God is stirring the pot and shaking things up. Our team has encountered a little situation with the local religious leaders here in Arugam Bay and Pottuville (the town right next to us). The other day when we took a group of kids down to the beach to play games, well, it created a problem. We were accused of teaching the kids how to pray, hanging out religious literature as well as political literature (all of these claims are false).

The Mausk (the powerful Islamic religious leaders in town) sent out a letter to everyone in the community making them aware of the "situation" which has made building relationships here in town a little tougher. We are not welcome to play with the kids during the day (a few families said we can come back at night when not as many people are watching) and there is definitely a wall that has been put up around the community with regards to hanging around us...but we serve a God who is bigger than the Mausk, we serve a God who already won the victory, we serve a God who shakes things up to challenge our faith, we serve a God who works all things out together for good, and we serve a God who is in control of every situation and we are confident that in the end, this community will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ!!! We may not see it anytime soon because of the strong hold that surrounds this place with fear and religion, but God is still bigger than all of that and when it does happen, it will be all for His glory because He is the only one worthy of praise!

Please pray for this situation, pray for favor within the community, and a softening of hearts as we are here for another 2.5 weeks! Also pray that the "seeds" we plant here with the people we are working with would be planted on good soil and will bear fruit in God's perfect timing.

We have been playing games with more kids (these ones are from the Christian church here in town). We had about 50 of them out the other day and had a blast!!! I have just fallen in love with these children...they are so sweet and loving, adoring and joyful...they also love having their picture taken so I have a lot of them!!! (I just haven't posted any pics since it takes 34 minutes just to upload Facebook with the "amazing" Internet connection they have here)!!!

Yesterday was another great day...we went on a safari!!!! We got to climb into old school land rovers that you see in the movies, and drive through desert as well as jungle! We saw tons of elephants, a huge lizard, beautiful bright colored birds, water buffalo, crocodiles, a baby bald eagle, and tons more! At the end of the day we all were covered in dirt, I was tasting, chewing, smelling and seeing dirt...it was awesome!

Today we ate the most amazing meal in the entire world. We went to another town right down the road (this was the town that was completely wiped out during the Tsunami) and went to a family's house that STN knows and loves very much. They were so amazing and welcoming and cooked us a huge meal. We all sat on the ground, we were dirty, sweaty, starving, and ate rice, noodles, goat (yes, goat), fish, curry potatoes, spiced veggitables, pineapple, coconut wrapped in a crepe kind of thing with coconut milk/spiced pourage kinda stuff for dessert. We eat with our hands (so hand sanitizer is a must around here since there is rarely toilet paper also), we were hot, we were sweaty, we were full, it was great! (By the way, the food here is all made fresh from scratch so nothing is "fast." There also isn't a lot of protein intake that us American's want to eat due to the tendency to get food poisioning (which a few of the guys have gotten from "Buffalo Burgers" - sick...thank God I brought protein powder)!!!!!

Tomorrow is Sunday and our team will be running the local church service so pray for hearts to be open to everything that God wants to do through us! I will be working with the kids and I am so excited to share the amazing, extravagant, divine, unconditional LOVE that God has for them!!

I love and miss all of you (hi mom, hi dad...I'll call you soon)!! Continue your prayers...they are needed and they are working!!!!! Who knows...this trip may just spoil me to the "daily grind" at home and I may have just found my calling in all of the dirt and sweat, in a foreign land with people who don't speak the same language as me, with people that God loves just as much as He loves me!