SERVE India

Dear praying partners,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am glad to send this epray and share with you about the Youth Celebrations the SERVE India Pastors conducted in various villages this summer.

The hope of these Youth Celebrations was to bring glory to Christ. ‘He who wins souls is wise’ Proverbs 11:30. Every soul is precious in the sight of God and God’s will is to draw people to Himself. Jesus often stressed the value of the souls and He wanted His disciples to understand. ‘What good will it be for a man if He gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?’ Matt 16:20. He pointed out what good is it to have the whole world and not have salvation? There are still many ignorant of this truth of salvation. These souls are precious in the sight of God. As Christians it is our responsibility to care for those souls and bring them to the kingdom. We need to share the salvation message with the people who have not heard the Gospel.

That is the reason that many of our Pastors that serve in various villages took this summer as an opportunity for outreach to the children and youth. In India people like the word ‘celebration’ because there are many celebrations in the culture because of Hinduism. The Pastors decided to call their outreach to the young people Youth Celebrations.

They asked all the children and youth in the church to invite their friends to come to a weeklong Youth Celebration at their church. There were groups from 75 to 300 who attended these celebrations. During this time the Pastor and the believers were able to meet many of the neighborhood children. They were able to teach them songs, tell them Bible stories through pictures and drawing, play games, and talk to the kids one on one. Some had never heard the name Jesus before, others think that He is another god of many. The church members shared the salvation message and prayed with them.

One Pastor told us about the dad of one of the neighborhood children who came to him and asked him what he had done with his son? Why was he different? He had been a rebellious child and they had taken him to many temples and made sacrifices and prayed to god and nothing had changed. But now he was different. He is happier and obeys them, and listens to their instructions. The dad said that if their school is helping him, he wanted to send their son to him all the time. The Pastor had the opportunity to tell the dad that it was not him, it is the God of the Bible that changes things. He not only delivers the people but also enters into fellowship with them and interacts and transforms them to be better human beings because He loves us so.

We praise God for this opportunity that the Pastors and congregations were able to share the love of Christ to many children (around 1000) and to some of their families, too. Please pray for all who heard the Truth and that it will bear fruit in their lives. We are grateful and give thanks for all of the participants, leaders, and prayer team for the great success of Youth Celebrations in our churches. We are really encouraged.

Thank you so much for your prayerful partnership in the ministry SERVE India to reach the people of India. We appreciate all of your thoughts and efforts to love the people and us. Thank you!

In His work,
The Nanda’s