Dear Brethren in Christ,
Greetings to you all in the precious name of Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. We have been thoroughly blessed. We thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts. It has been a wonderful opportunity to train up our young men to be preachers in the ripest mission field of India. We are thankful to the brethren at Lake Houston for their continued trust and confidence in the Preaching School work in Visakhapatnam, grateful for their continued support.
Gospel Meetings & Establishing New congregation: We are humbled with the great response through holding gospel meetings in a couple of places where we were able to establish new congregations. It is reported by our students that brother K. Raju Babu & K. Suresh have started holding Bible studies in their villages. V. Simhadri, with the help of his family, established a congregation. Being trained as an efficient preacher and the education provided helped them understand the mission work very practically. This resulted in sound and zealous preachers. We are thrilled with the great outcome of these students, we are very anxious to see them finishing their school and heading back to expand their wings for reaching out with good news. We are thankful to the brethren for helping us with the preacher training school, indeed this has given a great chance of learning and also putting into practice what they learned in the school.
Gospel Tracts Printing: Literature helped us reach out to many with the true gospel. We thank the brethren at Lake Houston for helping us buy the Gospel Tool Duplicator. By using this we are printing Gospel tracts. Some times pamphlets have the information about the gospel meetings that would be conducted.
Students Attend Youth Conference: The theme of the conference is “Remember your creator in your Youth.” They not only enjoyed the fellowship, but also learned 16 different lessons concerning the youth and challenges they encounter in their lives. Being young people of themselves, they have been taught about living a life pleasing to God in the choices they make, by the way they look, talk and make friendships. This also gave a great opportunity to meet brother Russell Bell who is a graduate of Bear Valley. It has been a long time since he visited the School in Visakha. He was looking for an opportunity to meet all the students. However, during this Youth Conference we were privileged to have our students greeted by him.
Christian Counseling and Leadership Seminar: We are truly blessed to see our students attending the Christian Counseling and Leadership Seminar. Currently in India, Christian Counseling is not being taught so much as it is needed. Under the recent technological changes, modernism and materialism is being thought and practiced in the Indian society. Under these circumstances preachers need some education to help with those who are battling with anger, pain, stress, sorrow, confusion etc. This seminar has helped the students understand the basic information about counseling and how a preacher can do counseling with the help of the Master Book - the Bible. Leadership concepts are also well planted in their minds during the same time, encouraging the preachers to be leaders and strive for developing leaders in their congregations.
Threat for Christians: Prayer Request
Brethren, Christianity by large is threatened by the raging Hindu movement in our country, India. Since the ruling party is Hindu supported, also our nationals are predominantly Hindus, these two things are bring a threat to Christians and Christian Institutions and also charitable organizations which are being supported by Christians.
Communist ideology of the government in economics on the other side is tightening the financial freedom of the common man. Even though there is no persecution directly in a large number, their indirect moves with a long term plan to eliminate Christianity in India is very scary. Trust me it is the whole idea, they are working from the ground root level. Recently, one Hindu organization made a commitment is start a Hindu Operated School in every village of our country and wants to accomplish this task by 2017. Some radical groups have vowed to clean out Christianity by 2021. This is not the only one….several ways are working at jet speed against Christianity and its Institutions. We request you to kindly pray. We firmly believe God is in control, our Lord is going to open more doors of opportunity to reach out during this persecution time. Glory to His almighty name…..to God be the glory.
Ref: I have attached a copy of the report about the recent persecutions in India.
Finally, we thank you all brethren for your prayers and encouragement to train our men to reach out and spread the Good News, to rescue our people from everlasting destruction. Please convey our greetings and gratitude to the brethren that are so concerned and praying for this marvelous Lord’s work. Please share this reports as you have the opportunity, thank you all.
In Christ and His service.
Samuel Raju, Director
John Dean M.