As I, Regi, write this my heart overflows with joy and gratitude as I remember all God’s wonders over the past year. As I have shared before, the pro-Hindu government is determined to stop anyone from reaching the unreached people with the Gospel. They are changing the laws, and persecuting house churches in the villages, physically and emotionally. They falsely accuse and arrest pastors and believers, imprisoning them for many weeks without bail. Hundreds of house church leaders and believers have been in jail for months for sharing the Gospel.
This was the background as we planned our 2023 Christmas outreach. We had 648 house church leader trainees to send out for practical evangelism as part of our training. During this planning, we were approached by two youth groups who wanted to join us. Then a church wanted to join the outreach to celebrate their 25th anniversary. By the time we started on December 5th, we had over 1,620 people participating. Starting in the state of Gujarat, the teams went out in groups of 10, to the unreached villages in the remote areas. They spent two weeks in door-to-door evangelism, sharing the Gospel and giving out the Gospel of John to whoever could read it in their native language. They prayed for people’s physical, spiritual, and emotional needs, and invited them to a special Christmas public meeting in a nearby area.
During those two weeks of evangelism our people faced many challenges – physical, emotional, and spiritual. In several villages they were beaten up by Hindu and Muslim radicals, in others they were locked up in a room. Our sisters were verbally abused, accused, and publicly humiliated.
As they went house to house, they were stirred emotionally. They saw people suffering from physical and spiritual oppression, possessed by evil spirits, helpless and ignorant, forced into all kinds of evil practices, and in great need of deliverance. Spiritually, they saw great darkness everywhere, people who were lost and hopeless. As one of the tribal sisters said “We live among these people. We see these things every day but as we carried the Gospel message with us, our eyes were opened, and we began to see things differently. We finally understood the phrase in the Bible ‘Jesus was moved with compassion.’ When we shared the Gospel with them, we felt pure love and compassion. When we prayed for them, we prayed in tears. Our only desire was for the Lord to touch them, help them, and deliver them from darkness. Nothing else mattered to us. Not people’s accusations, not their threats, not humiliation, not our own fears. Somehow, we wanted them to be free from bondage.” These are the words of a 21-year-old tribal girl who participated in the outreach, and she dedicated her life to serve the Lord.
During the outreach, our Lord moved through the brothers and sisters, and hundreds of people were touched, delivered, found new hope, and were healed from their sicknesses. We reached 896 unreached villages and shared the Gospel with over 216,000 homes. We had over 239 Christmas public meetings in different villages. Due to Hindu and Muslim radicals’ threats, and officials not giving permission, we had to cancel several public meetings in different villages. In spite of that, according to our field report, over 75,000 people attended these public meetings. More than 9,000 people publicly responded to an altar call. The Lord of The Harvest gave us a great Harvest, beyond what we thought and imagined. Personally, I spent 23 days traveling and attending 59 public meetings, where we saw hundreds responding to the Gospel call, and people healed and delivered in front of our eyes.
One of the incidents which we will never forget took place at a public meeting very close to a slum. As Sherly and I walked from the car to the meeting place, a young, crippled girl shouted at us to stop. Unable to walk, she crawled toward us with her hands, dragging her useless legs behind her through the filthy water along the road. Seeing her struggle, we walked over to her. She greeted us and said she recognized me. She said we had given her a wheelchair several years ago, but her alcoholic father sold it to buy liquor. Here was a young girl in torn dirty clothes, soaking wet in 40° weather, shivering, sitting there looking desperate. In tears she said “I heard that you were coming here to preach, so I waited for two hours by the road, hoping I would see you. I don’t have a good dress to wear to the meeting, so I waited here, just to ask for another wheelchair.” Sherly walked back to the car, opened her suitcase, and got some of her clothes, a sweater, and a light blanket. With the help of another sister, they took her to her one-room house to meet her mother. I sent two of our pastors to a nearby medical shop to buy a wheelchair.
Finally, I joined the meeting. By this time, we were late. Over 500 people from the nearby slum were present in the meeting. I preached a simple Gospel message, gave an invitation, and a good number of people responded. We prayed for the sick and needy. At the end of the meeting, I wanted to publicly present the new wheelchair to the girl. My wife informed me that, now that she had a nice dress, she was sitting in the meeting. I asked some of the sisters to bring her to the front. As they lifted her, everyone recognized her and was aware of her condition. There was no life in her legs, but as she was brought to the front, we heard a loud cry from her. Everyone thought it was because of pain, but it was easy to see that while the other sisters carried her, she was moving her legs! After a few meters, she took a few steps. As she put weight on her legs, her lifeless legs became normal, and she began to walk on her own. She fell several times, but each time she got up and walked again in front of the people. I fell on my face and people were in tears, shouting “Hallelujah! Glory to God!” I was crying, looking at the wheelchair that I bought for her. The most I could do was give her a wheelchair. I was trying to be kind and caring, but my Lord went far beyond that. He gave life to her legs and lifted her up! All glory and honor to our God alone! That day, holding her mother’s shoulder for balance, she walked home in her own strength! A few days later she stood strong and shared her testimony. As you can see, she no longer needs the wheelchair.
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