Dear Friends,
Greetings in the name of our Lord!
We have had a great Sept/Oct in terms of ministry. Our teams in Ghana and India has been in the fields bringing in the sheaves. Unfortunately you will have to wait until December 1 to read about it. Suffice to say, I have heard from them via email and the reports will be great as usual. But please read on and see what the Lord has done in the midst of obedience to go and share the Gospel with lost people.
REACHING THE UNREACHED IN INDIA – A report from James Sundar, Director of GHIndia
I am happy to write this report in order to help you to know what is happening here. I am sure this will enable you to pray for us and thank God for what the Lord is doing here in answer to your prayers for us.
July Partnership ministry with Gospel Harvesters International USA Team
Some of you are aware that we had miraculous ministry in Coimbatore, a strong Hindu militant centre who opposes all Christian activities outside the church. Most of the Principals of the schools and colleges are afraid of having evangelistic meetings in their institutes but they gave their consent to have our programs after much perseverance from our side. It was my prayer throughout the project that the Lord would hide us under His wings and let no one notice our presence in the city and He answered our prayers and helped us to see the Gospel of Christ go forward boldly. As the project proceeded I was reminded of 2 Cor. 2:14, "but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him." Teams from Fort Worth, TX and Alpharetta, GA came to work along side of the GHIndia team and students from Harvesters Training College. At the end of the ministry we finished 98 venues, preaching to over 51,000 with over 35,000 first time decisions for Christ. Praise the Lord with us!
Gospel Harvesters of India ministry in September
We were able to find new venues, Bukkapet and Jayanthi. The need here had made us to concentrate these two villages. Within those villages are two Unreached People groups, the Malas (some call them the Parayans) and the Irrulas; and both are scheduled, low caste tribal's. These Irrulas are a backward people who eat rats and live in small huts and are not good in keeping clean. More than the Malas they are most unreached and they never respond to the Gospel. They live 50 km away from us. Rajini, one of our student pastors and Pushpanathan went to this place to point them to Christ and by God's grace 25 people responded to the Gospel and 14 people obeyed the Lord in water baptism on the 23rd September. I rejoiced in the Lord because this is the first time I had seen any of them become Christians.
Rev. Steve Griffiths from Mt Isa Baptist Church, Mt Isa, Australia (and a GHI Partner church) had the blessed opportunity of baptizing them. God willing, I will be baptizing seven more of them this month. One consistent continues to happen in the life of the ministry here - we continue to see so many converts baptized. There were two more from Goduwaripalli who were baptized along with them, so we praise the Lord!
Another of our follow up Pastors, Jayaraj has been visiting this village Bukkapet. Then during this time all the pastors and I went to the village. Following on, I took my wife Ruth along with the follow up pastors. On the 19th September the entire GHIndia staff, HTC staff and students and the team from Australia went there for ministry. While Hindus were having their procession with elephant god Ganesh, we decided to have our own procession singing Gospel songs. We wanted to find out how many people would come for Jesus and finally we assembled in front of a house on the middle of the street to our surprise 50 assembled and after a brief challenge from me, Rev. Erwin from Australia preached a Gospel message and the Holy Spirit fell on them and drew them for a decision. At least 30 people made first time decisions and out them 12 people obeyed the Lord in water baptism on 23rd September and a new church was planted in that village. Pastor Jayaraj conducts regular service for them now so again we praise the Lord!
GHIndia had arranged for a two-day Bible Conference to assist in growing our new believers as well as for the Christian community in the area where we live. This meeting was totally sponsored ($1,500) by Mt Isa Baptist Church of Australia under Rev. Steve's leadership. We had 250 delegates as we fed them the book of Acts as well as feeding them three meals for their stomachs. It was a blessed time for all of us and everyone went away enriched.
Some Prayer Points
- We need land and church buildings for our three new church plants - Bukkapet, Jayanthi and Kudimaiyur. Total cost for each is $13,000 or $39,000.
- Five (5) new Moped motorbikes for 5 pastors - Daniel, Jayaraj, Joseph, Rajaratnam and Arun, for ministry to their own villages and to enable them to oversee and assist the students in their village work. The cost for each is Rs25,000 or $625 each. Total cost is $3,125.
