India is home to over a billion people who have never heard of Jesus. Those who do know Him are eager to proclaim and share their new-found faith in Jesus even after knowing that this will bring persecution from their families and friends, and they will be rejected and outcast by others. Today the government authorities are trying their best to stop the churches and missions from spreading the gospel to the unreached, by passing new laws, giving extra power to the police, and openly calling out to oppose the Christians and stop the preaching of the gospel in unreached areas.
Even as people try to stop the gospel, our Lord is opening new ways to reach out to the unreached area with the gospel, through simple believers who are fearlessly sharing their faith. One mountain area was totally unreached for years. We had sent out several teams to those areas without much impact on the people. In the last few years we have been seeing simple believers who are laborers and willing to travel to the mountains in the summer, working in the farms from April to October and sharing their faith with native people around them and praying for them. Our Lord is using them for His glory. Over the last few years, more than 37 house churches were started in that area.
In May and June some of our missionaries visited our house churches in the mountain areas. They came back and shared one testimony that changed the whole village.
Our brothers were visiting one of the house churches and having a small meeting. The head of the village came to that meeting, where he heard the story of the Gadarene demoniac (Luke 8:26-39). In the meeting there were a few people who were possessed and during the worship and prayer they were delivered. After the meetings, the head of the village asked our brothers to visit a family and pray for them while they were in the village. In the evening the head of the village took two of our brothers to a old house that seemed as if no one lived there. There they met a women in her late sixties, very gloomy and unhappy. The village head talked to her privately for a while, trying to convince her to reveal her situation to our brothers. Finally, she took our brothers to a window and showed them two young men, laying on the floor. The village head told them that this women has three children, one daughter and two sons. They were all living a normal life but 7 years ago the children’s father committed suicide. A few months later the oldest son slowly became mentally ill. They took him to various doctors and mental hospitals, but his condition got worse. At the same time their daughter also started behaving differently and got worse. After a year, the youngest son too become mentally ill. Their mother took them to various doctors and witchcraft doctors, different “god-men” and temples. She spent all her savings and they lost all their friends. The woman worked at several house cleaning jobs, just to make enough to feed her three children who were locked in two different rooms. She took care of them the best she could, but they were barely alive.
The village head asked our brother “why don’t you pray for them? This morning in the meeting I saw with my own eyes people who were mentally tortured being delivered.” He was begging our brothers to please do something for this family, and in his ignorance he even offered them money. The mother just sat and listened, showing no emotion, as a woman who had lost all hope and was living mechanically.
Not knowing what to do, our brothers prayed with them and said they would come back the following day. As they left the village, their hearts were full of compassion because of the state of the three young people and the sorrow of their mother. They also took note of the faith and expectation of the village head, who was a Hindu, who had seen the deliverance in the house church and believed that Jesus could also help these young people. After much prayer and talking it over with the local believers and with me, they contacted the village head late in the afternoon on the following day, telling him they will come and pray for them. The next 24 hours they spent in fasting and prayer along with the believers. In the afternoon of the third day they returned to the house, along with the village head. The mother of the three told them that since morning all three of them had been very violent, shouting, making all kinds of voices and had even tried to attack her while she tried to feed them.
Our brothers along with around 20 believers surrounded the house, singing and worshiping the Lord with loud voices. Then they started walking around the house, still singing and worshiping loudly. The villagers heard the singing and also surrounded the house. After some time, everyone, including the villagers, could hear loud shouting and crying coming from the house. The shouting and crying went on for 40 to 60 minutes. Suddenly, the shouting and crying from the rooms stopped, and only the singing and worshiping of the believers could be heard. Looking through the window, the villagers saw that all three of them lay quietly on the floor. The mother and a few villagers opened the room and found the two sons and the daughter were unconscious. After few minutes, they regained consciousness and they were acting normal. By our Lord’s abundant Grace and favor, all three of them had been delivered while the believers were singing and worshiping the Lord.
According to the believers, while they walked around that house singing and worshiping, they felt great boldness, power, and comfort which they had never experienced in their lives. Many of them said they were worshiping the Lord in tongues in which they had never spoken. Truly it was divine experience for everyone.
Since that day 80% of the villagers, including the priest of the local temple, are attending the prayer meetings. Over the past few weeks God has been moving in a very special way in that village and it is spreading to the other villages. This week a few of our brothers are traveling to that area again to spend time with the new believers in that village.
Help Us Share the Gospel
We want to thank you for every one of your prayers. Without your prayers we would not be able to harvest this harvest. 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