In His Time.......... with P.Ramachandran

The last day of our official program for the trip. It began with the graduation service. Two different groups were graduating today:  (i) 15th Graduation Ceremony for the School of Ministry for 14 church planters who had undergone 9 months of church planters course and after the graduation they will go out to plant new churches in remote places. We thank God for all the faculty who were involved in training these church planters.  (ii) 1st Graduation of Skills Development Programme - Basic Tailoring Training for 12 ladies some of who are single parents. This is the first course conducted here in Jaigon , a partnership between PEC and Teach the Word to the Nations.  We thank God for Bishop Samuel for this initiative and for undertaking so many responsibilities to see that the lost are reached with the gospel.

It was my joy to dedicate PEC's 185th church building today in a village about 50 km from the capital of Assam, Guwahati. We drove about 5 hrs from  Gorong Valley, Korajar to get here. Pst Angel is the church planter in this place and his mentor  is Jennima's dad who has labored  much in that area.  About 40 people had gathered for the service. It was a working day and yet the people came.  I shared the Word from Psalms 30 that God can turn our sorrows  into joy. God  will take the necessary action against the enemies. All we need to do is to trust God and let Him vindicate our cause. We are indeed thankful to the Lord for the sponors who hae given generously for this church. 

We left for Chennai early and, in spite of a tyre puncture to our vehicle, reached the airport in good time,. We arrived Bagdogra at about 3:30PM.  We rendezvoused with the rest of the team. Pst Pathi and Bro Indergith had just completed their trip to Agra and Sikkim and joined us for this second part of our journey. It was so good to see Bishop Samuel Sharma and his son Abhishek after such a long time.  Our first stop was at Mugal Busty in Siliguri where a tuition centre and a outreach work is being done. Church planter Arjun Tamang works here under the supervision of Pst Abhishek from Darjeeling. More than 70 children are benefiting from this centre which is largely a Muslim community. By this we are able to show the love of Christ to these people. Jeya taught them a song and shared a story. Brother Indergith distributed the school bags which was so joyously received by all the children present. After the service we were on the road again, up the mountains to Dilarahm, near ...

  Today at 10 AM we had the dedication of the renovated premises at the PEC Veerapandi Church/Training Centre. One more floor has been added to cater for dormitories for the church planters training. It was beautifully done. We also had the graduation of the 6th Church Planters training cohort in this center . 20 church planters graduated from this training. We thank the Lord for the many sponsors and faculty that have helped trained these new church planters. That evening we attended an outreach work started by a church planter from the previous batch. It was in a village called Ananthal and Pst Timothy has been working tirelessly in this place. Around 80 people attended the meeting. Pst Anil Dadala, delivered a powerful gospel message. At the end of the meeting some people surrendered their lives to God. 

Jeya and I set off for this trip, the first to these places after the pandemic. We have a very busy schedule. 13-16 - Tamil Nadu and from 16 Sep to 1 Oct - NE India. Pastor Pathi and Bro Indergit from Highpointe, Klang will join is for the NE India portion of the trip. Looking  forward to God's powerful working in this trip.

Yesterday evening, I tried to check in on-line for our upcoming trip to Tamil Nadu and NE India. However I was not allowed to check in as my passport did not have the 6 monthly validity. I called the SIA office and they  refused to allow me to check in and asked me to apply for special permission from the Indian High Commission. Everyone knows that is impossible.  I immediately out in a new application on-line. The reply was it will take 6 weeks for the passport to be approved.  I called my coordinators oversees and told them that the program may be cancelled but Bishop Thomas told me “Don’t worry, all will be positive”. He activated his pastors/church planters (about 50 of them) to pray immediately.  I told Jeya that we may have to cancel the trip and her blunt reply was, "Where is your faith". Hmmm. I rushed down to ICA today in the morning  and told the officer, a lady, of my plight. She was visibly disturbed and passed some negative comments. But as she look...

What a relief, Sunday evening I was tested negative. Praise God for His healing and His faithfulness.  This morning I was able to go out for a morning walk and once again view the morning sun. How pleasant the breath of fresh air.  Now we roll again.  Psalms 118:24 - The LORD has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.

I am still testing positive for Covid and this is my 5th day.  I don't have any symptoms and almost back to normal. Nevertheless it was a busy week, with sessions going on in Myanmar and Nepal. I particularly liked the Nepal class. They had so many questions, that forced me to do my own research and they were so eager to learn. In fact they were willing to stay for longer then scheduled to learn more from the Word. And if I  finished early, they would remark, "Sir you still have another 15 mins, please continue..."  I wish we all will have the same zeal and desire to learn from God's Word.

Bishop Anjan gave the following update from Utesi village in Odisha. If you remember, last year we started a tuition centre in the village. The kids there have never been to school and they do nt  cow how to read or write. Their hygiene is also very very poor. These two boys Babula and Mistra from the village have come to live in our Shadrach Home with the approval of their parents. They have been there for about 3 months. It was tears of joy to see them  leading worship for Sunday service in the Shadrach Home. Those attending the church planters training program were also there for the service. We are indeed  thankful  to the Lord for all that He is doing. Special thanks to those who sponsored and supported this work, To God be the glory

On Monday, I felt a bit uneasy with a little running nose. I took the ART test and it was negative. So I went to work for the night shift. But sometimes in the early hours, I began to have sore throat and my body was a bit warm. I did the ART again and it was positive.  Now I am confined to my room, quarantined until I get better. This morning, I still had the sore throat, a little breathing difficulty and some cough. But other wise I am ok.  Everyone tells me to take rest and you will be ok. That is really my problem. Need to rest. Psalms 41:3 -  The   Lord   sustains them on their sickbed  and restores them from their bed of illness.