November
India
There are currently 187 churches in India, with 4,684 saints meeting regularly on Lord’s Day and 7,495 saints in the church life. Since the national lockdown in March 2020, the saints have been established through the burden of prayer in the Lord’s recovery. Until now, there are still a good number of saints in the churches gathering in small groups to pray daily for the Lord’s move and His interest on earth. Though the saints are not able to gather physically, the prayer and fellowship among the saints have been greatly strengthened via online platforms.
In the month of May, the churches experienced a fresh turn when 2,908 saints from 82 localities entered into the Memorial Day Conference messages online corporately to receive the Lord’s speaking. Translation was provided in 7 Indian languages. Moreover, there were 1,921 unique IP addresses from India that accessed at least 1 message of the conference on LSM Webcast. Through the Lord’s speaking in the conference, many of the saints began contacting their friends, relatives, neighbors, classmates and colleagues. The common feeling among the churches is that there has never been a time when people in India are as open to the gospel as during this pandemic. Weekly gospel meetings and Bible study meetings are conducted in various localities. Many gospel friends and new ones are under the saints’ regular shepherding.
In addition, we began to have online College Trainings from the month of June. Since then, we have had 12 regional trainings over 7 states in India. Approximately 700 college students attended these trainings. Through the Lord’s up-to-date speaking, we encouraged the students to pray and consecrate themselves before the Lord, receiving a burden from the Lord to love and care for their friends. Based on the ministry books, such as “Witnessing” and “Rising Up to Preach the Gospel”, we encouraged the students to list out the names of their friends in order to pray for them and follow the Lord’s leading to distribute gospel tracts as well as invite their friends to online gospel meetings conducted during the trainings. About 1,500 contacts joined the gospel meetings. After the trainings, the students were encouraged to continue shepherding their friends. Recently some friends of the students got baptized through their regular contact and shepherding.
Rhema Seekers’ Meetings
The Rhema serving ones had to cancel the distribution trips since March 2020 due to the spread of the pandemic. This greatly affected the free mass distribution and the spread of the ministry. It was then the serving ones began to conduct online seminars for the existing Rhema readers in coordination with the churches. Being encouraged to see that a good number of readers joined the seminars, the serving ones then began to hold more seminars in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada languages.
As some churches planned to have regular meetings for the Rhema readers, there was a need to reach out to more seekers who could be invited to the seminars. Hence the serving ones began to promote the 7 Rhema booklets in electronic format via social medias, especially on Facebook. The promotion of eBooks started in a language called Marathi, which had 73 million native speakers primarily in the state of Maharashtra. Requests for eBooks soon poured in! In less than 3 months there were over 3,000 requests for Marathi eBooks. The saints in that state then called these contacts to help them download the books and invite them to the seminars. In one particular seminar there were 163 new ones from all over the state of Maharashtra. The saints also began to read the ministry with some of the eBook contacts. Some of the contacts then started to join other church meetings. One such contact who recently got saved and was meeting with another group had to stop going to the meetings due to the pandemic. As he was wondering what to do, he received the eBooks and joined a seminar. Now he joins all the online meetings of the nearby churches and is enjoying the church life!
Now the promotion of the eBooks is also done in Hindi language to reach the Christians in northern India. Seminars have been conducted for the contacts in New Delhi and its surrounding areas and the response has been very positive. Many new ones were thus brought under regular shepherding by the saints.
The Kannada language has over 43 million native speakers. The pandemic opened the way to distribute the eBooks in Kannada, especially in the cities where the saints had the burden to raise up golden lampstands. A total of 52 new ones joined the first seminar in Kannada. What’s more encouraging was that prior to the seminar, many saints rose up to function to call the Rhema contacts to encourage them to read the ministry and invite them to join the seminar.
The Video Training
The video training of the 2020 Summer Training was conducted online in various localities in India. Audio translation of the messages was provided in 7 Indian languages. The lockdown situation provided an opportunity for many more saints to join the training. Over 1,600 saints from 105 localities registered for this training. This was twice as many registered saints as last year.
To maintain a proper atmosphere of the training, the saints were asked to be punctual, each meeting began with prayer, the saints were divided into small groups for sharing, and testings were conducted. In several regions, the churches clustered together to conduct the training, which very much uplifted the atmosphere. Before the training, the saints came together online for twelve days for PSRP of the outlines. During the training, there were also review sessions. In some localities, following the training the saints gathered together to pray and fellowship over the up-to-date speaking of the Lord with its application, seeking a way to move forward in the church life. Many saints testified how the Lord not only spoke to them but also started working in their lives based on His speaking. The saints’ appreciation of the ministry has gone higher after seeing how the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, which they previously considered difficult, have been opened up richly by the ministry. May the Lord’s word grow mightily, multiply, and prevail in India. May the Lord grace the churches in India to take root downward and bear fruit upward!
Please pray for the following matters:
1. Pray for the campus work, that through the functioning of the college students in contacting their gospel friends in various states, the burden of the gospel and shepherding may continue according to the present situation.
2. Pray for the Rhema booklet distribution during the present pandemic, that the word of God can grow, multiply and prevail in various states and many seeking ones of the truths can be gained for the church life and the Lord’s testimony.
3. Pray for the strengthening of the major cities in India, that the saints can be supplied in the word and can continue to grow in life and grow in number for the sake of the Lord’s testimony.
Laos
Thank the Lord for leading us in these days. As the pandemic spread, the churches first joined in the burden of twenty-one days of global prayer to pray for the Lord’s move on the earth. This was followed by the Memorial Day Conference messages, which became a timely supply for us to not lose heart or be shaken but to continue sending our roots by Him as the stream, see the spiritual vision behind the world situation, and rise up to cooperate with the Lord. Many brothers and sisters became burning for the gospel, inviting their family members and friends to the meetings to preach the gospel to them. Twenty-four people got baptized into the Lord from May to September.
The serving saints have the same feeling that we need to not only bring more people to the Lord, but also have more thorough and tender shepherding for the new ones. Although quite a number of people got baptized every year in the past, their growth in life was not sufficient and not many have remained and functioned normally in the church life. On the one hand, we asked the Lord to create an atmosphere of shepherding in the churches. On the other hand, we used the shepherding materials to perfect the saints in the matter of shepherding and help them go out to visit people.
We began praying steadfastly for this burden since May. The saints began to see the importance of shepherding and started going out in twos and threes. In the prayer meetings of the church, prayer for shepherding has become an indispensable item. There are now seven regular home meetings in the saints’ homes. From October 24th to 25th, about 25 to 30 saints gathered together to enjoy a video conference held in Thailand on shepherding the flock of God. Some saints were touched by the Lord and cried bitterly when they saw their unworthiness and peculiarity, some saw that only thorough shepherding could the Lord gain His Body in this age, and some repented for not taking care of new ones whom they brought to salvation. After the meeting, the saints invited each other to visit and shepherd their new ones in twos and threes. Thanks to the Lord who is the great Shepherd of the sheep! Please continue to pray for this work of shepherding in Laos that the churches will continue to have a shepherding atmosphere and more saints will rise up to go as shepherds to people’s homes in twos and threes, bringing divine and heavenly food to the new ones.
Three trainees from Laos completed the full-time training in Thailand in October and returned to Laos to serve full-time. They will participate in a two-month propagation on college campuses. Please pray for this propagation that 20 young ones would be gained and become remaining fruit for the Lord’s move in Laos.
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