- Ten (10) new bicycles for HTC students to do the weekend ministry. Each cost Rs3,000 or $75 each. Total cost is $750.
- Pray for the GHIndia local ministry from 24 October to 02 November as we take the Gospel into more villages and reach the unreached.
Prayerfully, James Sundar
SEPTEMBER REPORT FROM GHANA
I am sure that if I were to ask you if you knew of Little Rock, AR, Waco, TX or Jonesboro, AR, you would say sure! Those are vibrant communities with abounding amenities but would you know the communities of the Eastern Region of Ghana called Adawso, Mangoase and Kwasi Larbi? Probably not! These towns, along with 16 other venues were paid a house call during the month of September and 18,800 heard the good news of Jesus Christ and 4,044 responded to the call to repent of their sins and follow HIM! We captured one of the many testimonies that came from the work of Evangelist Godfried Tei:
"I was a former football star in my youth playing for the National team. I was very competitive so some friends advised me to contact some mediums (demons) for some extra help (power). The pressure on me and my teammates to win at all times, proved so difficult that I moved into what I call "spiritual" things. In addition I started drinking and smoking though I knew it to be bad for me and my sport. This bad habit led to my early retirement from football because I had become addicted to drugs. I not only lost my education but could not hold on to any job and soon lost all my savings and friends. Truly I have suffered and come to the end of my rope.
I am before you today unfolding my life story to you because I gave my life to Christ when I watched the film today and I believe that you can help me recover from my desperate situation. Please help me for I need it badly." Charles Amponsah D______, resident of A______. This happened on 26 September at Adawso in the Eastern Region.
I counseled this precious soul and the following day, handed him over to a local rehab centre for more help.
Friends, this work cannot go on without your faithful prayers and financial support.
To date, we have completed 17 projects ~ meaning that we have preached in 521 venues
to nearly 279,000 people. We have seen almost 119,000 first time decisions for Christ.
In addition, six churches have been planted so we bless the
Lord for all of you who stand with us from month to month!
So I want to say how much we esteem you, your lives and your partnership in the Gospel with us. We know you have choices about where you give your extra resources and many of you have found the joy of laying up treasure in heaven through GHI where neither moth nor corruption will touch it.
MANY PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW!
Several months ago, when I mentioned that we now had 39 missionaries on the field, a friend asked,
"How much money does it take to operate Gospel Harvesters International and keep all this afloat?"
The short answer is about $15,000 per month.
This works out to about $1.30 per convert. What a phenomenal return on investment! So if you are giving $100 per month, that means that at the end of the year, your partnership enabled 923 to come to Christ!
Also, this does not include any special construction projects that we do as in the case of Harvesters Training College and The Fathers Home in India. These are case by case projects that we do as monies come available so we have no debt when the work is finished.
MORE SPECIAL PRAYER NEEDS
Through October-2007, we are now 22% down against October-2006 receipts.
A year ago, we needed to raise salaries across the board and didn't have the funds to do it. And now the situation is most grave. Please pray with us about this and ask the Lord if He would have you to come on board with us. Perhaps you are one of those who read this prayer letter and say, 'someone else will take up the slack'? Would you ask God if it would please Him to be one of the ones who take ownership of this work with Dottie and me and begin to lay up more treasure in heaven? Believe me, no gift is too small!
Just a week ago, one of our Ghanaian single missionaries, Solomon Larbi, lost his mother to an illness. Will you ask the Lord to bring comfort to him and his immediate family during this time?
Also, our January India Project has been transitioned from our USA team going into our local GHIndia team doing the ministry in a selected area. It is getting more difficult to get people to go in January so we are handing them the bat and the ball. Please be in prayer for them for their October Project and the one in January.
Would you take on a project for us?
In order to finish our accreditation at Harvesters Training College in India, we need 6,000 books in our library.
At this writing, we have around 3,000….so would you consider leading your church to help us raise the balance? We need any kind of Christian book relating to prayer, discipleship, missions, church polity, theology, counseling or any other vital subject. You can call me at 817-456-1817 for more details.
For now and always, Dottie joins me in sending our love. It is all by faith, trusting the Lord.
Grace and peace…Mack
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon the thousands
and ten thousand times ten thousands. They encircled the throne and the living creatures
and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain to receive
power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.
Revelation 4:11, 12.
It's all because of the Lamb!
