March news from Raj

Raj has just mailed the following update:......

Dear friends a big sorry for keeping you’ll waiting on my news..... Let me begin by saying a massive thank you for all your support and encouragement, its a great boost to know so many of you’ll log into the blog, thank you.

God has been faithful all the way through. Here’s the news from this end. In the month of February I had the privilege of teaching at Southern Asia Bible College.

I had forty-five students attending my classes in the afternoons, one of the highlights has been spending a substantial time with two of the students who where going through some challenges in their journey of faith.

There was a great openness among the students to understanding the adolescent’s process with young people.

What I enjoyed the most was coming alongside them and building friendship with them as they are from different parts of India.

I am very pleased to announce that we have appointed Nandan Kumar (Nandu) as a full time staff member for the Fishermen Trust.

Nandu comes as God’s answer to our prayer. He is bright and hardworking young man who comes from an outdoor adventure camping background. We praise God for him. He will be helping in the area of adventure camps and work in the office.

Charlie Doney is doing a degree in Adventure education at the University of Chichester. He’s in India at the moment to help me in adventure sports as part of his placement. This is his second visit to India and he is loving it .I have known Charlie through his Dad (Norman) who has been a great friend and a well-wisher. He runs a sailing center at Chichester called CYE where I did some training in water sports. Norman will also be visiting India in April too.

Charlie has also brought three new harnesses and two helmets from the UK (see previous blog entry). Thanks to Charlie and to his church friends who have helped in getting this. Last year Sam Clarke had send some used ropes and some climbing equipments through his wife Anna. Its with great joy and gratitude I want to say we now have complete equipments for abseiling. Praise God. As a result of this we have been using these equipments in our camps and in our conferences.

Charlie and Nandu were able to sort out all the tents from Glastonbury Festival (see previous blog entry) which we received last year. In total we have forty three complete sets of tents, (some tents have their poles missing). A massive thank you again to Richard and his dad Peter Churms from Farnborough for their efforts in making these tents reach India.

We have also had some helping hands from Lea, Jess from Australia. They are on a grand tour to India, stopping in for three weeks in Bangalore. They have helped us in sorting out the tents too at our camp in Avalanche. This aspect of the Trust having volunteers over from other Countries is a key part of the vision of the Trust. It is key to building relationship for support and extending the vision.

A few weeks ago there was a fatal accident at Avalanche (Scripture Union camp site in Ooty ) I have been involved with Avalanche right from the beginning, it has been a part of me. As a result of this accident the camp staff have been very down. I took some time out to meet them to encourage them and extend them my support. We also talked about putting some health and safety procedures in place, this is the big need of the hour. Would please keep the staff in your prayers.

We also had a weekend camp at avalanche for the Hebron school for young people of year twelve. We had some great time of worshiping God and did lots of activities.

We also used this opportunity to put our climbing ropes to test by using them for abseiling.

Back in Bangalore we had a youth workers conference at the Southern Asia Bible College. I was doing some sessions on adventure pursuits:

This opportunity aimed at giving all those that attended this conference to give some pratical experience to some of the students of the benefits of outdoor camping and abseiling.

This was really exciting as we where entering into history of the college, because no one has ever done this before. The Faculty were surprised and excited,to see tents and abseiling at their college campus.

Charlie and Nandu led sessions in abseiling and we had people do abseil for the first time in their lives. I was so pleased that we could do this, what excited me the most was to see five girls abseil, this gave a huge boost to their self esteem.

Indian girls don’t get opportunities to get involved activities such as this. Some of them were able to handle their fear better as a result of this activity.

One of the delegates of the conference said that this is the second most daring thing he has ever done apart from speaking to his wife parents about marring their daughter.

Another delegate said ‘this is the greatest thing I have experienced’. This guy full on for adventure sports after being in our session.

We also setup tents for the delegates and they stayed for the night. It was great fund as it rained that night . They all enjoyed it. We put about eleven tents up - three tents were occupied by the girls , the rest by the guys . ‘It was truly an amazing experience, it was just like the old testaments times’ one delegate commented . We also had some children on the campus who also enjoyed playing and exploring the tents .

I was so thankful to God to see this happen , He is making my dream come true. I want thank you people for all this

Well, finally some prayer points:

Please pray for The Hiders family as the come to India for three and a half months. They will be involved with the Trust and taking the vision forward in setting up projects. Pray for good health , for God’s provision , for safety, for Esme and Josh (the kids) as they will missing their friends.

Please pray for camps in April, I have a camp for village young people and for their leaders .

For Oasis young people , boys from Football project .

Thank you once again for all your love and support , please keep me in your prayers.

This is me saying goodbye now....by taking a nap in the Truck after a tiring camp!!.........

Love

Raj