The first 2 Motorcycles!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for all of your prayers for the Pastors in India.
Shibu Simon has given us an update and we want to share it with you!


The first Motorcycle has been given to Pastor Febin, who is working with us as a church planter in Punjab. He is originally from south India but has been working with Shibu in Punjab for two years now. He got married this year. He and his wife are living in a village and are trying to reach the villagers with the gospel. The Lord has blessed them with much fruit already. So many children are attending Sunday School. They ask that you please pray that these children's parent's will come to know the Lord. Febin and his wife are expecting. Thank you again for this great gift to this couple. This really is going to give them greater opportunity go around to other villages to give the gospel.

One of the Pastor's to receive a motorcycle is Baiju Abraham
He, his wife Sophia, and daughter are ministering to the people of Hariana in North India. They and are excited to receive this bike. He came to Christ early in life and and was active trough Sunday School, Youth Group, etc. After his high school education he enrolled in KBBC and graduated. He then served as a single missionary in North India. He came back to Kerala for some more schooling and joined the KBBC faculty team for 3 years. All along his desire was to go again to North India as a missionary. On September 8, he mover to the state of Hariana with his family. Your help to give him this bike is an answer to prayer. Shabu told him about this blessing and he is thrilled. Just imagine the possibility for a moment. People that you have not met will have a chance to hear the gospel because of the sacrifice you have made. As they give each bike away they will give us as update and a story behind it, and in turn we will tell you. Praise the Lord for the lives that will be touched.

All the Praise be given to our Savior!

Febin and his wife with the baby on the way! :)

Weekend Update! Aug 24-27

 

Hello Everyone,

Wow, what a weekend! Dad, Jacob and Susan picked us up from biking on Thursday and we went to our northern campsite. When we woke up on Friday morning, we started setting up camp so it would be ready for when the teens from our church (New Durham Chapel) got there in the evening. We ate lunch and had devotions. We decided not to go biking and save the last leg of the trip for Monday. We had a lot of rest from pumping up mountains. We were able to do this because we biked enough extra throughout the week so we could spend time with everyone that joined us at the campsite.

The teen group showed up for dinner and we had spaghetti and hot dogs. We ate lots of Smores with peanut butter and had a great time talking around the campfire. The girls all slept in one tent and the boys slept in another. The adults had their own. It was a lot of fun. The guys pulled a prank on the girls by putting rocks underneath our pillows. We found them and tried to not make a big deal about it so they wouldn't know their prank worked. One of the girls didn't find any rocks in her pillow, but instead they were in her sleeping bag. There was a lot of commotion and the boys wished us a goodnight sleep and said, "Sleep well. Hope you sleep like a rock. " They also sang us a goodnight song, "We will we will rock you..." We couldn't help but laugh. A harmless prank, but the girls had to get them back . We came up with the idea of making posters.  We made them and got my dad to post them in the boys bathroom for the whole camp to see. Another harmless prank. :) We had lots of fun!! We also took the rocks they had used from under our pillows and put them outside the boys tent in the shape of a heart. After it was all done we got a message outside our tent door from the boys.

Everyday we had a devotional together and prayed for the day. It was great to spend time in God's Word and have a common bond with everyone. God has blessed us in so many ways on this bike trip and spending time with friends has been a bonus.
Saturday we played ultimate frisbee and got hot and sweaty. To cool off we went fishing and swimming. We had a blast. Some of us even jumped off the bridge that was 18.2 ft high. (yes we measured it) We had pizza for dinner. On Sunday we had a campfire service about standing up for what you believe in. Being like Christ and not forming the patterns of the world when under pressure, at school, or in daily life. We went swimming again and played some games. The rest of my family, Mom, Raychelle, and Jewellee drove up and we all went to show them where we jumped off the bridge and went swimming. Then the teens unfortunately had to leave and go back home. The whole family was at camp and we had a great supper together.

