Pastor Buford's Asia Trip

Mon. October 20th

It's with sadness and joy that I lave Nepal today. They are my family. Each time I'm here my love grows for our Nepali family in a greater way. I hope some of you can come here and meet them.

Sudip and Anne Lise are dong an incredible job. I have been amazed at all God has done here since I was here four years ago. I am so proud of my son in the Lord, Sudip. And he and Anne Lise have made such a great team.  I have come to greatly love the Nepali people and all of Nepal. I know I will return here many more times in my life.

But it's time for Jim and I to travel to the next place God has for us on our apostolic journey to Asia. We have humbly dubbed ourselves Paul and Barnabas us as we go. That’s at least how we feel. Jim is a great blessing and God has truly made us a team. Please pray for us as we travel to Delhi today. We leave a part of ourselves here in Katmandu.

Please also pray often for us over the next few days. We will enter areas that Christians are being persecuted. We will not mention some of those areas by name or names of people that we will be with four understandable reasons. Our communication might be sporadic as we will be in some very remote areas of the world. We feel you with us every day in the spirit however. You are all a part of this ministry journey. We surely had a great and very productive time with the missionaries that met us here this week as well. We feel your prayers and have all of you in our hearts as we go.  God Bless!

Sat. October 16th - Services

This morning, Saturday morning, was the weekend service. It was a really good service. The worship was great. The Napeli believers are such worshipers, and they pray with great intensity and passion. They all pray at the same time out loud and were very responsive to my message and ministry time. Jim Mather speaks Hindi and most of the Nepeli's speak Hindi. This helps a lot as he's able to greet everyone in the services. Thanks so much for your prayers today. I cannot tell you much they mean right now.

Sat. October 16th- Sunrise over Mt. Everest

Well we did it! We got up at 3:30am in the morning drove an hour and a half north to the top of a mountain overlooking Katmandu, and watched the sunrise over Mt. Everest and the Himalayans! It was a moment of a life time! The weather was perfect! We had been warned that only 60 percent of the time is it clear. It was totally clear.

I've included some photos. But they don't begin to represent the beauty and splendor of what we saw. If I could only communicate an accurate picture with my words of the way I see God in my heart...such beauty and glory!

God's creation at this level is something to behold. A Muslim man from the Emirates named Omar was standing beside me taking photos. I had met him briefly, he new we were ministers.
  I couldn’t help but tell him how big our God is just look at his handy work!

It was a real treat...later in the day we visited the orphanage that Sudip operates.  

Right now it's early Saturday morning here. They have church services on Saturday morning here. I'm preparing my sermon. Please pray for me. We have gone non stop. We say goodbye today to two of the missionaries that have been with us. Billy Hughes returns to Thailand. Shajan returns to South India. It has been such a blessing to have all of them here with us. Jyoti India, Billy Hughes from Thailand, McLain and Colleen Hawthorne from Malaysia, And Shajan from South India all have been here. We have met together, ministered together and have had a great time of fellowship and strategizing over reaching Asia through Liberty Network Asia. Every one of them are tremendous missionaries. I'll miss them. That is it for now.

Thurs. October 16th

Pastor's Conference & Ordination Service

Thurs. October 16th

Today was the Pastor's Conference here in Katmandu. It was really great. Pastors were here from differant parts of Nepal. Sudip and Anne Lise are doing such a great job. I am so poud of them. Since I was here four years ago, the ministry has really grown. The service was tremendous. The worship was so annointed. They are so passionate about their love for the Lord. I was greatly moved as we ordained around twenty new ministers. I'll have some photos for you to view later today. Thanks for continutng to pray for me. I'm  feeling them! And they are maing a great differance. We leave in the morning at 4am to watch the sunrise over Mt. Everest. How cool is that?? Then we visiit the orphanage here. They have 65 kids in the orphanage.

One more thing, while I am thinking of it. Isn't it just like God! The little hotel we are staying in here is called the Holy Himalayan. We discovered the day we left that one of the international students with Jim Mather in Mobile Is the nephew of the owner and used to work at the hotel. He has called from Mobile twice to make sure they are taking good care of us.So we  are being treated like kings. Jim and I have been invited to their home tomorrow which is custom here. They own three hotels in Katmandu. And are a very prominent Hindu family. How's that for an ordained meeting...on the other side of the world? Talk soon.

Wed. October 15th

It's been a very busy day! I didn't sleep well the first night even though I was very tired and jet lagged. But God has given me supernatural strength! I taught in the Bible College this morning. It went really good. We prayed for several of the students. I was very impressed with their heart for the Lord. Sudip is doing a great job and the ministry has grown a lot since I was here 4 years ago.  We shopped a while this afternoon, and had diner with all of the missionaries. Tomorrow the last one arrives. Shajan from India gets here after lunch. Tomorrow morning we have the pastor’s conference. I preach and then we will ordain about 20 Nepeli ministers. Pray for me as I prepare and preach in the morning. I'm still pretty jet lagged. We will be uploading all the photos to my Facebook. If you want to take a look you can get into Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ (but first you need an account which is Free). We all have great expectations about the ministry here this week and what God is going to do in Asia. It's strange to not have any news about the election campaign (it's really kind of nice.) Anyhow, will write more soon.

Tues. October 14th... I'm Here

Jim and I arrived this morning to Nepel about 8:30. We were in the air almost 24 hours not counting layovers. So as you might imagine we were zonked. But we determined to stay up all day to get our systems on the new times zone which is 11 hours different from Pensacola. So, needless to say it made for an extremely long day. The missionaries arrived during the day a bit earlier than expected. We were able to gather for dinner and have our first meeting. It was a blessing to see everyone. And they are all very excited about this week's ministry and time together! Talk soon. Pastor B.

Asia Bound

Well here we go...

I'm sort of new to this Blog thing. I always thought a Blog was something you stepped in not something you wrote!

It's a strange time to be leaving the U.S. right now with all that's going on in our country.
But I feel very strongly that the Lord has directed this trip.  And I know He's in control! And He knows what He's doing. I'm very excited about the trip. And I'm really excited about having you on board with me via this Blog.

Jim Mather is traveling with me. Jim is a Globe Missionary as well as our International Campus Pastor. Jim's a great friend and tremendous man of God! We will be doing a lot of ministry together.

Here's a rough outline of our trip...we leave this Sunday afternoon and arrive in Katmandu, Nepal on Tuesday morning. Several of our Globe Missionaries will join us on Wednesday for the week. We will be in Nepal the rest of the first week. The following week we will travel to Northern India with Jolie and then on to Southern India at the end of the second week!
We're doing a lot of teaching, preaching, and crusades as well a lot of leadership meetings! Please pray daily for us.

Pray for us as we travel this weekend. Be sure to check my Blog every day or so... I will be sending as many updates as I can.

He's got the whole world in His hands!

New to the blog world

OK, so I am new to this, but quite excited about it... It is a way for me to connect to you, and you to me. So, come along with me for the ride and see what we can discover together. I am now tapped into the blogosphere.... here we go!