Andrew and Lori Spurgeon
Greetings from India!
This has been an amazing summer of ministries. Soon after I finished my teachings at Singapore and Nepal, I started teaching summer classes here at Asian Christian Academy. I have been teaching “Acts and Pauline Epistles” and coming to the end of the class. We have just a weekend before we start the Fall semester. In that semester, I’ll be teaching two classes to the master level students and one class to the Ph.D. students. Lori too has been very busy. In summer months, Asian Christian Academy has several missionary teams come. We’ve had so far six different teams, and Lori cooked and coordinated ministry for each one of them. Some of course were very helpful in cooking along with her and cleaning. In addition, she has been teaching two classes at the high school and teaching the faculty “life skills” (a newer, Hindu-friendly way of saying “Bible classes”). Our son, Jedidiah, has been with us for two months. He too has been teaching PE at the school. We all spend the evening time with the orphan kids—they are more like family to us. They call us “Uncle Andrew” and “Aunt Lori.” When Jedidiah came they started to call him “Anna” which means “older brother.” He loves it, esp. since he was the youngest and called “thampi” (younger brother) his whole life!
This evening when I got home from school, I had a surprise—my commentary on 1 Corinthians is finally published. The school driver went to Bangalore and picked it up. It is neat to see that many pastors in India would have access to this commentary and that it would be used for His glory. I’ll send you a complementary copy soon.
Thank you for praying for us and supporting us. I’ll finish with one prayer request: we need rain desperately. Several of the wells are dry.
Bye for now,
andrew
Greetings from Hosur, missions committee! It’s in high 90s and we are sitting under fans. (We don’t have aircon and we can’t either because we have such a low voltage). Lori found an amazing way to keep ourselves cooler—put frozen bottles of water in front of the fan and it does cool a bit. But I am not complaining. This place of ministry (and the present mission agency we are with) is God-sent. The president and his wife (Dr. Joy George and Mrs. Leela George) has basically adopted us as their own family. We often eat dinners with them. They are such godly folks and spiritual guides for us. The Georges are so grace-oriented that there is a peace about the whole school—for example, anyone can pick from any fruit from any fruit tree in the campus and eat (we’ve never seen that before in any other school and when I asked Dr. George why is that, he said, “If I put a sign, ‘Don’t eat’ they’ll eat from it; they’ll sin and they’ll make me get angry and I’ll sin. To avoid all that, I’ll just let them eat”). The other faculty and staff are so kind, friendly, and helpful. The students are very good too. Lori enjoys teaching the Bible to the 8th and 9th graders (nearly 150 of them). Every day she says, “I just can’t believe I can go in and teach the Bible to 150 Hindu or Muslim kids!” Yes, the Lord has been good to us in bringing us here.
Of course, when the Lord is outpouring His grace, the evil one is not very happy (I used not to have this theology, but more and more I see his evil ways). Our first attack was that none of the appliances either worked or many broke down the first week we had them. We finally got those sorted and then we had a fiasco with the car. After waiting for 6 months, we bought a Honda City (Asian version, one step below a civic). We waited three months to get the car, in the first place. Two days after we got that car, a person ran into us rather hard. He had no insurance and no driver’s license. The police, since he bribed, wrote the report as if it was a hit and run in the parking lot and there were no eyewitnesses. It took us another 4 weeks to get the car out of the shop. Then we brought the car home and now we have been waiting for over 4 weeks for registration because we won’t pay the bribe. I call every day and nothing is happening so far. Later today, Lori and I plan to go by the RTO (Road Transportation Office) to see if there is something we could do. Lori and I keep praying, “Lord we don’t want the evil one to win this one.” So please join us in prayers. There were other emotional ups and downs too, partly because we are away from our kids.
The next three weeks, both of us are off from school and so we are going to our old city, Ooty, for some rest and relaxation. I have to finish the commentary on Romans by May 30th, so I’ll be working on it some. Lori is also hoping to finish her book (or at least write a major portion) at that time. We leave tomorrow. We thought we’ll drive our car but we are not sure if the registration will get done. So we also booked bus tickets.
Pray for us that we won’t get discouraged or that we won’t do things that dishonor the Lord. We are grateful to be here and doing His ministry. And we are content. But I mentioned all these things so that you could pray for us.
Our boys are all doing well. For the summer, Ethan will continue to work at the Hyatt in Dallas as Valet; Micah is trying to get a job at the same place and work under Ethan. Jedidiah will be in Memphis, volunteering at the Dental clinic where Lori used to work.
We miss you. God willing, we’ll be back in USA next summer and get to see you all.
Bye for now,
andrew
