God has been very busy in the life of our ministry lately. This past Sunday, Nov.14, Bob and I attended the morning worship service at Fellowship Ashram Church of India (FACI) in Valsad. Valsad is about an hour's drive from our town of Silvassa. We were very excited to meet the congregation of FACI church. It is very rare to find fellow believers in our part of India; especially Indian believers.
The area we live in is 35% tribal. It has one of the highest tribal populations in India. "Tribal" means exactly what it sounds like. These people live in remote areas within a specific tribe. Most have little contact with the modern world. When I visit these tribal areas I am the first white person they have ever met. Some of the tribes I have visited did not even have a road to their village until several years ago. The people live in mud huts and raise all their food. Most have little or no access to education. A quality, English education is unheard of. All of the tribes speak a different language from the others. Because Hindi is the national language that is only taught in government schools, most tribes do not even speak Hindi. Tribal people are very suspicious of outsiders and especially Christians. They are strict Hindus and want to keep it that way. For these reasons, it is very unusual to come across a Christian from the tribes. That is where FACI comes in.
FACI has made it thier mission to go into the tribal areas to provide English-medium education for the children. The congregation we worshipped with on Sunday held 12 men from different tribes who are now attending the FACI Bible Institute in Valsad. These men are being trained to take the Gospel back to their villages in their native tribal language. What a breakthrough for these people! We were so humbled to be able to worship with a group of folks on Sunday who are now believers. These people were all previously Hindu. Bob and I both shared our story with the people of how God called us to come be a part of His work in India. Bob also preached a great message that the Lord gave him. I have never been more proud of him! We are so thankful that God wants to use us in India. We are just your average American couple. We have no special training or outstanding skills but what we do have we give to God to use. He does amazing things with average people all the time. Just read Hebrews 11 to see a list of all the average people and what they accomplished through the power of God. It is all Him; we are just the pipeline.
Please pray for our ministry, New Beginnings India, as we partner with FACI to accomplish what God plans for this area. It is our goal to reach the tribal people with the Gospel through education and better living conditions. Big God=Big Plans :)
No comments:
Post a Comment