Last month by our Lord’s grace, and by the prayer and sacrificial giving of God’s people, 542 men and women completed the house church leaders training in 19 different training centers. We praise God for all the brothers and sisters, and for all our missionaries and teachers, who took extra effort to go to these training centers and teach God’s word to them.
During the Easter outreach our brothers and sisters were able to reach over 32,000 homes with the gospel message, and they distributed 35,000 gospel packets and over 10,000 New Testaments. We had 22 public meetings in different places, and over 8,000 people attended these meetings. Our Lord moved in these meetings, and transformed the lives of hundreds of people through salvation, healing, and deliverance.
Kiran and her husband Monu used to live in a brick factory. They were illiterate from childhood, and worked with their parents making bricks. They lived like slaves to the owner of the brick company because their parents had borrowed money from the company owner and all through their lives worked hard, but could not repay it. Both Kiran and Monu were 18 years old. Their parents, in mutual agreement, allowed them to live together as husband and wife because they could not afford to call a Hindu priest to conduct a marriage ceremony. Life was very difficult for them. Alcoholism and drug addiction (supplied by the brick company manager to make them work extra hours) affected them deeply. Kiran and her husband became so desperate they ran away from the brick factory without even taking an extra pair of clothes with them. They walked nearly 89 miles without any food. Finally Kiran fainted on the roadside, and some believers came to help them. They were migrant workers who happened to be in the area that season, picking cotton in the field.
The believers took care of Kiran and her husband, and nursed them back to health. Kiran and her husband started working with the believers, picking cotton in the field. In the evenings, several families would come together for evening prayer. This was Kiran and Monu’s first time experiencing a peaceful evening. All through their lives, evenings were full of fighting, cursing, murmuring, and all kinds of abuse, back in the brick factory. But here all the families lived in plastic tents, but they were happy, enjoying meals together and singing and praying together.
When the cotton-picking season was over Kiran and Monu traveled with the believers to their home village and started farming with them. They started to go to the church nearby, and accepted Jesus into their lives. This was 6 years ago, and shortly afterward I (Regi) gave them baptism.
In the following year, both Kiran and Monu joined our training program. During the training they were filled with the Holy Spirit. After completing the training, they felt prompted to go back to their own people, who were still in physical and spiritual slavery. After much fasting and prayer, we laid our hands on them and sent them to their own people. For the last five years they have been working among the poor and uneducated people who are working in the brick factory.
To reach the brick factory workers, they went back to work in the brick factory themselves, so that they would be able to reach out to the people. This was very hard in the beginning but they endured all kinds of humiliation, persecution, hardship (mentally and physically) and continued their effort to save their own people. They were thrown out of the brick factory, arrested by the police for the false accusation of stealing money from the brick factory, and spent three weeks in prison. Even with this, they counted everything as joy and continued the Lord’s work.
Over the last three years we have seen the fruits of their labor, we have had baptisms every three months in their mission stations, more than 480 in all, and last May we started two training centers in their area. Forty-nine men and women, mostly illiterate, completed the training. We thought teaching them was going to be hard, but they were some of the best students and very attentive. Through these illiterate people during last December’s Christmas outreach more than 300 people accepted the Lord, and last month during the Easter outreach we had the most fruitful outreach in that area. We held 6 different public meetings, more than 3,200 people attended, and 428 of them came forward to accept Jesus into their life. Most of these new believers were not illiterate brick makers but were educated villagers who heard the gospel through the poor illiterate people. I (Regi) was in a few of the public meetings. People who came to meet me after the meeting included engineers, teachers, nurses and others who are well educated. They were testifying how our God touched their lives through the prayer of these people. (remember their society doesn’t allow these believers to their homes and despises them, but now these high caste people are coming to the untouchables for prayer.) On Good Friday, 72 people were baptized.
By seeing what our Lord is doing through these simple people we are amazed and thanking God for His favor and life transforming message of the gospel. God is on the move!
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The people of India are searching and open to the Gospel, despite the persecution they face. The fields are ripe unto harvest. Join us in this work with your prayers and financial support.
To find out how your support will help us, click here. To read more inspiring and exciting testimonies of what God is doing among the unreached people groups of India, click the links on the right, and keep reading!
Proclaiming the Gospel…
…until He comes,