Revival Now!

The next day, after leaving the village where the young man was healed, we stopped for a baptism service in another village. It was the same village where, three years ago, our missionary R*, his wife S*, and their 2-year-old daughter were assaulted by Hindu radicals and beaten up. They were humiliated by the Hindu radicals, who tore the clothes of R* and S* and paraded them naked through the village. It was an act of unimaginable cruelty. But our Lord showed favor to them through the actions of some kind-hearted villagers, who stood with them, rescued them from the hands of the Hindu radicals, and gave them clothes to wear. In spite of all that hardship and humiliation, and with the help and support of partners in the USA, they chose to stay there and continue the mission work.
By the Grace of our God, R* and S* were able to reach the villagers and share the Gospel with them, leading hundreds of people to the Lord! Now, three years later, we were in the village to give baptism to 39 people and lay the foundation stone for the church building in the same village where they had been humiliated.

Power Evangelism

As you can see, God has compassion on people, releases His Power, and people give their lives to Him. It’s that simple. Jesus said “Go!” and He confirms the message with signs and miracles. May God challenge all of us to take that step of faith, with an expectation that He will back up His Word. Whether in India, or in America, pray that God will empower us (and you!) to carry this message of Hope to every town, every city, and every state.

This month we see the connection between compassion, healing and the advancement of the Gospel. Sometimes the best way to share our message is through a loving demonstration of God’s power.

Resistance to the Gospel

One of our outreach teams is focusing on a people group in which, according to the Joshua Project, there is not even a single Christian among 5 million people. Twenty-two young people came from a Bible college with a God-given vision to reach this community. The first week was terrible for them. In the first village where they went to share the Gospel, Hindu radicals resisted them and forced them out of the village. The second day the same thing happened, but even worse than the first day. Some village women threw cow dung on them and humiliated them, others slapped them in the face. It was a great disappointment for them. They went to another village and met with the same kind of resistance. When they contacted their leader, he asked them to stay indoors and spend few days in prayer, asking the Lord to give them a passion and burden for the people group.

They spent the following week in prayer, mostly fasting and praying for God’s favor to be with them. After five days they were still apprehensive, but they went out to a new village to share the Gospel. This time the situation had changed. Instead of resistance, the response was very positive! It seemed that the village had been waiting for them. They shared the Gospel with passion and a burden. They said “while we shared the Gospel, we were crying, our hearts were filled with a burden and passion for the people around us. Resistance and persecution never crossed our minds—we experienced such a love for these tribal people that we never had before. We weren’t preaching to them, but showing our love and affection which the Lord had poured into our hearts toward them. People responded with the same passion, and in one day we led 21 people to the Lord, who prayed a prayer of repentance.”

The Incurable Cries out for Healing

That same day, our outreach team went to share the Gospel at another house in the same village. In a small shed outside this house, a 32 year old man was laying in a bed. His parents told me that their son had been ill for 4 years, with huge boils all over his body. His skin would get inflamed and the wounds would grow and get infected. As some boils would heal, others would appear in his body. He was in constant pain. They took him everywhere: to the doctors, hospitals, witch doctors, and temples, but his condition continued to worsen. When our outreach team came to visit his home and share the Gospel, this young man was crying loudly due to pain from the wounds. His parents said “day and night he cries loudly and his wounds smell very bad.” They prepared a separate room for him, in a shed away from the house, where they would feed him. One of our brothers asked whether they could see him. The parents told them he was in very poor condition, and he smelled very bad. They explained “We used to clean his wounds before, but not any longer, because there is no point in cleaning him. We have done everything we know to do. We spent all the money we had, but everyone says there is no cure for this sickness.”
Our brothers once again asked his parents if they could pray for him. The parents led them to the shed outside the house, on the corner of a small farm. As our team approached the shed they were almost overwhelmed by the smell of rotten flesh. They could hear the young man’s cries. Covering their noses, the brothers approached him. When he saw the Bible college students, he began to cry louder, begging for help because he could not endure the pain. They could see several boils on his body that were each about the size of a small apple. His whole body was swollen in various places, and he could not lay down without being in pain, so he spent most of his time each day sitting or standing.

Worship Brings Healing and Salvation

Our brothers stood outside the room and began to sing some worship songs and worship the Lord. The neighbors, seeing our brothers singing, thought that the young man had died, so they came over to console the parents. As the brothers continued singing, the presence of the Lord fell on everyone who stood there, including the parents and the neighbors who had come to see what was happening there! The young man was also filled with the presence of the Lord, and he began to shout and jump with joy. Hearing the noise, more people came to see what was happening. Finally, in front of a small crowd of over a hundred people, our brothers went and touched the young man and prayed over him. The moment they touched him, instantly his pain was gone! He was just rejoicing and kept thanking our brothers. They stood there and shared the Gospel with the people all around saying “Jesus is the one who heals!” Yes, our Lord Jesus heals!

Last week, while their leader was spending time with the outreach team, this young man and his parents came to visit him. He was pain-free and almost all the wounds were healed. He looked good and healthy. He and his parents came and touched the leader’s feet as a sign of respect, and told him “If your people would not have come to our village, our son would be still living in great pain. We had forgotten how to smile. We were living in hell, but today we rejoice. We sing, dance, and worship the Lord! We have been delivered from hell to heaven!” The young man’s father even offered to give a piece of land for a church building!

The Gospel Advances

The following day we visited the village people and they brought their sick people for prayer. Some women who were possessed by evil spirits were brought to be prayed for as well. We had a public meeting in the village, where around 300 people attended, mostly tribal people. Sixty-four of them gave their lives to the Lord.

All the villagers were thanking the team for bringing this glorious Good News to their village!

