SERVE India

Hello everybody,

I am happy to share with you in this epray. I am glad to be home. I had another productive trip. Thank you for praying.

We were able to finish the paperwork necessary up to this point for the teacher training program.  We have to wait now for the renovation work of the building to be completed before we can have the inspection. There is a lot more to do. Please pray that this opportunity that God brought to us will be accomplished according to His plan, and for Him to fill in all the gaps.

I spent some time with our son, Josh, when he came to India, to help get him adjusted into his new situation, new city, new place to live, new school, new people. He is excited about his opportunities there.  Thanks for praying and please continue to pray for his safety and the productivity of his life there.

Also, I had time with the Pastors in 2 of our 4 areas. We had good time for fellowship and teaching and were able to help in the process of building new church buildings in 10 villages. The Pastors’ work is progressing, the Gospel is being preached and lives are being touched and changed and all the areas of our ministry are strongly growing for the glory of God in India.  Please pray for the safety for all of the Pastors in the field as they go out every day to bring people the message of the Gospel.  Please pray for the church people who are building their church buildings that they would feel joy in the provision of all they need.  Please pray that many will come to the special Christmas outreaches in this season, when they are more open to hear the true meaning of Christmas, and that many will receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

I just want to share a story to praise the Lord for His work among the unreached. Yellaji is a fisherman, by caste, living in a fisherman village near Visakhapatnam city. Many of his neighbors in the village hold strongly to the tradition of their goddesses of the sea. They often reject any other faith as an intrusion and as something that will contaminate their tradition and make their gods upset with them. Like every man in the village Yellaji works as a fisherman. For many years he only made a very little income and struggled to feed his family and his old parents. Yellaji thought that someday their gods would bless them so he and his family were doing everything they could to please their deities. One day Yellaji met a SERVE India Pastor, Pastor Titus, who was sharing Christ in the neighborhood. Soon Yellaji started learning about Jesus and the God of the Bible. After some time he started meeting with Pastor Titus and God opened Yellaji’s heart and he understood the love of God for him and chose to give his life to Christ. Immediately his family and neighbors got angry with him for leaving his beliefs.  In this difficult time he found more encouragement through God’s Word and grew in his new, true faith.  Yellaji’s life and character changed dramatically and several in the village took note of that. His obedience to Christ brought peace to their home, which softened his family’s hearts towards Christ.  Because of Yellaji and his family many more were willing to listen to Pastor Titus. He regularly visited the village and served the fisherman and women. Several families gave their lives to the Lord. A church has been established among the fisherman in that village now!  They are in the process of building a permanent church building so that many more of the lost people in the area can come and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.

I praise God for using all of us to take part in what He is doing through our activity, prayers and support for the national Pastors in advancing the Gospel to the unreached people groups.  Your prayers and thoughts are appreciated by all of us in SERVE India.

May God bless each of you in a special way.

For His glory, The Nanda’s J

Hope you have a very, Merry Christmas!