the city of Bidar, India, a city of 500,000 people. I taught preachers all afternoon and Elaine taught the ladies-- many also preachers wives. The daughter of one of the preachers translated for her. These are amazingly intelligent people. One of my translators can TRANSLATE in 5 different languages and is FLUENT in 8 languages. Saturday night I preached at 7:00 and at 8:30 in two different congregations in Bidar. Then Sunday morning I preached for one congregation at 10:30 then at another at 12:30. We really enjoyed this last or our preaching appointments in India. There were all the members of that congregation and 8 preachers and their groups from some surrounding villages. The building was packed and we really enjoyed them all. We observed the Lord's Supper there and after services they covered us with flower garlands as is customary when they greet a guest they consider special. It was Great! ---- and we were thankful as they spoke about how we had helped them. That's what we came to do and it was nice of them to tell us we had encouraged and helped them. This is a marvelous group of Christians in a difficult work area. Bidar is dirty and the lives of these Christians are a daily trial. There is no persecution here (as yet) but their work is full of hardships. The building are set so close on most streets it is impossible for more than one car to go up them. The streets are all just red dirt and the buildings appear to be very old. But their spirit is great and we had some great assemblies. Robert Hall, a regular here from Hamilton, Alabama went to Bidar with us and he preached at several other places in the area while we were at ours. Robert comes here for a month twice a year to help and preach. He is a great guy and lot's of fun to be with. We have had some great OU and Alabama "battles." I told his it was too bad OU was playing for the National championship while Alabama was relegated to that "inferior" bowl! One of our driver/translators went back to his village after a Saturday night service there, studied with 12 people until 4 AM, baptizing 8--- 4 being denominational preachers. John is a marvelous person, a great preacher and about as hard working an individual as I have known. We will miss him! We are all (Me, Elaine, Robert, and John) are exhausted after a long trip but elated we were able to serve the Lord in Bidar. We fly out at 3:35 AM on Tuesday--(Monday Night!) so tomorrow will be very busy. I will try to post one more time before we go to the airport. God bless us all in His work!
