What If?

But, What If?

What if you were offered the opportunity to make that ‘significant contribution’ to a very productive ‘Great Commission Opportunity’? An opportunity that requires no financial commitment on your part.

Well, it’s not what if. Its What Is!

An amazing story from our founder and leader – Brother NJ Varughese

All my life I have loved the wildlife of India, but there is no animal in the world that I love more than the Indian elephant. I grew up around them. When I was a little boy, elephant owners rode them down the street near my house. If you ever ask me to tell you elephant stories, you’ll have me going all afternoon. The story I am about to tell is quickly becoming my all-time favorite elephant story.

During my visit to India late in 2009, we had our annual four-day workers’ conference. Over five hundred workers traveled by train or bus to reach Ranchi for the conference. It was a time to hear reports from the various fields.

One report was from Pastor D.R. Nag from Orissa. Regarding the persecution last year (2009), he said that 50,000 Christians fled from their villages, 1,5 00 churches were destroyed or damaged, 150 Christians were murdered, some even burned alive, and hundreds of Christian villages were completely destroyed.  Then he told us an amazing story about how elephants seem to be taking revenge against the persecutors.

Christian Elephants?

We’ve all seen demonstrations of trained elephants in circuses where they do amazing tricks. In Asia, trained elephants are used as work animals because they are so enormously strong. However, wild elephants are a different story. Everybody in Asia has a great fear of wild elephants. They can uproot trees, tear down houses, turn over busses and kill people. In Orissa, herds of wild elephants have been coming out of the jungles and wreaking havoc on the villages where the worst offences against Christians occurred. This past August, one year to the day after Hindus attacked a certain village, a herd of elephants emerged from the surrounding jungle and destroyed a lot of the perpetrators’ homes.

Typically, smaller elephants enter a village first, appearing to survey the community. These smaller elephants then rejoin the herd. Soon after, the larger elephants enter the village and get the job done. These strange attacks have spread. According to one report, elephants have already destroyed more than 700 houses in 30 villages, and killed five people. Nobody in this area has seen or even imagined the unique appearance of a herd of wild elephants such as this.

The elephants never attack Christians. They appear to be on a mission. In fact, the fear of God has fallen on the local people, who remember very well what they did to the Christians last year. Locals have labeled these elephants “Christian elephants.”

Until now, the Lord has given us peace in Jharkhand, but we all remember the terror that occurred in Orissa. On this trip I noticed a shift in people’s attitudes. Recently there have been indications that violence could erupt in our area, and people are living in genuine fear now. The next day, after we learned about the elephants, Brother Tiwari gave his report. He said that many are coming to the Lord in his mission field, but that Hindus are stirring up trouble. Violence is building up in a pressure cooker. People are in fear.

My Unusual Prayer

After Brother Tiwari’s report, I got a little inspiration. I prayed the strangest prayer ever: I asked the Lord to send 50 wild Elephants to Tiwari’s village! I didn’t ask for anybody to be harmed or for any property to be damaged. I simply asked the Lord to send a visual demonstration of His mighty power. I knew those who oppose the gospel would get the message as soon as they saw the elephants. I also knew it would be an encouragement to our believers to see God’s hand of protection on them. Our believers would also learn that God answers prayer — even when we ask for something unusual.

Strange Prayer Answered

A week after I returned to the States, Pastor Tiwari called on the phone. Our conversation went something like this: “We’re remembering your prayer!” “Which prayer?” “Your prayer for 50 wild Elephants. They came!!!” “Really? Where did they come from?” “Nobody knows. They just appeared. The God of heaven sent 50 wild elephants because of your prayer.” Friends, a herd of 50 elephants doesn’t just appear. People would know about such a large herd of elephants, and would be tracking their movements from the time they entered the area until they left. God answers prayer! As I was preparing this newsletter, I decided to give Tiwari a call to be sure I had all the facts right. He told me the rest of the story.

The elephants came to the fields surrounding Tiwari’s village in two herds. Our believers were expecting them because of my prayer, so they immediately went out and started counting the elephants to make sure there were exactly 50. There were 22 in each herd, which added up to only 44 elephants, so they decided to include the calves. One herd had three calves, the other only two. But that was only 49 elephants. “Lord!” they cried. “Our beloved pastor asked for 50 elephants! There are only 49 here! Where is the missing elephant?” They went to bed that night, a little disturbed and confused about why the Lord didn’t answer my prayer precisely.  When they woke up the next morning, they discovered that one of the elephants had given birth during the night. The newborn calf made up the difference. It was like a small miracle. God truly answers prayer!

Where is my Baby Elephant?