M* is a young man from a village. He came to the city looking for success, but instead met with failures in his life and ended up as a drug addict. A friend of his brought him to one of our house churches, where he shared his life story with the church. They prayed for him and promised him that they would be continually praying for him. He regularly began to come to the church, and with the help and fellowship of the believers he was slowly able to overcome his drug habits. A year after being baptized he felt that he needed to go back to his village in the mountains. He knew he needed to share the Gospel with them, because at that time no one had ever heard the Gospel in his village.

The church prayed for him and sent him to his village. After being away for many years, he was now visiting his village as a totally transformed person. He slowly began to meet with people and began to share the Gospel with them but they couldn’t seem to understand anything.

Some of his friends from the church visited him in the village. One evening they were sitting together, singing hymns in their native language. Hearing the songs, the neighbors all came together to listen. The villagers still didn’t understand; they mistook the friends to be wedding singers, and invited them to come and sing for a wedding. Usually in a village, a Hindu wedding ceremony lasts for 5 days. On the first day they stood to sing in front of 150 to 200 people, but the Christian brothers were worried – what were they going to sing? At that moment they prayed, and God brought to mind a worship song they would sing in church. After the prayer, they sang that song and people really appreciated them and wanted them to sing that song again and again. They continued to sing for 2 hours and worship the Lord. This continued every day for the entire 5-day wedding. People from other villages were also attending the wedding. They too liked the hymns the brothers sang and invited them to sing in their weddings as well without realizing that they are worshiping the Lord among the heathens.

As they began to sing in more Hindu marriages, people began to get delivered, healed and touched by the power of God. This opened the door for them to share the Gospel with them and lead them to the Lord.

Today M* and his surrounding villages have 22 house churches with over 350 baptized believers. They meet together for worship in the evenings, in fields near the village. They are pooling their money together to build a church building for the village. They rejoice that they have come to know the true living God. Through Hindu marriage ceremonies, of all places, they have now become members of the Bride of Christ!

Two weeks ago, we were there in one of the house churches to celebrate Holy Communion with 150 to 200 believers!

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Romans 12:2a, NASB

Two years ago, a few of our brothers were traveling to a meeting and stopped at a tea shop along the way. There they found a young man sitting and washing the utensils, and as he worked he sang a Christian hymn in the Hindi language. He had a beautiful and melodious voice. When the brothers realized he was singing a Christian hymn they thought he was a Christian. But to their surprise, they found out that he was a Hindu, and had never heard about Jesus in his life. The brothers asked him “Where did you learn the song you were singing?” He told them he heard it on the radio and was touched by it.

One of our brothers sat with him and shared the meaning of the song (it was about the suffering of our Lord Jesus on the Cross). They invited him to the meeting they were going to, about 4 miles away from where he lived. He was willing to come. A brother preached that evening about the suffering of Christ on the cross, and at the end of the message he asked the young man to sing the song in front of 250 people. He had never sung in front of so many people, so with great nervousness he sang the song. It was beautiful and almost everyone’s eyes were filled with tears, including his own. When he finished, he fell on his face and wept. That day more than 100 people responded to the altar call, including this young man.

Today he is one of the leading worship leaders in northern India, leading thousands of people to worship the living God in spirit and truth. Three weeks ago he was the worship leader in one of the public meetings where, when he saw our brother, he came and touched his feet with respect. He led the worship, then shared his testimony of how he came to know the Lord and how Jesus transformed his life from a street boy to a worship leader. This touched the hearts of the people, and hundreds of young people responded to the altar call.

In one of the holiest Sikh pilgrim cities in Punjab, S* and his wife M* have worked as missionaries with our organization for the past 9 years. During that time, they tried everything they could to lead people to the Lord, but they were unsuccessful. For five years, they had a small house church with hardly 20 people meeting weekly. They were feeling very discouraged and disappointed, so much that even their family life was suffering.

The changes began four years ago, when we started a training program in their city. S* and M* joined the 40-day training program, a basic Bible and church leadership training program. Not only were they learning, but each week they were also trying to practice what they learned in their ministry. They began to see changes in their lives as they were drawn to the Lord. They gave priority to the simple truths of the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus. As their lives began to change, they noticed a change in their congregation. People were slowly drawn to the Lord. They also began to pray for one another, collectively addressing the issues they were facing, whether physically, emotionally or spiritually. The Lord continued to move in their lives, and through their lives over the last four years, He has touched the hearts of thousands of people in that pilgrim city.

A few weeks ago, we were there to attend an outreach meeting, where more than 400 local people came, mostly Hindus and Sikhs. Today S* and M* have a tremendous impact on the community and are reaching thousands of people with the message of the Gospel.

J* is a small village located 7 miles from the nearest road. It is totally undeveloped, and only 148 families live there, most of them “untouchables” (the lowest social status). This past December, some of our trainees went into this unreached village as part of their Christmas outreach program. They visited every home, sharing the Gospel orally from door to door, unable to share their literature because most of the residents were illiterate. They didn’t expect much response, but after the outreach they had some small public meetings in the village. Nonetheless, between 50 and 60 people attended the meetings, and 19 people responded to the altar call! But our work in this village actually started last March. At that time, one of our trainees had just completed our basic training. This training consists of 40 days of foundational training, one day a week for 40 weeks. At the end of the training, he could still hardly read and write, and he and his wife had never done mission work. He could have focused on all these negatives, but when he was asked to come to the village and conduct some Gospel meetings there, he agreed. His home church and our ministry sent him to this remote village as a full time missionary. He and his wife were willing to go to a poor community and live in a very rural, undeveloped village, and there they started a regular worship service. Over the past year, the response has been great. Last week R* was in the village for a public meeting, where more than 400 people attended, and 72 people responded to the altar call!