January 22, 2009

Dear [FIRSTNAME],

We’re actually staying in the same hotel two nights in a row, here in Hyderabad. (I’m told that the “e” is silent, so it sounds like “hydra-bad.”)

I had a great opportunity to talk with a young Indian man on our car ride today. It’s fascinating to talk with someone from such a different culture. And yet we are united in Christ and are brothers, though we live 8000 miles apart.

I’m not sure what to emphasize today. The amazing work that Mission India is doing in bringing the transforming power of Christ to people through Children’s Bible Clubs, Literacy classes, and Church Planters? Or how many hundreds and thousands of people they have ready, willing, and able to be trained, if only they had the funds? Or the Children’s Bible Club in a slum that I visited today?

I’m thoroughly impressed with Mission India’s passion and love for people, and with their basic principles, and with their love for and obedience to Jesus. They do not wish to create churches that are dependent on Western money. And they don’t. Once a church is established through their three ministries, they are self-funded and self-supporting, no matter how poor the people are.

But it does take Western money to get the ball rolling. Money is needed to train teachers, to print publications, and to start the Children’s Bible Clubs. It’s enough to break your heart. It certainly breaks the heart of God (or, as Jesus puts it in Matthew 9:35-38, it hits Him in the gut).

And yet, there is tremendous hope and promise. I can sense and feel that God is at work in this country. As the center of Christianity has moved from Jerusalem to Antioch to Rome to Europe and to the U.S., so also God is moving the center to India in the coming decades. We in America have the money; India has the need.

One day it will be India who has the money and the missionaries. I’m greatly encouraged to continue the great start that Trinity has made in supporting Mission India. God is up to something big. I could see it as I listened to women talk about learning to read. I could feel it as I listened to dirt-poor little ones singing God’s praises, quoting Scripture, and talking about how these CBC’s are changing their lives.

In Christ,

Pastor Steve

swillweber@trinitylutheranpaso.org

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