What the future holds now...(possibly my longest post ever)

I apologize for the lack of communication lately. It's been well over two months since I last wrote and while I can justifiably blame that on the busyness of my life, there have been times when I had the time to update everyone but didn't. For that, I apologize. So now, without further ado, an update for your reading pleasure.

India:

Our final 3 weeks in India were spent in the northern part above Delhi. We worked in 3 different towns that are all linked together by the missionaries who work there. They formed a network in order to provide moral support as well as technical support for the many issues that they face on a daily basis. The 4 families we had the privilege of staying with blessed us immensely with their hearts and passion. They truly live out what it means to lay your own life aside and work to improve the lives of others.

If it seems like I'm being vague about the specifics of who we visited, where we were, and what we did, it's meant to be like that. The area we were in is a heavily unreached area but the government fights Christianity as they see it. There were many words we weren't allowed to say (such as missionary and anything related to YWAM) in case someone was listening. In order to have Bible studies in the evenings we would shut the doors to our house, close the windows and draw the curtains shut. Everything had the be a secret.

These are some of my favorite pictures that were taken during our time up there. We did many things and this will give you a better picture of what was involved.

At one of our first stops we had the opportunity to improve the quality of a local school. We spent a week painting an ocean scene on some of the walls of the school. We also told stories to the children, performed skits, colored, sang songs, and played games like "Duck, Duck, Goat". One of the boys heard me wrong when I was explaining the game and he heard "goat" instead of "goose". It provided quite a few laughs for those involved. This photo is showing my extreme painting skills. As my ability to draw anything more complex than a smiley face is somewhat limited all I did was paint between the lines of what was drawn on the wall. :)

At a separate school we spent 2 days working with the students who were learning English. We even had a debate set up where we discussed the differences between many things (coffee vs tea, rural life vs city life, baseball vs cricket).

This is the start of our five day hike at the foot of the Himalaya's. We were joined by two Norwegian guys on vacation and spent our mornings and evenings involved in worship and prayer for the local people.

Dinnertime after our first day. We had a beautiful view from this wall where we ate.

The morning of day 4 was spent on this hilltop with an amazing look at some of the Himalaya's. This is the majority of our team immersed in prayer.

The last four days of our time in India were spent in Delhi. We took time to debrief the previous nine weeks and then spent a day in Agra at the Taj Mahal.

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After India the team returned to South Africa where we were reunited with the rest of our school. It was exciting to see everybody else and hear the stories of how their outreaches were spent (the other teams went to Thailand, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines). The 10 days back in SA were quite amazing but I was happy for the opportunity to head back to sunny California.

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So, many people have been asking what is next on my agenda of life. After much prayer and thought I've decided to join the staff of the YWAM base in Muizenberg, South Africa and assist with the Discipleship Training department.

I'll be leaving California sometime in mid-September and have committed to 9 months at the base in Muizenberg. I'll be working directly with the students, helping with the local ministry in the township, and filling various roles as needed. I'm incredibly excited about the opportunity to continue with YWAM and am getting ready for an onslaught of preparation in the next few weeks. It's going to be very hectic but I'm confident it will be just as rewarding at the same time.

If I haven't had an opportunity to visit with you in person yet and you'd like that to happen, let me know. I've been traveling between California and Oregon for the last 6 weeks and still have a bit of time before I leave. I can't see everyone, but I'd love to make an effort to catch up face to face and enjoy some laughter and fellowship.

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I still need help from friends and family. YWAM is an unpaid ministry, none of their staff receive payment for their time involved so I'll still be needing financial and prayer support on a regular basis. If you feel lead to give you can contact me directly at kennyhall1985@gmail.com or you can use the handy Paypal link in the upper left corner of this page. No donation is too small, I truly appreciate everything. For those that are interested in tax deductible donations, I'll be completing the requirements to get that setup in the next few days and can give information on that when it's ready.

On a final note, if you know of an individual, church, or group of people who might be interested in hearing about what I'm doing please don't hesitate to let me know. I've given a few presentations at various events and would love to spread the news even more.

To all those who have stood by me in love and faith so far, thank you.

