Join our Vision for India

 An Indian Pastor told his story. “I was raised in a Hindu family. I contracted leprosy, starting in my hand, and then spreading so my entire body was white with the disease. My family rejected me, but someone invited me to a church. There I heard an inner voice telling me to spend time at the church. The pastor was kind to me, and I sensed that it was the voice of God. I felt pain in my feet and fingers. People ran away from me, so I sat in a corner.

One day he preached on Jonah. I sensed God's call and asked for prayer, and then spent a day and a night praying in a cemetery saying, “Jesus, help me.” When I went to where I lived, a man came to my bed and touched me, and all my sores disappeared. I was given water in the dream, and he said my spirit and body were cured. He asked me to do God's work. I went to some seminars for training, and started by singing and praying for people. I was visiting a Hindu family. Now I have a church in that village.”

The man's testimony is similar to many that we heard while in India in November. God touched someone's life and they responded by reaching out to others with the Gospel, and often by establishing a church in a new village.

When Ingrid and I met with some leaders in Nellore, a district capital with hundreds of unreached villages surrounding it, we asked them what they wanted to do. They told us in specific terms that they had 35 villages identified where they wanted to start churches in 2010. Some questions went through my mind immediately. How to take care of that many new places, given the problems of personnel and transportation. When we were going back to Chennai to head for home, Vijay told us the young people were eager for a month long intensive Bible training, and we realized that the solution was already on the way.

Fast forward, and we put into action a pilot project of two intensive weeks teaching with 30 people, all in their 20's. We will do it the last two weeks in April. Ron Mancini, who has long experience as an Evangelical Covenant Church pastor, will go along to give a pastoral perspective. Our hope is to go twice a year to strengthen the village evangelists and pastors. We will work with people who have no other opportunity for training, but who sense the call of God on their lives. We will hold the sessions in a Roman Catholic facility. We had cooperation from the Catholics on our last trip to India as well.

It is an audacious vision, and it is born in India by Indians. God has brought us alongside them. With your help we can fulfill the call. The need right now is for $7500 for the April training. We have an ongoing commitment of $300/month to help Vijay lead the project. Our longer range need will be for $20,000 to buy a property, and after that to put up a center to train people for the future.

In one of the classes in November, we asked those who felt called to evangelize the villages to stand, and 30 people responded. All realized that this involved travel of up to 100 miles by bus, motorbike, or “auto”, the motorized rickshaws so common in India. To visit a village would require at least a half day's travel, and would often take 2 or 3 days. There is a spirit of sacrifice. There is little money to pay for these trips, but they, and their churches, are willing to invest both time and resources to advance the Great Commission.

We honor them, and are eager to stand alongside them in the labor.

We ask for your prayers and your offerings as God helps us to rise to this challenging new occasion.

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