Monday morning it was raining so we didn't start biking as soon as we would have liked. We go to sleep in a little bit and made breakfast. Then after we cleaned up and packed the bikes in the van we drove to our drop off spot. It had stopped raining, but there were some pretty dark clouds. The Grosvenors ( family friends, who help the Simons when they come to the USA) and Lindsey (their granddaughter and our friend) came to High Point to cheer us on. The entire day was pretty much uphill. It started raining and they offered to take us to the top, but we were already drenched and kept pushing ourselves to climb the mountain. It rained for only 15 minutes, but it was enough that we were soaked. It was really hard, but we are glad that we kept going and didn't stop to get a ride. We can say that we went from Cape May to High Point, New Jersey in 10 days. Praise the Lord we made it. I personally didn't think I was going to make it at one point up a hill. It was hard!! I had to stop and catch my breath. Tommy quoted Isaiah, "Those who wait upon the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint." I am so thankful for Tommy and his encouragement to me. He is my little brother, but I look up to him in so many ways. We didn't talk much because of the altitude and it was harder to breathe, but the entire time I kept thinking about bible verses we had been memorizing and praying that God would give me the strength to get to the top and He did. We did 27 miles all uphill. When it was time to go back down to go to the picnic area to eat, Tommy and I biked down. We even had to use our brakes.
Our family had a picnic lunch with the Grosvenors and Lindsey and talked about the trip. It was so encouraging to have our family and friends there cheering us on as we biked to the top of New Jersey. We will always remember the trip and all the adventures and blessings that God has given us along the way. We hope that you too have been blessed through this trip. Thank you for all of your prayers and support to us. This trip has helped the Pastors in India by providing them with motorcycles. We hope to post a picture of them and their motorcycles once they receive them. With your help we have raised enough money for 6 motorcycles and still counting. This trip was an adventure that Tommy wanted to do for quite some time and thankfully we were able to not only have fun, but also share the love of Christ with people along the way. Your gift will make an impact on other peoples lives that you and I may never meet. We have been truly blessed. All the glory be given to our heavenly Father who made this all possible.

If you happen to be someone who is following us on this blog and you don't understand why 2 youngsters would bike from the bottom to the top of New Jersey; get up early instead of sleeping in;  and break a sweat everyday to give money to people they don't even know across the ocean in India, please contact us. We would love to explain the gospel more clearly so that you too can share in the greatest gift of love ever given to us. We would be more than happy to explain the joy we have through Jesus Christ and the gift of love He has given to us.

Once again Thanks for all of your prayers and support on this adventure. We hope to have a picture of the pastors soon!
Love in Jesus- Tommy and Anna Grooms.

The pictures are from Friday to Monday-

SMORES!!

Doing the dishes

Are you finished drying the dishes we washed? We want to go swimming!



Where we stopped on Thursday and started  Monday

Storm clouds are coming!

 






Almost there!





When we got to the monument we climbed the 240 stairs to the top.

We made it!!

Aug. 23: Day 7

Sorry the post is late. I only get WIFI in certain areas at the campsite.

Tommy and I did 30 miles and we broke the speed limit for the first time! We went 33 MPH in a 25 speed limit area. We didn't even have to pedal so you can only imagine how fast it would have been it we did pedal. We were dropped off at 9:45am and started the climb up to High Point. We knew that we would have a lot of time because Dad had to go back to pack the camper and get Jacob and Susan. (Susan has joined our support crew on this leg of the trip) So we stopped and took some goofy pictures. We stopped at a store and bought a reel because one of them broke on the fishing poles. We were also able to stop for a late lunch at 4pm and waited to be picked up there from the Pizza and Pasta place. We had a great time watching the clouds and relaxing as we waited for 2 hrs for the support crew. Once they got to us we all headed to the campsite. We got there at 8 and set up camp. It was too dark to set up a fire pit and roast marshmallows or do anything like that. So we popped in a movie. It was fun! The showers here don't have slots to pay for them. The water supply is unlimited, but the hot water will run out eventually! :) Then we went to bed.

We stopped a lot more places than we normally do because we knew it would be a while before we would get picked up so we got to hand out a bunch of tracts to the people we saw!

We have done over 100 miles!!

Helping water the forest with Smokey

We are looking forward to an extended weekend. We only have 30 miles left to bike and we are saving it for Monday. The Sunday School class from our church is coming to be with us today (Friday) so we are getting the campsite set up and ready for them to come and roast some Smores around the fire. We are so blessed to have such a supportive church family.
 Thanks again for all of your prayers. I'll keep you posted. Hope you are having a great weekend. I know we are!