Posted on 10/25/2011 6:15:15 PM PDT by Graybeard58
INDIA (BP) -- Sarah Weber signed up for the September missions trip to India in May. It would be her first international experience.
Although she and other members of a missions team from The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., prepared spiritually and physically for months, Weber said she never expected to lead someone to Christ.
"I was planning on planting the seeds," she said.
But when a Hindu woman in her 70s wanted Weber to tell her how to become a Christian, she had to shift her thinking.
"I didn't know what to do [at first]," Weber said.
The woman had heard of Jesus since her childhood but did not understand how to trust in Him.
Weber told her, "It doesn't matter where you come from, who you are, what you've done. God loves every person and wants to spend eternity with [every single person]."
The translator continued the conversation with the woman, and she decided she wanted to follow Jesus, even if it meant rejection by her family and persecution by her neighbors. And she wanted Weber to lead her in prayer.
"That's a woman that lived her life as a Hindu that's going to sleep tonight as a Christian," Weber said. "We have a new sister.
"The Lord was working in her heart without us," Weber added. "I know He can do that, but it was great to see."
One day, more Christians could emerge from the various mountain villages in Sikkim state because the team shared the Gospel in and around a relief camp near the India-Nepal border set up after a 6.9-magnitude earthquake Sept. 18.
One Lepcha woman (from the people group in the area) heard the Gospel for the first time as a group of team members drank tea in her home. A man who lost his wife in the earthquake also heard, as did several others living on the mountain, at the base of the mountain and even 30 miles away from the mountain.
Ryan Blackmon, a paramedic on the Alabama volunteer team, said it was eye-opening to see the faces, smiles and eyes of the unreached people groups he had heard about.
Though the Americans returned home in early October, the work continues.
Jacob, a Nepalese believer who lives in northeastern India, is undeterred by rejection, persecution and humiliation.
"I just share Christ no matter what," he said.
Jacob served as a translator for the Alabama group. He moved from Nepal to India when he was 13 and became a Christian a year later when a believer from Mongolia told him about Jesus.
Six years later, Jacob can recall the exact date, time and moment when Christ entered his heart. Eager to share, he accompanied the American volunteers where they ministered. Anyone who met him could see the joy in his eyes.
Jacob hopes to return to Nepal, start a university ministry and eventually plant churches.
Team member Chance Walters quickly befriended Jacob. After they shared the Gospel at the relief camp together for the first time, it was as if they had been brothers their entire lives.
"It's encouraging to see [Jacob] share his faith so boldly when [Christians] rarely share the Gospel with the people they work with or see every day in America," Walters said.
Another translator for the team, Mercy, also is a Nepalese believer. After the earthquake, she shared with her friends and neighbors from Isaiah 54:10: "'For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then, my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,' says the Lord, who has mercy on you."
Team member Elena Collins said she often saw Mercy sharing the Gospel with locals before the team even knew what was being discussed.
"[Mercy] just jumped right into it with no hesitation," Collins said.
As team members shared their faith and God's Word with the Nepalese, they saw and felt things they never expected.
"Back home, I kind of see Christianity as American," team member Brad Collins said. "I know it's all peoples on paper, but coming here, hearing nationals pray in their native tongue, put faces to that. [The believers] are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ." --30-- Neisha Fuson writes for The Alabama Baptist, online at thealabamabaptist.org. Some names were changed for security reasons.
How do I know all this? I have been in India and have wanted to see a church that collects money from here. The people there were evasive and the reason was that they built up an elaborate fictitious scheme to funnel money. Don't blame the Hindus, this was done by Christians from the US.
To equate me or any other Christian with Muslims is completely wrong, I know of no Christian who wants to convert people at the point of a sword.
I am as familiar with Deuteronomy as I am with all the books of the Old Testament, I am also familiar with the fact that Jesus fulfilled the old law and we as Christians are no longer under it.
And I will continue to support Sarah Palin.