When I heard about the baby elephant, I felt a special love and kinship for him. I wanted to take him home. I am sitting here in Kansas wondering about my miracle baby. Where is he? How is he faring?  The elephants stayed near the village for some time, but were completely peaceful and caused no disturbance whatsoever. Later, Indian forestry officials came and “persuaded” the elephants to return to the jungle. And that is where my baby elephant is.

I have decided to use our weekly blogs to share a number of wonderful stories about All India Mission.  Some of the stories demonstrate the Lord’s miraculous intervention in the lives of the people we serve and others are showing the Lord’s work through the hands of one or more of our more than 600 full-time workers who serve in the highly persecuted remote area of northeastern India where All India Mission serves. These workers are carrying out the All India mission by evangelizing the region leading to salvation for  more than 20,000 native villagers to date, while also working to bring them a more abundant life while they are on earth.

I have a really soft spot in my heart for our first story and I believe it will have the same impact on you…

RIA’S MIRACLE

During their normal visits to the innumerable native villages in the northeastern part of India, the All India Mobile Medical Team met Ria, in April of 2008.  Though she was 18 months old, Ria weighed just 2.2 pounds.  Her young mother had already lost four other children which the family attributed to some form of black magic.

The medical team treated her and supplied her mother with a balanced baby diet.  They also provided her mother a bottle to feed along with the baby food, vitamins and minerals. The team nurse taught her how to prepare the baby food and feed the baby.

The medical team came every few weeks to replenish the food and supplement supply.

By November 2009  Ria had reached a weight of 16 pounds. It gives us immense pleasure to see her growing into a healthy kid. Now she walks in and around her neighborhood and plays with the other children.  Just imagine what God will accomplish when we deploy our 300 All India Angels into the region.

Please pray for the Lord’s miraculous intervention in our search for those other impoverished native villagers who might help us fund the completion of Shanti Bhavan Medical Center so we can see many more miracles like Ria’s every day.

www.allindiamission.com.

A Blog from our Founder and Leader…

It’s 6:00 AM in Simdega.  As I sit and write to you, many activities are going on around me already.  Several wall lizards in my little room are waiting to catch some bugs for breakfast.  Outside, dogs are barking, roosters are crowing, children are playing, cows are trying to find something to eat and several motorcycles are roaring down a village lane with broken mufflers.  The ceiling fan in my little room is trying to go full force, but there is not enough voltage.  Well, I see that the world around me is already active, so what are my plans for the day?  Today will most likely be very much like yesterday.  Here is what I did yesterday.  You could call it:

A Day in the Life of N.J. Varughese

Yesterday morning I made several business phone calls including one to Dr. Surendranath who is our medical director for the hospital.  I then went to the hospital site to check the floor tiling work.  The tile work wasn’t satisfactory to my standard, so I made necessary corrections by relieving these masons of their work.

Downstairs two retired Indian Army people were waiting to talk to me.  After interviewing them I hired one of them as a security guard.

After that two more people were waiting to talk about a piece of property adjacent to our hospital.  Later in the day I met with the owner and negotiated on the price of the land.  He wants more than I want to pay, so that gives me something to think about.

Then I contracted someone to bring a bulldozer to do some initial landscaping around the hospital.

Then, four hundred truckloads of sand began arriving from a nearby riverbed.  These needed to be examined to protect us from being cheated in quality and quantity, so I got someone on that.  After that I found someone to take out the broken submersion water pump from a bore well and install a new one.  I also I hired a new team of tiling masons and they will start the work today.

In the middle of all this, Dr. Haribabu, the leader of our mobile medical ministry, who is in Vishakhapatnam trying to clear eight more containers of medical equipment, furniture and fixtures through customs, called me about a particular x-ray machine in the shipment.  Customs wants to know the make and the model the amount of radiation it puts out.  How would I know that?  I’ll have to find someone to do the necessary research to get this machine through customs.  Last, I got a team together and we began checking all the hospital furniture we have in storage, for termites.

So that was my day yesterday.  I expect today will be much the same.  Actually, I have supervisors to take care of these things in my absence, but when I’m here I like to be on top of things.

Of course the hospital work is only one of the things I do.  In a couple of days I’ll be returning to Ranchi.  Dozens of our pastors and evangelists will be there with questions and problems.  Many will have serious needs.  We are purchasing bicycles for about 50 of our pastor/evangelists to enable them to carry out their evangelism and church planting responsibilities more effectively.

It is over 100 degrees here and often my throat gets so dry I find it difficult to talk.  But I’m thankful to the Lord for entrusting me with these kinds of enormous responsibilities that are beyond my own personal ability.  He is the one who gives the me the wisdom and grace to go forward.  Please continue to pray for our work in growing our Lord’s Kingdom.  Without your help and prayers I would be like a handicapped person.  Thank you!

