Ministry in India

I arrived in India on Friday morning around 1 a.m. It was a long flight and I fell asleep just before we landed in Chennai. I must have been in a deep sleep because the flight attendants had to wake me up and tell me I had to get off the plane. I looked around and I was the only passenger left! It did not matter as it took a long time for the luggage to be unloaded and I had to wait for it. Two Ywamers from Ywam Chennai were there to greet me and take me to their base where I have been staying and will stay until Tuesday. The director took me around on Friday afternoon to see some of the ministry they do. It is pretty impressive as they work with street kids, AIDS victims, a leper colony and conduct 3 schools. The staff have been great to me and I appreciate their hospitality. On Saturday I gave a workshop on evangelism at the New Life Assemblies of God church which was attended by 700 plus people. It was translated into Tamil, the language of this part of India. The people were listening attentively, taking notes and really enjoying the learning process. After the workshop the church divided them into groups and they hit the streets to share their testimonies and invite people to a healing crusade on Monday night as well as the church service on Sunday. The pastors told me they had good success talking with people and that the members of the church who attended the workshop were very encouraged and better equipped to share their faith. Today I was asked to speak at one of the 9 services that are held on Sunday morning for their 35,000 members. The first service is at 5 a.m. and 4,500 people attend. The final service begins at noon and there were about 3,000 attending. It was a privilege for me to be able to share with the brothers and sisters about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Several responded not only to the invitation for the baptism but a family of 5 came forward to receive Christ as Savior! Chennai is a city of 8-10 million people of which many are unsaved. It is a great harvest field but it is also a difficult area because of the opposition of the enemy. God is reaching out to many Hindus and bringing them to the knowledge of Christ. Pray for the churches in Chennai to be able to evangelize the lost in this city. Pray that the believers will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses of what Christ has done in their lives and that their testimonies will bring many to a saving knowledge of Jesus.

Prayer requests

Change of Plans: This morning after prayer at High Grounds Coffee House, I was waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport in Guatemala when I received a phone call from Tom Elie of Oasis World Ministries. He told me he broke his hip playing raquetball with his son and was on the way to have an operation and would be unable to go to India as planned. He made a phone call to my friend and partner in ministry Darrell Dobbelmann to see if he was available to go with me and carry out the ministry that has been set up for months. Darrell agreed to go so I will be connecting with him next week to do the pastors conferences and the open air crusades. Please keep Darrell and I in your prayers as we will wbe taking on a lot more ministry than we originally planned. I am excited about the opportunity to continue the ministry as I know God wants to touch the Indian people with the gospel message. Pray that many lives will be brought to Christ and that the power of God will be demonstrated to bring glory and honor to the Lord.

The Road Less Traveled...May, 2009

Fire! Sunday morning at 4 a.m. one of our staff members, Abner, received a phone call from a friend that informed him that there was a fire at the coffee house in Antigua. He woke me up and we went to inspect the damage from the fire that may have been caused by an electrical problem in the school that is behind us. The local firemen were able to extinguish the fire quickly so the damage was limited to part of our roof that we share. A lot of the water came into our meeting room, storage room, bathroom and kitchen so there was a big mess to clean up. The roof has been replaced but we are still waiting for the wiring to be repaired. We do have some electrical circuits that were not damaged so we are using them to run the appliances we need. This happened the day before we started the Financial Support Raising Seminar held at the coffee house.

Pastors under fire. Pastor Antonio and Pastor Efrain whom I work with often in San Pablo La Laguna have both experienced attacks on their families during the past 2 weeks. Pastor Antonio was celebrating Mother's Day as well as his son's 11th birthday at his church in the evening. After the service he loaded their PA equipment in the car and waited for his daughter and son to join him in the car. While he was waiting some men began to attack his daughter and he ran to rescue her. Meanwhile some other men stole all of the equipment from his car valued at $2,500. It was a set up that traumatized his family and set the church back financially with the loss of equipment. Pastor Efrain's daughter was also attacked by a driver of a Tuk Tuk taxi on her way back home from school. The driver drug her to a soccer field and began to beat her because he said she was not paying enough attention to him. Efrain's wife suspected something was wrong when her daughter did not come home at the normal time so she called her school to verify that she had left. They immediately drove the road she would normally take to get home and found the Tuk tuk parked on the side of the road. The attacker was beating their daughter violently and she suffered a fracture in her forehead. The man was placed in jail but then the family sought revenge by destroying some new construction work at the church. Please pray for these pastors who have become my friends and partners in ministry. They are both doing a great work for the Lord in a hard city under difficult conditions.

Send the fire! I will be leaving on May 26 to go to India to join Tom Elie, an evangelist from Minnesota. We will be conducting two conference for Pastors and hosting two, five night open air meetings in Andra Pradesh where we will be proclaiming the gospel message to thousands of people. Pray that God will send the Holy Spirit fire upon us and the people as we minister in an area that has not had much exposure to the gospel message. The last time I went we experienced many people being healed and set free from the power of satan. Will you partner with me in prayer during this time from May 26 to June 16? India is an unreached nation when you consider how few Christians there are among the 1.1 billion people. Your prayers are needed to prepare the way.

The four day financial workshop we are hosting this week has been a tremendous blessing to the missionaries attending. They are being encouraged and challenged to believe God for the provision needed for their ministries and all of us are receiving new ideas that will help us in these difficult times. One thing that has impacted me a lot is the idea that God wants to dream his dreams through us. Have we every really gave consideration that the dreams we have for reaching people with the gospel and extending the hands of Jesus to the needy are really the dreams that God wants to live out through our lives? There is so much he wants to do and he gives us the privilege of partnering with him.

Thank you for your support that has enabled me to be able to take advantage of the opportunities for ministry in Guatemala and India. I look forward to all that God will do in these next weeks. When I return I will be working with a church group from Chico, California that is coming for 11 days of ministry in San Pablo and Antigua. They will be constructing 2 homes plus conduct ministry with children and families.

For Him,
Bruce

Correspondence address:
Bruce Ahlberg
6ta Avenida Norte #33
Antigua, Guatemala

Contribution address:
YWAM Chico
15850 Richardsons Springs Road
Chico, CA 95973

India Ministry trip

I will be returning to India with Evangelist Tom Elie of Oasis International Ministries May 26-June 16. I am excited to return and be a part of the evangelistic crusades and Pastor's conferences. I will also have the opportunity to visit the YWAM Chennai base and see their ministries in operation.
I am seeking and asking for people to pray for us as we travel and minister during this time. There are millions of people in this country who do not know the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. Their lives are lived in fear of gods who will harm them if they do not perform their rituals. Many believe in reincarnation which holds them in great bondage and hinders them from eating certain animals that are sacred to them or possibly could be their ancestor. The caste system which has been legally banned is still practiced by many people. Those who convert to Christianity suffer persecution and alienation from their families who resist the gospel message. God's Word is their only hope of liberation and salvation. Pray that we will be able to clearly present the gospel message and see signs, wonders and miracles that will confirm the Word and convince the people of the One True God who truly loves them.