A Taste of India Jan. ’16 From the Field
A Taste of India – January 2016
From the Field
I have the pleasure this month of working with the new CLC Missionary, Peter Evensen. In order to give you a taste of the work and joy I am reporting on several Sunday services at which both of us preached.
Jan. 10 – We worshiped at Voddlakuppam where Annadurai is pastor. He has had the additional work of raising his three children alone. I had the pleasure of baptizing Francis, a Hindu convert, who is going to marry Annadurai’s daughter. As we drove up to the church another of our pastors, Jeychind, was just finishing up painting a new church sign along the road. Jeychind earns money through his painting in addition to serving as a pastor. After church I met his wife and two children and she is expecting a third. As to the church sign, I prayed over it after the service that it would beckon people to our services and serve as an instrument of the Lord. In the service another of our pastors was present, Daniel, who is from this village. Daniel asked the Lord for a son and said he would dedicate his son to the Lord’s work. Some time back I had the joy of baptizing his new son. Annadurai’s son, Milton, has graduated from the BELC’s Martin Luther Bible School and is assisting in preaching in another district. In addition to Milton another graduate from that MLBS batch and from this area was present for the service. There were 46 in attendance. This church building is one of the earlier ones that we helped build.
Jan. 17 – Pastor Bhasker, who is one of our district chairmen in the BELC, has been working on a new building for Nindra New Colony. He preaches on Sunday at (old) Nindra and at Kaippakkam. While the new building is not complete and not dedicated yet we held a service there with 65 members in attendance. It is a very spacious building with an upstairs to be built also. The work has been going on for two years. In Nindra there are maybe 1500 families. There is one other Christian church in the vicinity. So far Bhasker has gathered around $11,000 in offerings and loans, of which we have given one tenth of that. Bhasker’s wife, who has a job, has taken out a loan to help in the building also. This is the kind of joint effort we carry on with our brothers and sisters. The building still needs such as windows, flooring, plastering and so on. We pray it can be done as it has so far with God’s blessing. One thing to note as to Bhasker’s dedication. We did have another pastor at Nindra, who even dated back to the beginning, but he sadly became weary with this work at Nindra. He did not attend our monthly meetings for a long time and then left to go elsewhere. Bhasker stepped in to be the pastor in addition to his congregation and chairman’s duties. Take the task He gives you gladly, let His work your pleasure be.
Jan. 24th – Pastor Jesurathnam was trained in Martin Luther Bible School many years ago under the late Pastor Bas. When we had a rupture with Pastor Bas we did not have contact with Jesurathnam until he contacted our present head of the BELC. Subsequently, a new district was started in his area, Tiruttani District. Our worship today was at Palasamudhram with 58 attending. Pastor has been preaching here for twenty years and it is 5k. from his home. There is no other Christian church in the village of about 5000. Our congregation has very substantial building set on a hill. How appropriate as we are to be a city set on a hill for this people and to let our light shine far and wide. Pastor serves one other congregation and is assisting the District Chairman, D. Paul. The building itself still needs to be finished with especially windows. The government gave them the land and we assisted with 60,000 rupees in addition to what they gave in the congregation. Then in ’13 we gave another 65,000 with members doing the labor. This is how we work together for His kingdom. They have a service after the main one for the children in their effort to reach out to children.