{"id":2969,"date":"2017-08-10T22:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T22:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?p=2969"},"modified":"2017-08-11T05:04:02","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T05:04:02","slug":"the-shepherd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?p=2969","title":{"rendered":"A Shepherd Encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dan-winter-Kashmir.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2965 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dan-winter-Kashmir-169x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dan-winter-Kashmir-169x300.png 169w, https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dan-winter-Kashmir.png 242w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The airport was shut down.\u00a0The roads were closed.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The snow kept falling.\u00a0 This was Kashmir&#8217;s worst snow storm in 17 years.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>We sat with Pastor Sunny drinking traditional Kashmiri tea, called kahwah, and praying. Our 2-day visit had now turned into 5. My team was beginning to think we had wasted our time coming here, doing nothing of significance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>As we sat watching the snow get deeper a\u00a0man came to see me.\u00a0Irfan, is a Muslim businessman who raises sheep in the mountains along the Pakistani border. He told us about a people group called the Gujjars who live a life of poverty high in the mountains of Kashmir.\u00a0Irfan proceeded to share his vision of helping the Gujjars through an economic development project of raising sheep.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Village-man-with-tea.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2966 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Village-man-with-tea-169x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Village-man-with-tea-169x300.png 169w, https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Village-man-with-tea-250x444.png 250w, https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Village-man-with-tea.png 287w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a>It took me a moment to grasp what was happening.\u00a0 As we sat, stranded in a snow storm feeling like we were wasting our time, God used a Muslim man to invite us into a region that had been closed to Christianity for 2000 years.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Last month I was able to return to Kashmir and Irfan took us into the mountains to visit a village of the Gujjar people and meet the shepherds chosen for the sheep project.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>We were received very warmly as we went from house<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>\u00a0to house drinking tea and breaking \u00a0bread together.\u00a0It was a beautiful day as we walked up to top of a hill with panoramic views of the surrounding mountains.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Then the shock came&#8230;Irfan and the village leader led me to the top and said, &#8220;This is the land we will give you to build your center so you can bring people here to pray for us.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?page_id=2967\">Continue Reading&#8230;<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The airport was shut down.\u00a0The roads were closed. The snow kept falling.\u00a0 This was Kashmir&#8217;s worst snow storm in 17 years. We sat with Pastor Sunny drinking traditional Kashmiri tea, called kahwah, and praying. Our 2-day visit had now turned &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/?p=2969\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2969"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2983,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions\/2983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5riversinternational.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}