Time in Al Ain coming to a close

This past week has been full of ministry for us and we have been grateful for the opportunities we've been given.

On Monday evening, we planned for Mandy, Svetlana, Mithun and Jonathan to give testimonies at the Malayalam service. As we have come to expect, it didn't exactly go according to plan. They had us do worship as well and THEN they announced in Malayalam that we would be delivering the message as well. Good thing that we have Benjin on our team [our little pastor in training] and he was able to put together a beautiful sermon in approximately thirty seconds. We have really started to build relationships with some of the people in the Malayalam church and it is exciting to be greeted with such hospitality.

On Tuesday, we drove into Dubai and played at Jumeira beach all day. The water was like warm bath water [what more could we expect? it's been cooking in 100 degree heat all day!] but it was still a nice break from the heat of the day. It was a pretty incredible experience to swim in the Persian Gulf with the Dubai city skyline in the background. The air was dusty and visibility was pretty bad, but we could just barely see the outline of the Burj Dubai jutting out among the other skyscrapers.

On Wednesday, we led worship at the youth service for the Evangelical Church. We got to participate in their small groups and begin building relationships with some of the youth. Afterwards, we stuck around and joined the whole church for a movie night. They made popcorn and played "Shrek" to start off Pastor Brad's sermon series on Godly lessons learned from films.

Thursday we souvenir shopped at a local souk for a while and then had a late night band practice at the church we were playing at the next day.

We had a packed day on Friday. We led worship for the Evangelical Church at 10am and then booked it to the mall food court for a quick bite to eat. About 20 minutes after we arrived back at the church building, we began ministry for Word International Ministry, a Filipino church that meets in the same hall. We led worship, Daniel preached the message and then we had a wonderful, wonderful time of ministry and prayer with the Filipino people. At the close of the service, Pastor Edward insisted that we play another song. We launched into one of our fast songs and then they yelled "More! More!" We ended up playing three additional songs and the the people of the church filled up the front and started jumping and praising the Lord along with us. Afterwards, they took pictures with us and had us sign autographs like we were some sort of celebrities. It was crazy! We are just thankful that the Lord gave us an opportunity to spend time and worship with them. There was freedom in that church like we had NEVER felt before and we pray that through our interactions with them, they would see humility and the love of Jesus. After the Filipino service, Benjin's family invited us to the anniversary lunch of a couple in the Malayalam church at an Indian restaurant. We ate off of giant banana leaves and enjoyed fellowshipping with the Malayalam people and their beautiful children. In the evening, we hosted a worship night with some of the local churches. Our team stepped out in boldness and shared scripture and prophesy. We had some incredible flow time and a great time of ministry afterwards.

On Saturday, the girls spent the day preparing for our women's conference that evening. It was a brand new experience for all of us because we had to plan the structure of the evening, lead all the songs, be the featured speakers and facilitate ministry time. The Lord gave us boldness and courage to share our hearts for the women and everything went very smoothly. Some incredible things happened, we were able to pray for many of the women and we truly believe that the Lord was glorified. Afterwards, the boys brought us red roses! We appreciated them being there to support us and to play for us. They are truly a blessing.

Today, we are going out to dinner with Pastor Edward, the senior pastor for Word International Ministry [the Filipino church] and tomorrow, we will be ministering at his church again.

--Our time here in Al Ain is coming to a close quickly. Tuesday is our last full day here and on Wednesday, we head out for Dubai!

Here are a few more pictures...