Members of the Encounter Revival Ministries team, 20-year-old Kevin Lowe Jr. of Beach Lake and 18-year-old Stefanie Beals of Honesdale are determined to make a difference for Christ.

Encounter Revival Ministries, headquartered in Harrisburg, is made up of young adults who travel throughout the states, proclaiming God’s Word in churches and Christian schools. The team also travels overseas.

Kevin has been to India twice. For Stephanie, January’s visit was a first. “I was very excited to go over and see the orphans,” she said. The number of orphans was astounding, at just under 2000. The orphanage was comprised of three different sites, with children ranging in age from five or six years-old to late teens. “Their parents just leave them on the street, just get rid of them. There’s no sanctity of life over there,” Kevin said. Some do care. “Some of the kids, their parents actually do care about them. And that’s why they’ve put them in the orphanage, because they can’t take care of them ...Over there, schooling, if you don’t pay, you don’t go to school.” Kevin said. But at the orphanage, schooling is part of the care.

Communicating with the kids wasn’t a problem. At the orphanage, students are taught four languages: English; Banjara, their tribal language; Telugu, their state language; and then Hindi, the Country’s language.
While there, they visited two churches and dedicated them, Kevin said. Their home church, Honesdale Gospel Tabernacle in Honesdale donated $5 thousand — the complete cost of the church.  

    
What will he never forget? “They’re contentment and their love. These kids have literally nothing,” he said, “All these kids own is in a box.” “About the size of a tool box,” Stephanie says. 

“And that’s all they own. They have their school uniforms and maybe a change or two of clothes, and that’s about it. And they are the happiest, most content children in the world,” Kevin said. “These kids, when they smile at you, it’s not just a polite smile. It’s a, ‘I’m really happy to see you. And I really want to serve you. And I love you.’” Kevin says he was moved by, “their servant’s hearts, and just their contentment and joy in life, ‘cause it’s obviously, totally found in Jesus and not in anything else. We have so much here, and yet we’re so discontent.”

Stephanie says she was touched by a young girl, an orphan who approached her and offered to pray for her. “She started speaking in Telugu ...and of course I couldn’t understand her. But at points, I could tell, she would mention family. She was praying for my family, whom she’s never even met before. And just how deep and real that was — just to see all those orphans praying.”

As she talked about church services, some lasting more than three hours, she said, “When it’s time to pray, they’re down on their faces, praying. It’s just their state of worship is so different. And that has really opened my eyes to see how insincere I was being a lot of times when I’m worshipping God. Just seeing them, and how deep that relationship with God can really go. That discipline touched me a lot,” she said.    
“It’s really sad when a six-year-old can put you to shame in spiritual maturity,” Kevin said. 

   
“To go and see God in those children, and see how much they believe in God,” Stefanie said, has made quite an impact on her life. “Just to be able to see the culture and just how different it is from America, and just how simple their life is over there. And how we have so many things here. But yet, over there, they have very little, but they’re so grateful for what they do have.  And they think that they have everything. They have everything they need."

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