Updates from Southern India

Well, we recently finished our time in Southern India and have now arrived in the north. What an amazing time we had down there, I'm so blessed! As with many India towns, it had two names. I thought the English name was long (Trivandrum) however the local's called it Thiruvananthapuram. Ugh, there's no way I even tried pronouncing it properly. Our team was quite restricted on our actions because of the government in Kerala State, it was actually a bit confusing. Technically we were in a closed state that was not open to Christians preaching the Gospel however, there were so many churches and open Christians that we found in the area. I came to the conclussion that Christianity was allowed as long as you weren't trying to convert other people. So, we did a lot of praying under the guise of visiting tourist locations, tried to build local relationships with Christians and non-Christians, and preached in churches and Christian related events during most of our time there. We had a lot of fun and built some amazing friendships in just a few short weeks. Here's some of my favorite highlights from that time:

• Getting on the Sleeper Train for our 10 hour ride to Trivandrum and realizing that we only had 4 beds for the 7 of us (but then quickly being blessed by the conductor with the 3 extra beds that we were told weren't avaliable).


• Meeting Communism face to face. The Communist party is one of the major ruling political organizations in Kerala, their logo is everywhere. We even were stopped in traffic because a Communist parade was marching across the street!


• Hearing wild lions roaring from across a lake before speaking and singing at a youth rally.


• Teaching 30 teenagers from a church how to share the Gospel message with other people.


• Getting asked numerous times if I'm Muslim (and once an American Jew). Maybe my beard it getting too long now?


• Walking inside the first church that Thomas/Didymus built in India! It's now run by the Indian Orthodox Church, it was so amazing to see!


• Seeing 3 different oceans come together at Cape Comorin (the most southern tip of India).

In the last post I made about Coimbatore I mentioned food poisoning. In Trivandrum it was all about heat rashes (I counted 4 different rashes on my body at one time) and getting Giardia on the last day. The temperature in our new town is cooler and so the rashes are disappearing and I was able to get some medicine to counteract the Giardia so life is peachy again. Again, I had such an amazing time in Trivandrum but I think my favorite memories from the whole trip were those with one of our hosts and his family. He was such a blessing to our whole team and he laughed at all my jokes. I look forward to the day when we can meet again.

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And now, a request for help. Due to the cost of living being higher than we had expected in both Coimbatore and Trivandrum, my team is running low on finances. We have a small stop for 3 days in another town next week before embarking on a 5 day prayer trek through remote villages near Nepal. We have about half the money that we need for the prayer trek, and then we're broke (we also have 3 days in Delhi after the trek and before our flight back to South Africa that we need to have money for). I feel bad asking for money again, but the truth of the matter is that I don't have many options. All of the 7 people on the team each pulled their own weight on this trip and raise their percentage of the group finances that we needed. We haven't spent money on anything extravagant or run off for any trips to the day spa. There was no mismanagement of funds, lost or stolen money, or anything else along those lines, we just miscalculated and ran into things that cost more than had been originally planned on. Asking for money is always hard and never fun (some things are hard but fun, this is neither).

If you have a desire to help there's two different ways. The first is financially obviously. Every little bit helps and no donation is too small. The second is through prayer, James 5:16 says that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective and I believe that. We need the money asap.

If you are able to use the Paypal link (it's safe, simple, and secure!) in the upper left corner then please do so. It's the fastest way to get money to us. Any help is appreciated, as always. Also, in roughly 1 month I will be landing in sunny San Francisco with many pictures, stories, and friends/family that need visiting (hopefully some of them have a couch I can sleep on for a few nights haha). I'm enjoying my time here immensly but I'm also looking forward to June 13th.

A few brief updates from India

I haven't posted anything since I arrived in India. Internet cafes are plentiful but they are usually slow and frustrating beyond belief. Plus, finding time to sit and write a proper blog gets harder and harder. So, with that being said, here are a few updates of what I've been doing with my team. Someday I hope to post pictures, but not right now unfortunately.

We arrived in Mumbai (Bombay), and stopped for a day before heading south to Coimbatore. These are the Coimbatore highlights.

• Out of 7 team members, 3 of us arrived in Mumbai without any luggage. I was one of those lucky folks, so I spent the next 3 days in the only pair of clothes I had with me before the airlines figured out where our stuff was.
• Watching India win the Cricket World Cup while in India.
• Taking showers from either a bucket of water or using a broken pipe sticking out of the wall.
• Learning to preach and share stories through the use of a translator.
• Great Indian food = sketchy bowel movements. I'll leave it at that.
• Picking up garbage at a Leper colony, preparing medical bandages, and then being able to sing worship songs and pray with the Leprosy victims.
• Spending time with a group of widowed women, listening to their stories, giving them some clothing, and sharing a meal with them.
• Food poisoning goes right along with sketchy bowel movements.
• Waking up to the sound of wild peacocks in the forest of coconut trees outside your window.
• Serving almost 100 people who gathered at a week-long seminar for healthcare in Southern India.
• Being blessed by our host family with a pizza from Dominoes in India was an amazing cure for my cravings for American food.

