Brother Anand is from a remote mountain village and from a traditional Buddhist family. When he was in college he suffered serious depression, and had to be admitted in the hospital for a few months. In the hospital, someone handed him a Gospel of John booklet. Through that booklet, he came to know the Lord, and began to attend a prayer group in the college. He met regularly with a few young Christians, most of them from different religious backgrounds, just like him. God in His mercy delivered him from depression and gave him very good fellowship in the prayer group. Just like the young person who gave him the Gospel tract, Anand was also used by our Lord to draw many young people to salvation. Soon, the Lord gave him a burden to share Jesus with his own people in the mountains. In response to this call, he went back to his own village.
Today, two years later, Anand is a fulltime evangelist. Every day he climbs the mountains, walking their steep, rugged trails trying to reach the unreached villages, going into communities where the name of Christ has never been heard. Through his witness thousands have heard the Gospel, and hundreds of people in the mountains have found salvation through Jesus Christ. In April of 2018, Pastor R* traveled to some mountain villages and visited some of the prayer groups that Anand has started. He had fellowship with them, meeting as they do in small groups in different villages.
When he visited with Anand, R* asked him, “What is the biggest hindrance for new believers in this area, as they try to grow in the Lord?” Anand told him “Though many are coming to Jesus, these new believers struggle to grow in their faith. They gather faithfully every week in small groups, but it is almost impossible for me to come to every prayer group every week. So we have to rely on local leadership. With their limited Bible knowledge, these leaders tend to repeat variations on a few favorite ideas, week after week. There are very few resources available, at the local level, for the leaders to grow up in Christ. And because local leaders are not equipped to teach Christ’s commandments, believers are not being effectively transformed or discipled.”
R* was more than happy to share about our local leadership training program. By taking into consideration the needs of this specific local community, we modified our typical training program. Instead of having one lecture day per week for 40 weeks, we scheduled blocks of training. Each block was one full week of all-day Bible training, spaced out at three month intervals. We held this training in Anand’s village, which is in a central location among the other villages, where people could easily come.
In May 2018 we sent out a team of instructors to start the program. Like we planned it, our brothers went and conducted one week of Bible training every three months. As our team of teachers led the training program, more than 28 leaders, representing both prayer groups and house churches from remote mountain villages, faithfully attended the training. This past April (2019) they completed the training to effectively teach and lead their congregations. In an informal setting, they had the opportunity to learn, study and practice biblical interpretation in a small group, similar to the small congregations they have been trying to lead.
Last week R* was in Anand’s area for a baptism service, and to help teach a Bible class for the new trainees. He met many of last year’s trainees who had successfully completed the training. They were very thankful, saying “This training has changed our lives! Now we read the Bible systematically, make note of what God speaks to us and share with the people. The Holy Spirit is ministering through those words to the hearts of the people. Many new people have started coming to our meetings and we have even started new prayer groups in different villages. We never thought that we could teach from God’s Word so effectively!”
Though Bible schools exist in big cities in the region, most of these mountain prayer group leaders have never been to the city and will never have the opportunity to go to Bible school. In addition, their responsibility to their families prevents them from attending regular Bible college. They say these week-long Bible studies are a blessing to them and give them a refreshing experience in their lives. We also find the village churches are growing so quickly that we can’t keep up with the number of native leaders needed. Week-long Bible classes held in strategically located areas fulfill a great need. We are training them to do what they are already doing, but in a better and more Biblical way.
By your prayers and sacrificial giving, we have trained more than 4,000 men and women to be house church leaders and prayer group leaders in the unreached villages. Some of them are now mission leaders, pastors, or evangelists, leading thousands of people to the Lord and reaching the unreached people groups.
This year we have 16 training centers with 507 men and women going through the training program. We need your continued prayers and financial support to train up these men and women.
Help Us Shine the Light
Will you help us continue shining the Light of 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.’ You can share in the blessings! 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,