We are halfway there. Your dedication in prayer has touched God's heart. I believe the last thing I mentioned was the meeting with the father of this family. We needed to discuss our church situation and see how open-minded he was to letting us try other fellowships. I'm going to save you from enduring an incredibly long and frustrating story and just say we are free to choose our own church. We talked with the father Wednesday night and he understands where we are coming from.
Despite all of the drama, we are offering ourselves to serve in the slums all the more! We enjoy that ministry and, due to family travels, we haven't been in over two weeks. We want to go. We like what we do there. The family's hectic village schedule has inhibited us from being there. Our role in their church is to work hard in the slums. We told them, "If you want to win the slum, win those six guys." Some of you may remember an emotional and powerful night where we met six men in the slums who wanted Jesus. For those of you keeping score at home, it's been over 35 days since we have seen them. We can't call them because we don't have their numbers or speak Tamil. We pushed the family to arrange opportunities to share and nothing ever opened up. They need to get these influential young men to grow in faith and labor in that slum with the family. We leave in two months. They'll be here. Things started piecing together. The family now realizes what we are and why we are here. Praise God!
So we are done with the family church. Where to now? If you read the last post, you'll also remember a haven we found in Bangalore. I can't say the name of the church it the name or the pastor. Those who Skype and FaceTime me know a lot about this man and his ministry. I want to go all in with it. We have probably five days a week where we are working with this church at some capacity and fulfilling our mission here. He is a man with big dreams but he doesn't spread himself thin. He understands that discipleship will change this nation; not another concert or crusade. Urban India has money and resources. Giving them more resources from our country isn't going to help them eternally. The richest man and the poorest man are headed for the same place if they don't have Christ. Spiritually they are dying. This pastor understands this and is set out to make a difference. And he is!
We will stem the flow of work with the Indian evangelism group. They have more laborers and discipleship groups than I could have ever imagined at first. Weird as it sounds, they can't make use of us like we thought. Our role there is to encourage who they have right now and teach them to share and disciple. That is without a doubt an important task! But this pastor has a good ministry going but needs a couple of young, fearless guys to come in hungry and work with him. Two came into his life a week ago. He has a ministry with African students which are coming in large numbers to Bangalore. They learn English and get degrees with cheaper tuition so they can go back home and work. Bangalore has as many residents from Africa, Northern Asia, the Middle East and Europe as it does natives to India. We need to reach these foreigners while their here as well as reach the Indian people. Allowing them to go home and let God change their communities. That is one aspect of his vision.
He also, as expected, has a tremendous heart for the city and his fellow countrymen. He leads many discipleship groups and evangelism teams through the unreached parts of the city. It's so tempting for us to stay in the pockets of town where there are believers to lean on. He's taking us into the heart of darkness and wants to fight where the odds seem against him. He just wants people to know Jesus. He's a lot like me and my teammate.
So as we remember the six guys from the slums, we remember the language barrier is the issue. We also don't have a consistent leader to arrange the meeting. My partner was struck with an epiphany last night that our new pastor speaks two languages: English and Tamil. Why not have him interpret for us and then disciple them after we leave? We knew God would bring it all together. He wasn't going to provide such a clear opportunity and rip it from us. He has provided a way. This man and those boys are linked through us. We were meant to come here and meet them so that they could meet each other. It's beautiful.
It's going to be a good relationship that we hope carries on after we leave. He fully expects us to come back every now and again for varying spans of time to continue our work. He's laboring till the end. And when it's all said and done, he wants to be fishing for men alongside us.
We are now looking at slum work, the church, Bible study, African ministry, Indian evangelism groups, and college work with our actual supervisor. Our calendar is filled all the way until we leave this city. We are having to turn down opportunities that we would have killed for a month ago. We are busy. We aren't complaining. This is exactly what we wanted and are thrilled to be doing it. Pray that it has a lasting impact.