Sorry, I have to rush to the hospital site.  I’m already off to a late start for another busy day at the hospital site.

God Bless you all…  Brother NJ Varughese

When Satish was saved in 1977, the two missionaries started their first Sunday worship service at Shanti Bhavan with only the three of them.  The services lasted two hours.  From that time on all three of them preached the gospel in public places and from house to house, evangelizing the region in an assertive manner. However, they felt great resistance and hostility from the townspeople they would interface with.  In spite of this resistance, the first AIM church was established in Satish’s village that first year, becoming a witness to the potential of the ministry.

Growth was slow but steady. In 1981, the evangelists baptized seven new converts.  After six years of hard work, the church now had ten believers, including Brothers N.J. and Joykutty.  Their prayer during this time was for 50 believers.

Shanti Bhavan means “House of Peace,” but one Sunday after a baptismal service, peace would be replaced with violence.  As the ministry members began worshiping the Lord, they were besieged by a mob of 40 angry townsmen.  They tried to kill Brother N.J, but by God’s grace, they only beat him unconscious and left him for dead.  He escaped during the night and did not return to Simdega for several months.  Joykutty and Satish remained in the village to care for the new and frightened believers.

Just one month after this severe attack from the enemy, Brother N.J. met a group of Americans who were conducting crusades in India.  He took the bold move of sending them to Simdega where they, with the help of Joykutty and Satish, conducted a citywide gospel crusade.  At the end of the crusade 40 people were saved and baptized, so the Lord defeated the enemy in a mighty way.  Only one month after the attack, the ministry had the 50 believers they had prayed for!

Please comment on our blogs and ask us any questions you might have about All India Mission and/or Shanti Bhavan Medical Center.  Pass along the blogs to those you feel might have a heart for a ministry like ours.  Thanks for becoming a part of this might expression of God’s love for the impoverished native villagers of northern India.  We are committed to keeping you up date on the progress of All India Mission and Shanti Bhavan Medical Center. See you next week.

In 1975 the district of Simdega, North India, had changed little since the British left nearly 30 years earlier.  The British had used this remote, barren and snake infested region as a place to keep its criminals and prisoners.

While there were no prison colonies left in the area by 1975, Pastor N.J. Varughese, then 30 years old, saw an opportunity to preach the gospel to the hundreds of thousands of native villagers in the region who had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The area had been evangelized somewhat in the 19th century, but converts from that period were known as “rice Christians,” people who converted only because the new religion promised a food source. Their descendants knew little of the gospel.  Various tribal groups who practiced tribal religions also populated the area.  Of course, the majority of the population was Hindu.  As far as N.J. Varughese could discern, there were no born-again believers in the area.

And so it was that N.J. Varughese stepped out by faith that year to start a work in Simdega.   He chose Brother M. Joykutty to work with him.  The two men were from South India and had to learn a new language, Hindi, and a new culture.  They worked hard, riding their bicycles throughout the area and preaching the gospel.

They rented a house in Simdega for 50 cents a month.  It didn’t have electricity, running water or bathroom facilities, but it eventually became a well-known Christian center in the local town and in the surrounding villages.  They named the house Shanti Bhavan, which means “House of Peace” in the Hindi language.

They worked hard for two years without seeing any fruit for their labor.  Then one day, as Joykutty’s open air preaching thundered from under a banyan tree, a young man got very upset and took violent exception to Joykutty’s words, threatening to attack him.  Pastor N.J. and Joykutty took this man aside and befriended him.  They learned that his name was Satish and that he was studying to be a Hindu priest.  Though he was angry with them, he accepted the gospel booklet they offered him and went his way.

Satish didn’t read the booklet.  Instead, he tore it up and used the paper to roll an opium cigarette, which he smoked before he went to bed.  That night he tossed and turned and could not sleep.  In the darkness, he wondered what he had done by tearing up the booklet.  When the sun rose, he found pieces of the torn booklet and read the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth you from all of your sin.”

Satish refused to believe such “nonsense”.  Early in the morning he sought out N.J. Varughese and told him that the book was wrong.  Satish had recently walked barefoot for seventy miles in order to take a bath in the River Ganges.  According to his Hindu faith, a bath in the holy river was supposed to remove sin from his life.  But Satish knew he was as sinful as ever after his pilgrimage.  He reasoned that if water from the holiest of all rivers couldn’t wash away his sin, then how could somebody’s blood do it?

The next morning, Pastor N.J. spent three and a half hours with Satish, explaining the gospel to him.  By noon Satish had received Christ as his personal Savior and is one AIM’s key leaders in the ministry.

Please, comment on our blogs, ask questions, make suggestions and become an active participant in All India Mission and Shanti Bhavan Medical Center.

God bless…  Brother Jerry Haney