India!

Well it looks like I will be doing an update for every country. Sorry it is so spiradic but between the power outages, ministry and having to pay for internet, It just doesn't get done. so India...Well we arrived in Kolkata on the early morning hours of the 4th. As soon as we stepped out of the airport a lot of us felt a heaviness that wasn't just the humidity! So picture this, 9 exhausted sweaty white people trying to get taxi's while hanging on for dear life to their luggage so they don't have to pay someone for helping. All of this while 20 other indians with nothing else to do just stand and stare at you. Not a great first impression. We finally got to our place in one piece. We had to split up and some of us got to have A/C and others didn't. Nice. We had to stay in Kolkata an extra day due to unavalability of train tickets. It turned out to be a good thing. we saw some other YWAM teams at the Mother Teresa house and we got to encourage and pray for them. The train ride up to siligry was a fun expirience. We were late getting our seats so we were running through the train with our HUGE backpacks and hitting everyone along the way! It was an overnight train so we had beds, we took turns watching our bags and sleeping. We finally made it to Kalimpong where we found out the next day we would leave and do a mini DTS near the border of Bhutan! What?! The students became the teachers! It turned out to be an amazing 4 days. We taught lectures for the first 2 days and then had an outreach day. During this time we saw at least 75 people be healed through our nightly programs and open air. The deaf heard, the blind saw, it was amazing that He used us in this way. Once we got back to Kalimpong we were exhausted but excited about what He is doing in a small village. Oh, side note, we also got to step into Bhutan where it costs 200/day to get in and we took pictures! The rest of our time in Kalimpong constisted of rest, doing a cultural show, and taking part in their DTS graduation. On the 14th we left to go to Darjeeling. We stayed in a lovely apartment and some of the things we did were; praying over the city, meeting and spending time with locals, teaching "moral values" at a drug rehab, doing childrens programs, praying at buddist and hindu temples, ect. It was an amazing week. Now we have our "vacation" for a couple days and them we head to Cape town, south africa. we should be there by this next saturday. It is nice that one of our school leaders Will Rosenburg is here with us for a few days. He is an encouragement to us and he also brings news of other teams. I hope this filled you in a little. It is hard to put 2 weeks of outreach in one post!
prayer points: continued health of our team
-travel mercies
- that the seeds we planted here would be watered and harvested
- helen- a woman that has been hanging out with our team, she isn't a christian, but she is lovely-that she sees that she can have life abundantly.
- the ywam team here and the local nepalis close with them specifically, anup and joseph
-that the men the the drug rehab program realize where their hope lies
thanks!

Team Blog

Hey! If you would like to know more about what we are doing, here is the team blog which will probably be updated more often than mine! Love you all!!
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/erincastillo/4/tpod.html

Thailand!!

Sawadee Kah! Hello fromThailand! So we finally have internet after 10 days. Yeah! I will give you a brief update on how things went. We arrived in Bangkok on the 17th of May and stayed at the YWAM base for a couple nights. During this time we explored Bangkok and had orientation. Then we took the night bus up to Chang mai where we stayed at another YWAM base called the Lighthouse that works with prostitutes in the red light district. We were able to visit the redlight district but we did not do any ministry at the time. The next morning we headed out to the mountains! We arrived in Musagee last thursday after a 6 hour tuk tuk ride (this is a pick-up truck that has a covered bed with benches). We met our translators Tei Tei and Tanin. The girls stayed in a house and the boys stayed in a room in a house with some of the school boys. This place is a center for kids to go to school in a Christian atmosphere. Some of the kids are orphans, some are abandoned and others just don't have a school near where they live. Tei Tei is the wonderful Christian woman that runs the center and God has blessed her ministry abundantly! These kids are well fed both physically and spiritually. Tanin is the young man in charge of the children. He is in charge of the nightly worship/teaching sessions and he is so good with the kids. When I told him that, he just said, "I love them." Simple as that. He is 23 and loves God passionately. He reminds me of David, a man after God's own heart. We stayed in Musagee for 10 days taking over the worship/teaching sessions every night, visiting schools, working in the rice fields, planting trees and peanuts, teaching english, praying for the sick and generally just being with the kids. Thai children are so beautiful and amazing! They will make you cry when you hear them sing because they worship with their whole heart. It is incredible. It didn't matter that they didn't speak the same language when they sang, they helped me worship God. It was a relaxing , fulfilling, amazing week and it was incredibly hard to say goodbye. The children did a program for us last night and thanked us for coming. It must be so hard for them to have people coming and going from their life. There were many tears on both sides as they said "I love you" and "God bless you" in broken english. Thank goodness hugs and smiles don't need translation! Now we are back in "civilization" and i want to go back to the mountains! Tonight we take the night bus to Bangkok and then fly to Kolkata, India on Wednesday. In India we will be working in Kalompong and Darjeeling for a week respectively.
Prayer points:
-Musagee village-for the leaders Tei Tei and Tanin that they will bless the kids' lives
-Travel -We will be traveling ALOT in India, pray that everything goes smoothly
-Spiritual protection- India is pretty dark spiritually, pray for the armor of God over our team and over any spiritual attacks
-Health- Everyone has been pretty healthy but Erin is struggling with stomach issues and fever and I have a cold.
- Those we will meet in India- softening of hearts
In Chirst,
Alison