Dispatch from India

I am in India for a week to teach at a pastor's training conference in Vijayawada. I am writing this message to ask for prayers over the next several days. I have been struggling a lot with feelings of anxiety, shame, and inadequacy while on this trip so far. I don't think this is a terribly unusual phenomenon, but I've been kind of surprised by it on this occasion. Satan really does attack us when we try to do kingdom work for God, and often in the place(s) where we are the most weak.

Please pray for God's comfort for me in the midst of negative feelings, but also please pray for God's Spirit to communicate even through the challenges of a different culture, teaching through an interpreter, physical fatigue, etc. Please also pray that the pastors I am teaching will have their imaginations captured so that they will be motivated to keep applying the material being taught. The material I am teaching focuses specifically on acquiring skills of reading and observing the biblical text. [Most error in biblical teaching stems from too quickly jumping to the process of trying to interpret the text rather than spending sufficient time and effort to read and observe the text first.] I have designed this material such that it very much depends on the initiative of the learner for maximum impact. I am convinced this is the best way to teach, but it also is somewhat scary as a teacher to leave so much up to the learner. Teaching already sometimes feels a bit like shooting arrows into the dark, just hoping to hit a target out there somewhere – but this specific kind of communicative strategy only intensifies those feelings. Pray that God's Holy Spirit will give me the right words to say.

Thanks in advance for your prayers concerning these things. And we give thanks and praise to God, who promises to always hear us when we pray to Him.