The impact of COVID-19 and its affect on our personal and professional lives may be negative, but as we look at our spiritual lives it has impacted us very positively. During the pandemic, we have seen house churches functioning in unity, caring for one another, and showing God’s love to the people around them. More than that, our God used ordinary believers to spread His glory among the unreached people, in some of the hardest areas to reach. We are sharing two stories of how God used ordinary people, and gave them boldness and strength to bring hundreds of souls into the kingdom of God.
Miracles in the Mountains
When Sonia was a young girl, growing up in a remote mountain village, she was brought up in a family and community with very traditional Hindu beliefs. She came to the nearby town for her high school graduation. While in the town she received a Gospel of John booklet from one of our missionaries. Reading that booklet transformed her life! She started to attend a prayer group, and received Jesus into her life. Her college was temporarily closed in March 2020 due to COVID, and she had to travel home to her village in the mountains. There, no one had ever heard the name of Jesus, and not even her parents knew that she had accepted Jesus into her life. She was feeling very lonely in her village, both emotionally and spiritually, since she had no fellowship and there was no Internet access.
She began spending more and more time in prayer. Her friends in the village were amazed by her way of life, and her love and care for them. Slowly she started to share the Gospel with them. As the Lord used her to spread the Gospel in her village, they began to meet in an open field to learn and worship the Lord. Gradually the message of the Gospel spread to the surrounding village and beyond. Our Lord confirmed His word with miracles, signs, and wonders. Many people came from different villages. They came with different sicknesses and were healed. Many were delivered from evil spirits, and all kinds of addictions.
Over the past 18 months, more than 328 people received baptism and in more than 32 villages, house churches and prayer groups were started. In the first week of September we were in that area worshiping with different house church groups. We baptized Sonia’s parents and two brothers, and started a weekly house church leaders training program for the new believers. In two villages 39 people (mostly young people) joined the training program. What is impossible with man is possible with God!
Tormented Girl Set Free
Monica is a nurse, working in the government health department. She was brought up in a Christian family and her parents were true Christians. She loved the Lord very much, and she chose to be a nurse so that she can show our Lord’s love to the poor and needy, and serve them. During the COVID season, she was transferred to a small remote town with not even a single Christian in that area. She was alone, without any spiritual fellowship, but she served the patients in her hospital with love and compassion. One evening, a group of people brought a young girl to the rented house where she was staying. Both her hands and legs were tied, and she was shouting. The parents were there, and they said they did not know what was wrong with her. They told Monica she had had these episodes since she was 15 years old. They were asking Monica to give her a sedative to calm her down, because they could not control her. At this point, she became more violent and attacked some of the people and injured them. As Monica approached her to follow the medical procedure, the young girl began to cry out “Don’t come close to me! Don’t touch me!” Monica, sensing the presence of an evil spirit in the young girl prayed in tongues (in the Holy Spirit). God spoke to her in her heart, telling her to “lay her hands on the young girl and cast out the evil spirit in her in the name of Jesus.” Monica had never done anything like that in her life, and it was against her medical practices, so at first she resisted the prompting. Again a second time, she heard the voice instructing her to lay her hands on the girl and cast out the evil spirit. With her parents’ permission, and in front of the people, she approached the young girl. (In Monica’s own words “over 100 people had gathered in front of my rented house”)
As Monica approached the young girl, she resisted with all her strength, not allowing Monica to come close to her. As the people restrained the girl, Monica was able to reach her, laid her hand on the young girl and prayed over her. Instantly, the evil spirit left the young girl and she was completely delivered. The people around her, all Hindus, were amazed and wondering among themselves; they thought she had some special divine power. One by one, they came and touched her feet as a demonstration of their respect and reverence for her. She took the opportunity, and introduced Jesus to the villagers. That very night, many believed in the Lord Jesus, and entered the kingdom of God.
It was 13 months ago that Monica started a prayer group in that interior town. Today more than 200 baptized believers worship the true living God in Spirit and Truth. And it was all because of the night when hundreds of people from the neighboring village, desperate to see a young girl healed, came and heard the Gospel for the first time in their lives.
Help Us Share the Gospel
We Thank God for ordinary people like Sonia and Monica and many others whom God is using for His Glory and the expansion of His kingdom. Today the message of the gospel is speeding into the unreached villages of India through native believers, transforming thousands of lives.
Did you enjoy these testimonies? Will you help us continue sharing the Gospel in the darkest places of India? Psalm 119:105 says ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.’ Ask our beloved Savior to establish us in faith, hope and love as we strive to be holy as He is holy. To find out how to contact us, and 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!
With your help, the Gospel will be proclaimed, and you will be blessed, along with thousands of others!
Proclaiming the Gospel…
…until He comes,
These are amazing stories of the movement of the Holy Sprit in India. Praying for these two women and their witness to reach even more people. Tom, we’re you in India in September and met these women? How exciting to know and see this work first hand. Praise God??