JP has arrived in Lahore!

JP called from Quetta, Pakistan... they made it through the border and will clear the vehicle through Customs in Quetta.  He's met up with Salik John from the Evangelical Fellowship of Pakistan and they'll get a good nights rest and then go to Lahore; then back to Germany on Tuesday or Wednesday.

At the Iranian Border

Jean Pierre called and he's stuck at the Iran/Pakistan border.  The border has been closed for two days because of unrest in Quetta.  There doesn't seem to be much in the news cycle at this point, but here is a report from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7991385.stm

JP and the boys are supposed to meet with Feed The Hungry representative Salik John at the border but they haven't seen him yet.

Please continue to pray for safety and secure passage through to Lahore.

Not much from JP today; he did send a couple photos from Turkey. Please continue to remember JP & the boys in your prayers. Bad news out of Pakistan yesterday & today; first a suicide bombing in Islamabad and then today a suicide bombing in Chakwal which is in the central part of the country (a city in the north of Punjab State).

At least 22 killed in Pakistan suicide bombing

By Faisal MehmoodSun Apr 5, 10:02 am ET

CHAKWAL, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gathering of minority Shi'ite Muslims in Pakistan on Sunday killing 22 people a day after a deadly suicide attack in the capital, police said.

Pakistan is crucial to U.S. efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan and U.S. President Barack Obama has said the release of additional U.S. aid to the nuclear-armed country depends on how it tackles terrorism.

The attack in the central city of Chakwal came a day after a pilotless U.S. drone aircraft killed 13 people including militants in the northwest and a suicide bomber killed eight soldiers in Islamabad.

About 2,000 people had gathered at a Shi'ite religious center in Chakwal, about 100 km (60 miles) south of Islamabad, for a ceremony when the bomber struck.

"There was a break in the ceremony and some people were going out and others were coming in when all of a sudden a young man tried to run into the crowd," said witness Amjad Hussain.

"When guards tried to stop him at the gate he blew himself up."

Regional police chief Nasir Khan Durrani said 22 people had been killed and 35 wounded. Durrani said the death toll would have been much higher if the bomber had managed to force his way into the crowd.

Surging militant violence has raised fears for nuclear-armed Pakistan's prospects, a year after a civilian government came to power ending eight years of military rule.

President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and the coalition government are also struggling to revive an economy propped up by a $7.6 billion International Monetary Fund loan.

Outside the religious center, blood was splattered over the gate and walls while shoes and other possessions were strewn on the ground. Three mangled motorcycles lay outside the gate.

Pakistan has a long history of tit-for-tat attacks by militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shi'ite Muslim communities.

But sectarian militancy intensified after some anti-Shi'ite groups forged ties with al Qaeda and Taliban militants, security officials say.

Shi'ites account about 15 percent of Pakistan's 170 million mostly Sunni population and in general the two communities live in peace.

In Instanbul

-----Original Message-----
From: fthgermany@aol.com
Sent: Sat 4/4/2009 1:52 PM
Subject: Update

Hi FTH Staff,

Thanks for praying. We are in Istanbul at the moment. I decided yesterday to take one day off. Two days full driving and two nights with only a little bit of sleep is enough reason for a break. We got a nice hotel at the airport for a good rate. We spend almost two hours at the Turkish border. On the Greek side the custom office called an inspector and gave order to examine the vehicle. The female officer that came to the car, thought we transferred an ambulance into a camper. But when Marcel opened the back door and when she looked at the orange stretcher and the medical equipment, she became very nice and she gave us all the stamps we needed. On the Turkish side it was difficult to find somebody who felt responsible to work on our papers. They all were not very friendly. Several times the thought came up in my mind, if they want to become a member of the EU, they need to change their attitudes towards foreigners, and should start to study at least a little bit of English. Not talking about German. Every officer refused to stamp our custom papers. I hope that this will not give us any difficulties to get the tax back when we return to Germany.