We had an amazing time in Coimbatore but we've moved on. We're in a more restricted area right now where Christians are under a lot of persecution. We had to register with the local police so they can watch us and we have to be careful with who we talk to and what we say. We're here for another week and a half as ''tourists'' before we fly north. More updates will follow, but I don't know when.

Rememories

Tomorrow will be my last full day in Africa for a couple months. It's one of those happy/sad moments when you realize you're about to embark on a new journey but are stepping away from some wonderful friends and memories.

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I've been remembering some great (and not so great) memories from my last few months here in Africa. I remember hiking to the top of St. Elsie's Peak with the rest of the DTS students when we first got to Muizenberg, playing games with the kids in the township, going to watch a soccer match in Cape Town (and getting stuck in town at midnight because of bad information after the game), spending a day wandering around with an old friend from California, and swimming with penguins. I also remember the simpler times. Walking to the beach at night, sitting on a couch sipping tea and watching people go about their business, the half hour walk (and therefore half hour conversations) to the township and back every week, the different speakers who took time out of their busy schedules to come minister to us each week, Thursday night worship at the various buildings we occupied, piling couches and mattresses into the classroom and watching movies at night on the weekends, praying and worshiping on the roof, the trips around the block that my accountability group would make every Wednesday morning. It's been an incredible 3 months and I wouldn't trade one moment for anything. I've learned so much and have so much to learn. I can safely say that these past few months have opened my eyes, but did they change my life? I'd like to say yes but only a mixture of time and my actions will show the truth.

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Something I've been realizing lately is how other countries feel about the Gospel. I think there's this stigma in America that is there's resistance then a country must be ''closed'' or against Christianity. Since I've been here in Africa I've met some incredible people that have been opening my eyes. I met a man who left his home almost 2 decades ago and had been serving as a full-time missionary in China. I met a guy not much older than myself who has been serving God in Afghanistan for 8 years. I even met someone who has led teams of young adults into N Korea. All of this goes against what I'd heard while living my sheltered American life.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..."

-Jesus

Car loans, Gatsby's, and Afghanistan

It's been almost two weeks since I last posted, I apologize for anyone that was absolutely dying to read my updates. I'd say it won't happen again but realistically it will happen a lot more frequently in the next few months (keep reading and you'll find out why). I've been in an uninspired mood lately and have had no desire to write anything relevant. Today is different though.

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So, my last post mentioned that I was still in need of almost $1,000 to finish paying for my outreach fees. God totally provided and everything is covered and paid for! I'm still praying about money for bills while I'm away but thats another topic haha.

This may have been the greatest testimony of money coming out of nowhere to pay for this trip. In August of 2008 I sold a car to a family I know with the agreement that they'd pay it off as they had the money. They ended up unemployed 2 weeks later. We talked it over and agreed that they'd continue paying as soon as they could. They repaid the last $555 last week, the timing could not have been more perfect!

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Lunch on the weekends is the African equivalent to Top Ramen around here. Sometimes I eat it, sometimes I find new foods to try. This has become one of my favorites. It's called a Gatsby, and it's the biggest sandwich I've ever seen. It's enough to feed 3 starving men though it usually fills 4 people up just fine. At the price of R75 ($12), the price is just right when split between a couple people. They're usually filled with chips (french fries), lettuce, sauce of your choosing, and a main item. This one was chips and calamari and it took Ben and I two meals to finish it.

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Our speaker this week was a guy from Afghanistan. God called him there 9 years ago, when he was 18. It was a privilege to hear his stories of faith and inspiration directly from the mission field. We shared our classroom with another DTS (Discipleship Training School) from Worcester, South Africa and despite being a bit more crowded than usual, it was fantastic. I also met a girl from Placerville (about 45 minutes from my California home) who was one of the Worcester students! It's amazing how small the world gets when you step away from what you know.

Our team bought our airline tickets early this past week, so assuming our visa's come in on time (they will!) this next week is my last week in Africa for a few months. We had a slight change of plans for our stop on Ranike. We're joining up with a prayer team from the Norway that is already established in that area. They lead prayer hikes throughout a bunch of tiny Himalayan villages, so we're probably going to end up going on an 8 day journey in the foothills of some of the tallest mountains in the world. It's going to be an amazing stop on our trip!

