Trip to Orissa

By God's grace I completed this trip to Orissa last week. It was a wonderful experience. Although I was down with food poisoning, a severe one, I recovered when I returned home this morning. Pst Nehemiah, Pst John Signey and Pst Gopi joined me on this trip. Our coordinator Pst Anjan received us at the airport and planned our itinerary.

We visited the two districts where our church planters are working, Rayagada and Kandamal. These are the districts where persecution was the fieriest during the hostilities against Christians a few years back. We have 20 young church planters working in the remote parts of these districts. While life has returned to normal for the Christians, the marks of persecution was still present in the air. Broken down churches, the bad memories of the persecuted believers and the fear that the persecution may erupt again is still visibly present. I heard heart breaking stories of how Christians were persecuted and killed because of their faith in Jesus Christ. I was shown a church where a nun was asked to walk naked on the street and deny her faith. When she refused she was burned alive. I could not hold my self after hearing these stories.

We had to travel hours by road to reach the villages where our church planters are working. The roads in Orissa were detrimental . Some areas were not accessible by cars and we had to travel by bikes over undulating hard mud and stone filled tracks. My back was literally torn after traveling through these hard terrain. Some villages were deep in the forest and in the mountains. I wept to see our young church planters, making the effort and sacrifice with such passion to reach the remotest parts of Orissa with the gospel. It was heart warming to see house churches established in these villages and tribal people worshiping Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

In one particular village, the believers had been waiting for three hours for our arrival. We had traveled about six hours to reach this village. The church building was broken down twice by the militants who opposed the gospel. Anti conversion laws are in force in Orissa and the activities of the churches are closely watched. We had to leave in a hurry from this village as the militant group got wind of our visit.

It is hard and dangerous to work in these places. Yet young Christians are willing to take the risk and make the sacrifices to reach these places. We have twenty trained church planters and ten are receiving support of USD 50 a month. I am moved to train more and support more. But we need the support of like minded Christians to partner with us in this venture. I have walked the ground have have seen it for myself and the effort is worth the while. If you want to be part of this great work, please let me know.


That every village in Orissa will hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
ALL GLORY TO GOD

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