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Arunachal Pradesh
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Arunachal Pradesh is the name of the Indian state
that lies in the far northeastern part of the
country and borders China; part of it is claimed by
China. It borders the Indian states of Assam to the
south and Nagaland to the southeast. The country of
Burma/Myanmar lies to the east, Bhutan to the west
and on the north it borders the Chinese-occupied
country of Tibet. The landscape is rugged in the
extreme for it sits in the eastern portion of the
Himalayan mountains.
Two of the schools which we have in India are
located in the state. One of these in the town of
Gandhigram is located four days by walking to the
nearest bus line. The other is in the town of
Jairampur. Presently there are sixteen
enrolled in it; of these four are married and twelve
are single. Last year four graduated after
completing the two year course,. This school is
supported by the church in DeFuniak Springs, FL.
It is directed by Tang Kam a graduate of the Bible
School in Shillong. In the picture below he sits on
the right.
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Here is his January report:
"This is to inform that a Gospel Meeting was held on
26th & 27th of December 2009 at Tokopani Church of
Christ, hosted by the local Church and it was
conducted successfully. There were nine souls be
baptized into Christ. They were from different
villages like Phinviro, and Wara. Please
do remember them in prayer for their spiritual
maturity.
"Four new congregations were established in the year
2009, namely, Wara Church of Christ and churches at,
Nampong, Hadlong and Phinviro. Special note:
Wara is about 15 Km (10 miles) from Jairampur. Those
of us from the school are regularly visiting there
because of the interest by the local people in the
gospel. Religiously they are Buddhists and many want
to accept the Gospel, but due to religious threat by
the village authority, they are in dilemma.
Therefore, kindly remember them in prayer that God
may open their heart and without any trouble or
hindrance we might preach to them. God willing, we
have a target to plant ten more congregations in the
year 2010. In fact we need as much as Bible
Tracts both in English and Hindi if available."
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OTHER SCHOOLS AROUND THE COUNTRY
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In the south of the country we are encouraging our
graduates to set up evening schools with their home
congregations. There are 105 villages where these
kinds of classes are taking place each week with 230
brothers enrolled. Besides these kinds of schools,
*we have by the grace of God (that's not just a
cliché) twenty-three other schools of preaching
where men are being trained to preach "the kingdom
of God and the name of Jesus the Christ" (cf., Acts
8:12).
Most of these are located in India's most southern state, Tamil
Nadu, but there are four in the state of Kerala,
which lies west of Tamil Nadu; two in Arunachal
Pradesh (see above), which is about 1,800 miles
north of Tamil Nadu; one in Dibrugarh, Assam; and
one in Shillong, Meghalaya. Altogether there are at
this writing 719 brothers enrolled in all these
preacher training programs.
Of the 1,500 plus brothers, who have graduated from the
regular schools of preaching over the last twenty
years, fewer then fifty are receiving foreign
support. This they receive because of fulltime work
with the schools or in areas where schools are soon
to be set up. Our major focus is to encourage
the brothers to be tent making preachers (Acts 18:3;
20:34-35); see the next article.
*The term "we," refers not just to the 3 Americans, Don Iverson,
Garry Jones and myself, who initiated these schools,
but to a far greater extent the faithful native
brothers who work in all the schools, except
the one in Shillong, N.E. India. The work is
training faithful men to preach the gospel.
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BICYCLE CAMPAIGN
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Yet, the training is not the bottom line. The bottom
line is the planting of sound local churches of
Christ that will be upholding the truth (I Tim.
3:15) when we are dead. To add an extra incentive to
soul winning among these brothers some from the
States periodically go over to participate in "on
the job" training. For example Don Iverson has
just led a three-week campaign for Christ in the
southern portion of Tamil Nadu in which 272 obeyed
the gospel at a cost, according to Don's estimate,
of about $9.50 per soul won.
Since he worked the southern portion of the state we
are planning a more concentrated campaign lasting
only three days (April 2-4) in the northern portion
of the state. It will be a bicycle campaign and
involve 920 preachers and students working intently
to win souls and plant new congregations. Virtually
all these brothers are tent making preachers and
earn, as day laborers, between $2.00 and $3.00 per
day.
To encourage them we want to provide them $10 for
the three days, that is $3.33 per day, to off set
their loss of daily wages. This means the
support for 920 brothers will be $9,200.00. To help
with this you might support five preachers for these
three days of gospel meetings for $50 or
support ten for a $100.
As most of you know we provide bicycles for these brothers after
they have successfully completed one or two years in
the schools. Of the 920 we have already purchased
bikes for 680 of them, which means before the end of
March we must provide bicycles for the
remaining 240. Providing a bike for one of these
gospel preachers is like buying a car for a student
preacher in the States. A bicycle costs $65,
thus you may buy one for a brother and pay him for
three days as an evangelist for a total cost of $75.
Please help as you can.
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VASUKI
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On February 3rd at 4:30 a.m. a brother in Christ,
Elangovan, aged 27, died of a heart attack.
This young man graduated from the school of
preaching at Dindigul in May 2007. He had put his
training to good use for he was a "tent making
preacher." At the time of his death he had a
job as a security officer for a manufacturing
company. The little church where he preached
each Lord's day was only about two years old but the
attendance was up to fifteen.
He left a young widow, Vasuki (26) and an eight
month old boy, Dhaya Nitish. She is trained as
a seamstress and owns a sewing machine, but doesn't
have a job of her own. She was baptized in 2005 and
now lives with her parents, who are Hindu.
On February 4th Peter Wilson sent me an email
telling me of the tragedy; I immediately emailed him
back saying that he should send her Rs 5,000\-
($110) by money order for her urgent needs, which he
did the next day. In the same email I asked
him to find out if she could handle goats. She sent
word back that she would prefer sheep to goats, for
her neighbors used a certain kind of shrub for
"fencing" and if she had goats they would eat the
shrubs.
On the 10th Peter and Murgesan, who also works in
the office at Dindigul, went in the school truck the
fifty-five miles to the home of Vasuki's parents.
There they went to a nearby neighbor, who owned
sheep to purchase some for our little sister.
The farmer had a number of females that were already
bred and some were due to drop their lambs in a
fortnight. In the spirit of livestock sales
people the world over the farmer began by asking
nearly double the going rate. Yet, Peter and
Murgesan are rather adapt by now at buying
livestock, thus they were able to buy five ewes that
were pregnant and one small lamb at a total cost of
Rs 12,600\- or $280.00. Thanks to the gifts of young
people, you and others like you we had these funds
on hand.
This was emergency help for Vasuki, because of the
suddenness of her husband's death, but as mentioned
last month we still have the 84 widowed sisters who
applied last fall for help for whom we must provide
goats, sheep or cows and there are 77 fatherless
children among them (James 1:27). This we hope
may be raised through the program we call,
"OPERATION COMPASSION." If you have not received a
poster of widows and goats for your classroom,
please phone us at 865-376-9947. Here are some
pictures that Peter made of Vasuki, her child and
her parents.
With Love to all,
Jim E. Waldron
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