From there we went straight towards Istanbul. People were walking all along the highway. Can you imagine, driving 150 Kilometers an hour, and there is a donkey on the right hand lane. Well this is this part of this world here. At one point there was a big hole in the surface and I really was worried that this maybe did something to the ambulance. But praise God, nothing happened. Pastor Peter in Zurich had the vision, that our vehicle has a kind of protection wall or skin around it, like an army tank. I really believe that. We are in the army of the LORD and in a mission to bring the gospel, health and delivery to the hurting people of Pakistan. Sunday morning we will leave very early. I have the goal, to get as close as possible to the Iran Border. So we will spend the night from Sunday to Monday again somewhere in Turkey. Tuesday morning we will cross the border into Iran. And I believe we could be at our final destination on good Friday. It would be nice to park the Ambulance on Easter Sunday in front of the church. That would be great, but I will not put myself under any kind of pressure. This could become “unhealthy”, driving tired……Thanks for praying. I believe GOD for seeing you all in South Bend this summer. Any way to drive there…….
Jp, Marcel and Philipp

Turkish Delight!

-----Original Message-----
From: fthgermany@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 2:15 PM
Subject: Update

Short update on the trip. Please pass it on to everybody else. Drove four hours. Just three hours away from the Turkish border now. The officer this morning, when we came off the ship in Greece did not charge us for the road tax, because of the thing we do-- driving an ambulance to Pakistan, she said. Maybe it was my smile.....

thanks for praying, jp

Making Progress towards Pakistan

-----Original Message-----

From: fthgermany@aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 3:32 PM
Subject: Update

Hi everybody, greetings from Italy. If you think we run around with T-Shirt and Sun lotion, wrong. It is cold and rainy. Yesterday evening we had so much rain, that the window wiper hat not enough speed to wipe the rain off the windshield! But anyway we made it, late into here.

Sunday morning we had a great and wonderful service with Pastor Peter in his church, the ZOE GOSPEL CENTER. The church prayed for us and the vehicle. Wonderful people and a great church. Today we had a short meeting with a sponsor here in Venice. We took a few hours to walk through the city. For me it was a strange feeling being here again. During the many weeks and months I spent in Croatia and Bosnia during the war, I drove over here on the weekend sometimes to get out of all the mess over in Bosnia. To be here with this memory and being here today with my two sons was special. Right then they were not even born. Spoke with Pakistan today, everything is on time on their end. They still working on the papers to get the Ambulance tax free into Pakistan.

I got a nice and lovely email today. Someone driving their car obviously saw our email address on the ambulance when passing by us. He got online and seny us an email and said that he wishes all the best for our journey. We are aware of the attack in Lahore, Pakistan. I will keep an eye on that. In about two hours we will enter the ferry to Greece.

JP, Marcel and Philipp

Update from JP... Pakistan here we come!

-----Original Message-----
From: fthgermany@aol.com
Sent: Sat 3/28/2009 2:31 AM
Subject: Greetings from Switzerland

Hi Everybody,
Short report from the first two days on the trip. The TV Crew spent almost four
hours with us. Hopefully they don’t cut too much. Right after they left, we
also took off. In south Germany, around an hour from the Swiss border, our GPS
quit its job. Marcel in the back of the ambulance took the laptop and studied
the manual. It was stored on the laptop. After a reset it was working again for
maybe another ten minutes. So no way to go any further. I drove off the highway
to look for a good store. We found one very quick and we got a new one. The
other one we take back from where we got it, it is a case of warranty. In maybe
one hours time we were back on track. When we came to the border, they had
already closed. With our special documents we cannot just go through. I need a
stamp that I left Germany in order to get the tax back that we paid. So we
parked in a long line of trucks, which were asking about the same thing. A female
custom officer (Swiss) jumped on a truck driver so bad, that I was thinking that
we don’t get her. But guess what, we got her. She still looked very mean, but
when we explained our mission to her, she became very nice and helpful. The
pressed her stamp on our papers and even came out of her little office. She
told the officer at the gate, what our mission was and ask him to let us trough
right away. So we passed by on about 50 trucks towards the gate. At the gate
the offices stopped us again. I thought he will check the papers and passports.
But he did not. He wished us all the best, good luck and travel mercies. That
was really nice. We arrived in Zurich late that night. On Friday we went to
Peter Hasler's church (FTH Director Switzerland). We all had a great and nice time with
Pastor Peter in his beautiful church. Pastor Peter was with Dr. Sumrall in
Jerusalem, when Dr. Sumrall received the vision from the LORD for Feed The Hungry. So
Peter is a man who's been with FTH from the first hour. I ask him to come to South Bend to our next
meeting. On Sunday we will share the project in the church service and right after the
service we will leave for the spaghetti Mecca of Italy, to catch the ferry.

JP, Marcel
and Philipp