Dear Pastors, Leaders and Church Family,
Greetings! I appreciate your prayers, support and love for the Gospel. During this pandemic, so many organizations closed. Pastors are struggling for their daily needs. Praise God for Calvary Chapel! They always take care of me as a mother and fulfill all of my needs. I always thank our Lord Jesus for having me partner with a great church family.
Last month, 4 church members died due to Covid-19. Before dying, they told their family members and relatives to do their funeral in a Christian manner, but we do not have a Christian graveyard. Their families came to ask us to do the funerals like Christians do, but the Hindus will not give us permission to use their graveyard. So many problems came during their funerals, because all of the people’s family and relatives are Hindus. But praise God for His grace upon us, everything went smoothly.
A lady faced persecution boldly even when 400 people were against her.
Once again, I am going to share a testimony of a woman named P*. She is the only believer in her family. She accepted Jesus about 5 or 6 years ago, and was baptized on June 26th, 2018. She has two kids and a husband.
Sister P’s* husband became mental last year because he overdosed on drugs. Now he is roaming in different villages. Sister P* sold a little part of land for treatment, but he did not get better.
Sister P* is very faithful and strong in her faith. Every Tuesday, for the last 4 years, Bible study has been taking place in her home. Last month, her father in law died so everyone tried to force her to do idol worship because, according to the culture and tradition, after funerals families have to do idol worship for 14 days. But, she boldly said, “I am Christian. I will not do idol worship.” Her family members and neighbors became angry. Then, her neighbors and family members started to insult, abuse and curse her. They took her in the village court and accused her of changing her own religion and insulting their gods and goddess and not worshiping idols. The village court gave the order “to leave the village or leave Jesus”. But she firmly said, in front of 400 people, “I will never leave Jesus and I will not do idol worship.” We suggested that she go to the police station about this order. She went to the police and, praise God, the police helped her.
The people of her village and relatives are planning to kill me and my dad because of her. It’s the same thing that happened with all believers in my ministry place. When my family accepted Jesus in 1998, more than 5,000 peoples from 10 villages took my Dad into the village court and the village court gave the same judgement and declared that they were taking possession of my land. We went to court. We fought the case in court for 20 years. During this time, the village court told everyone that if anybody talked to us, then they would be fined 5 thousand rupees. Still, none of our neighbors talk to us. Now, we don’t hold worship at Sister P*’s house, but she regularly comes to the Sunday service.
We had an amazing Good Friday and Easter service!
On Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we had a service at the church at my home and we invited all house church believers and more than 100 people came to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. It was amazing to share that Jesus died for our sins and the same day, two more people gave their life to Jesus as their Savior. My nieces performed dance at the Easter Sunday service. After service, we had some sweets, juice and biscuits for all the people.
Bible study and fun night with Youth!
We had a great night with the youth. We invited our church youth and we spent lots of time in worship, Bible study, games and a movie night. It was encouraging to hear the testimonies of each other. In January and February, we had youth nights three times and two boys accepted Jesus.
On April 14th, it was my sister’s birthday. So, I invited all my church’s youth and I cooked dinner for everyone. After worship, we did Bible study and prayed for the whole world, then we played games. I gave a small gift to the winner. All night we showed movies on the projector. In the morning, after breakfast, they went home. Some youth did not have travel money, but praise God, He provided for all. Now, all the youth are growing in the Word of God and are keeping themselves separate from worldly things and sin.
Praise Points:
- Praise God for healing Sunjay*! In the last newsletter, I mentioned about him. He wanted to commit suicide because he is suffering from a rare disease called Olmsted disease. His foot and hands were smelling so bad. They were bleeding and it was very painful. Now, the pain is gone, the bleeding stopped, and smell is also gone. Praise God! Thanks for your prayers- he is getting better every week. He is growing in the Word of God and coming to our Bible fellowship twice a week.
- Praise God that He provided a new motor bike! I had a motor bike I was using for 6 years, but that bike was breaking every month and every month I had to spend lots of money to fix it. So many times, I was too late to a village fellowship because the motor bike would get stuck on the way. But, praise God, He provided a new motor bike for spreading the Gospel. During this pandemic, it was not easy to provide a new motor bike. I thank the Lord for this. Thank you for your help and prayer for the new motor bike.
Prayer Requests:
1.Please continue to pray for sister P.* and her husband.
2. Please continue to pray for Sunjay’s* healing.
3. Please continue to pray for safety from anti-Christian groups and covid 19.
4. Please continue to pray for the church members to face persecution boldly and understand the Word of God deeply.
5. Please pray for a little piece of land for a Christian graveyard.
6. Please pray for some audio Bibles for the believers who don’t know how to read or write.
Thank you so much for your prayers, support and partnership for the Gospel.
Thank you so much for your prayers, help, support and partnership in spreading the Gospel.
God bless you all!
Pastor 11
*Names and faces have been changed or omitted for security reasons.