Doug Van Pelt

Subject: Urgent Prayer Requests

Here's a prayer request from Shaun Groves, who is helping lead the Blogger's Trip to Kolkata, India (yeah, that's the native spelling of the city we know as Calcutta). Please join with me in praying for these needs. I'm expecting some big and cool things from this trip.

On this trip a handful of bloggers will travel with me at Kolkata, India to see Compassion International's ministry to children in the third world firsthand and write about it. The result will tens of thousands of readers wrestling with the problem of poverty for the first time and hundreds of children in the third world being sponsored through Compassion International.

One of the things these bloggers will be doing is meeting their sponsored child if they've chosen to sponsor one in India. This allows these bloggers to actually hold their sponsored child, exchange small gifts, and directly hear from their sponsored child what kind of impact the sponsor's $32 a month has made in their life and family.

For the first time ever, we are running into a few last minute glitches that could make all of those visits very difficult to make happen. Without getting into confidential and boring specifics, all I can say is that we need one of the sponsored children's parents to agree to let their child make a long journey to meet one of our bloggers, and a few other more minor road blocks to be removed as well. We need you to pray. If these visits do not happen, it's not the end of the world but our bloggers are traveling for two days in large part to meet their sponsored children face-to-face so, for the bloggers, these visits are immensely personally important.

Also, there are a few minor concerns over safety. We are told that where we will be staying and traveling is completely safe t the moment and should remain that way but there have been attacks on tourists and Christians in other distant parts of India in recent days so your prayers are welcomed.

Lastly, some of our bloggers are leaving spouses and children and taking their first international flight halfway around the world. For folks not used to traveling, traveling internationally can be a little stressful. Add to that stress the 104 degree heat and 12 hour time change, and we could use your prayers for health, peace, and perseverance.

Thank you for supporting this journey! Thank you for praying! Follow the trip by visiting www.compassionbloggers.com/india from April 26th to May 2nd.