You keep saying that and I keep wondering, what she has to do with this conversation. I supported her too when there was a possibility that she would run, it just has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Jesus died on the cross for both you and me and we are no longer under the old law.
Are you a Christian?
To equate me or any other Christian with Muslims is completely wrong, I know of no Christian who wants to convert people at the point of a sword.
I am as familiar with Deuteronomy as I am with all the books of the Old Testament, I am also familiar with the fact that Jesus fulfilled the old law and we as Christians are no longer under it.
And I will continue to support Sarah Palin.
You keep saying that and I keep wondering, what she has to do with this conversation. I supported her too when there was a possibility that she would run, it just has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Jesus died on the cross for both you and me and we are no longer under the old law.
Are you a Christian?
#18 is even stranger, we are now being compared with Muslims.
I'll leave that up to God to decide.
What the churches do in Asian countries is criminal as they use violence to convert others. This is sad but true. They also ally with the Muslims and Communists. Most of the violence is perpetrated by the Church of Socialists aka Papism or Catholicism.
You seem to have a very real animosity toward Christians in general with a particular bent against Catholics in particular. Looking forward to your answer to my question about your religion or lack thereof.
If you have been reading my posts here, you will know that you are wrong. I only point out the criminal nature of Islam, the socialism of Catholics and to some extent the ways of Episcopalians.
That answer somehow relieves me. I was so hoping that you weren't atheist, atheists are almost impossible to reach through discussion, many of them are just "too smart" to accept Jesus as their Savior.
I'm not Catholic but I see socialism in too many leaders in that religion but it's not unlike the socialism to be found in many main line protestant churches and I try not to single Catholicism out for censure.
I'm Southern Baptist, there you go, I'm opened up for criticism. My church is affiliated with the S.B.C. and I'm not happy with some of the hierarchy of that organization, especially Richard Land who is leaning hard to "open borders" nonsense.
However, member Baptist churches are not dictated to by the S.B.C., every Baptist church is autonomous, my Baptist church financially supports the S.B.C. missionary programs and I have always thought of it as a good thing to do. If I ever learn of a program that we support that condones coercion, whether it be financial or physical, my church won't support that program anymore.
Have any documented examples of this conversion by "violence" on the part of Catholics?
Great tagline.
‘Nothing strange. The method of conversion in Asian countries steps beyond the boundaries of civilized behavior.”
JimWayne, India is a big country. There are no doubt total charlatans among the millions there. I am sorry you went to a “church” that was nothing but a money funneling farce, but, one of our church elders visited India two years ago and worshipped with native Indians in house churches who secretly worship to avoid death/attack by Hindus. We have their photos on one of our walls and pray for them. They are real Christians, I assure you, and no money was changing hands.
And if there is an elaborate fictitious scheme to funnel money in India, it is not set up by “Christians,” anyone can call themselves a Christian, but there is nothing Christian about any such behavior.
This is exactly the kind of lie that puts me off. I was there in India for some time and there is no problem for anyone if they don't get aggressive. I hope you know that the head of the ruling political party in India is a Catholic. Even the previous government which was accused of opposing Muslims had Christians and Muslims in it.
We should stick to facts instead of lies propagated by allies of Islamic fundamentalists and Communists. This is the second point that puts me off. Our churches go to India and promptly ally themselves with Maoist groups and Muslims.
This is exactly why socialism creeps in unchecked. For these messengers carrying the Bible, it does not matter if socialism takes over the society. In fact, it is something they welcome. I hope you read Vatican's message yesterday calling for a new world order.
You know very well that my comparison has nothing to do with Christianity in the West. If your church is active in India, you also know very well that it supports Islamofascists and Maoists just because they are fighting the Hindus. Show me one verse in the Bible which says you must support Islamofascists and Maoists.
I am also sure you also know very well that American churches in India work closely with Jimmy Carter who was the shill for the Maoists in Nepal. Stop pretending otherwise.
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