The Work in India

By

Shelby G. Floyd

June 26, 2006

Today, I received in the mail the newsletter of the missionary to India, Jerris N. Bullard. The caption of the newsletter is “Come Over and Help Us…,” based on the Macedonian Call found in Acts 16:9. The missionaries to India and like countries are doing the same work as the apostle Paul when he said that the Thessalonians “turned to God from idols to serve the true and living God.” (1 Thessalonians 1:9.)

Brother Bullard recounts how God gave the increase from January 1, 2006 through June 13, 2006. There were 49,116 meetings conducted, 95,633 baptized, 784 new congregations established, and 163 denominational preachers converted to the truth of the gospel. He stated that every day 583 souls are baptized in India. The fields are truly white unto harvest.

Then Jerris Bullard included Tom Painter’s personal account of the work in India while he was last there that is informative and inspiring. It is included here for our encouragement and motivation to help in this great endeavor:

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN INDIA OF TOM PAINTER, DEACON, AT SUMMIT CHURCH OF CHRIST, COLDSPRINGS, KENTUCKY

As a husband and father of two young children, as well as being very involved in my local congregation, the last thing I wanted to hear was that I had to put all my responsibilities and activities on hold in order to travel for business to Bangalore, India for eight days. The distance and 10 hour time zone shift would certainly upset my world Of course, I had no idea how God would change my life with this trip.

God has a wonderful way of providentially using even the most personally inconvenient situations for His glory. God had arranged for Jerris Bullard, who has been doing mission work in India since 1978, to visit my home congregation to report on the work in India during the very week my company informed me I would be going to India. After the presentation, Jerris and I talked about Indian culture and the challenges of traveling in this part of the world. As we talked, we agreed that he would arrange for me to meet with one of the Indian preachers in Ban galore to give me a taste of the work going on there. So, with confidence that God’s providence was at work, I boarded a 20-hour flight from Cincinnati to Paris to Bangalore on March 10, 2006. God was about to teach me a couple of important lessons.

Lesson 1: We Have Brethren in Places We Could Never Imagine.

Upon arriving in India and getting a few precious hours of sleep, Jai Paul, a full time Indian evangelist, met me in my hotel lobby to escort me to a Sunday morning worship service conducted in a poor neighborhood of Bangalore. We found a group of 75 Christians sitting on a bare concrete floor in a small room eagerly waiting to worship God. They did not dress like other Christians I had worshipped with. I couldn’t even understand their words without Jai Paul interpreting for me. Yet as soon as I heard their singing I knew I was with Christian family and thought of the wonderful spectacle of all God’s saints from all time and all nations singing around His throne. At the appropriate time, I shared a simple message with them and noticed that everyone, even the children, listened with rapt attention. While worshipping with these brethren, I was struck by the thought that my narrow view of God’s work in my little corner of creation was pitifully small and must expand to include the white fields of India.

Lesson 2: The Gospel Can’t Be Contained.

Later in the week, we attended an evangelistic meeting in another poor neighborhood where local, native evangelists had been teaching their neighbors and loved ones. The local evangelists had worked all week to bring a crowd of 50 Hindus and denominational believers together to hear the good news of Christ. Using P.J another Indian evangelist, as an interpreter, I talked with them about a God that loved them enough to send His one Son to be the sacrifice to redeem them in order to add them to His one church. Seven souls, who had been formerly taught by our native evangelists, were motivated to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. These babes in Christ are likely to suffer physical, social, and economic persecution at the hands of their countrymen, yet less than 1 in 10 turns back to their idols. I was humbled by the power of the Word to capture hearts despite all the obstacles Satan places in the way. These seven souls are just a minute part of the great harvest that God is reaping in India. God adds over 200,000 souls to His kingdom every year in India. The world is still being turned upside down by the Gospel!

I left India having contributed a few hours of teaching and encouragement to the brethren there and having gained seven new brothers and sisters in the Lord. I brought home a completely new perspective on my place in Christ’s church. I learned that it was only my shortsightedness and lack of faith that limited God’s ability to use me in great ways.

My word will not return to me empty,

But will accomplish what I desire

And achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11

The Gospel still turns the world upside down, one teacher and one sinner at a time. None of Satan‘s schemes can contain it. In Bangalore and Cincinnati or wherever you find yourself the fields are still white unto harvest.

The work of the Christian is to spread the seed of the Gospel wherever God places him. It is a tremendous blessing from the Lord to be allowed to serve in this eternally important mission. The next time your job sends you away from home, consider allowing God to use the trip to spread the life-giving news of Jesus and to open your eyes to see the fields ready for harvest. You will certainly come away from the experience with a greater appreciation for the privilege of serving in Christ‘s church.

May God help us to carry out the great commission in our time? Anyone that can help in this work contact Jerris N. Bullard, Manassas Church of Christ, 8110 Signal Hill Road, Manassas, Virginia 20111-2512, (703) 368-2622.