Because of the amount of traveling we'll be doing and the areas we're planning on visiting, I won't be bringing my laptop with me. Except for our time hiking, we're expecting to be relatively close to internet cafe's the majority of the time. One of my teammates is bringing a computer along and we'll all have cameras so there will be plenty of pictures posted sometime in June! Updates from now on will be less frequent but I plan on being to post occasionally, we'll see how it works out...

India Update

I stumbled across this great quote the other day on somebodies Facebook wall. I can't remember the source and Google wasn't very useful, so the author is unknown for the time being. I'm absolutely enthralled with this quote right now, I honestly think this fits so many people. How many of us will strive to reach that though?

"The world will know when I achieve my potential, the ripples

of my existence will outlive many generations."

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This mustache is incredible.

I was looking for a picture on Google and randomly came across this glorious mustachioed Indian man. Someday I'd like to shake his hand and thank him for achieving his mustache potential.

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This evening we received some confirmation about places we'll be staying and helping with in India, so I thought I'd share it with everybody!

We'll be leaving South Africa on March 28th and arriving in Coimbatore, India shortly after that. The plan is to stay there and help with the work in the slums and townships for 3 weeks. There is a lot of poverty in Coimbatore, we'll be helping out wherever we can and in whatever capacity we are able to.

From Coimbatore we'll head south to Trivandrum (the most Southern YWAM base in India). In Trivandrum we'll be working with churches and camps in the area. We'll be teaching classes similar to what we've held during our DTS.

After Trivandrum we'll head to the Northern part of India to a town called Ranike. In Ranike we'll be helping restore old classrooms and working within 3 different areas around Ranike. We'll be doing a lot of strategic praying throughout this area and again, helping wherever necessary and loving people.

We'll fly from India back to SA in the beginning of June, spend a week debriefing with the other outreach teams, and then I fly back to California!

I would love to give you more details, but this is all of it. We're open to whatever God has for us and going wherever He leads. These are places that He put on our hearts and doors that were opened, so this is our plan.

I'm still praying for God to provide another $950 in the next couple days. Every dollar counts, if you're interested in contributing please use the "Donate" button on the left side of the page. I'd appreciate prayer support as well as ideas on ways to raise money over here. There's two other members on my team that are trying to raise more financial support, please be praying for them also!

Stories of faith

I think South Africa has some pretty sweet money. I'd say it's the coolest ever, but I really don't have much to compare it to.

South African currency is called a Rand. The conversion rate constantly changes but it's roughly 7 Rand for every 1 US Dollar right now. So, $7.50 would get you that R50 with the awesome lion's head on it over there to the right. -->

During a time of prayer for the DTS (Discipleship Training School) students tonight, we were asked to write down how much money we were still waiting for God to provide for our outreach fees (which are due on March 10th).

Out of the 27 students we still need R95,000, or $13,500.

I personally still need R7,500 to pay for the rest of my outreach to India. That's a little over $1,000. I love seeing God work and move and I was so encouraged to see how many different people that God used to provide for my ticket to India. I'd like to share a few testimonies about different people God used recently.

• $10 received from a Dutch friend. I've never met this guy in real life (we've only had a connection online). He's also an unemployed college student. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that we don't believe in the same God, but he still believes in seeing the world changed and improved.

• $4 from a friend in the Mid-West. I stayed with this friend and her husband for a few days last year and was blessed to have met them and enjoyed their company. This friend has ongoing health issues and they continue to pay her hospital bills using only the husbands income because she can't work. They later sent another $20!

• $100 received from a family on the East Coast. I lived with this amazing family for a few months in 2009. One day at work I was given an old box of books. I picked one out and then passed it on to them. It was filled with Bibles and old Christian books from an estate sale. One day, one of them picked a Bible out of the box, flipped it open, and found a $100 bill! They passed it along a few weeks ago, what a blessing!
  

The list could go on and on, but these are some of my favorites. Each donation is a blessing in it's own right. It's someone taking a minute to pass something on, it's another person partnering with the ministry God is using me for right now. It's a step of faith and an act of giving.

I've really been dwelling on Hebrews 11 lately about the great cloud of witnesses (I'd encourage everyone to re-read it , click here). I love all the stories of faith, but I think my favorite part lately has been the first few words of verse 38...the world was not worthy of them. I want to have faith like that.