Setting Hearts Ablaze

After a seven-hour bus ride, Pastor Manglubhai finally arrived in Surat. He is used to long trips. He pastors a church in his village in India and routinely travels rough roads to a dozen other locations to lead congregations meeting in homes and small buildings.

Often at great risk of persecution, he has dedicated his life to sharing the Gospel. And like many others, he has the passion, but simply lacks the training and resources to reach more people for Christ.

A little weary but full of expectation, Pastor Manglubhai stepped off the bus and joined more than 300 other pastors who traveled from various parts of India to attend our Well of Life Pastors’ Conference. It is one of several Hand of Hope has presented in recent years.

The goal of this conference was two-fold: To provide these pastors with a week of encouragement, guidance and special training…and then equip them with the latest tools and technology to evangelize their local communities.

You made it possible for us to gift each pastor in attendance with a brand-new tablet, pre-loaded with the Bible and hours of Joyce’s teachings from her Enjoying Everyday Life TV programs in their local language. The content focused on leadership, evangelism, spiritual growth, parenting, how to overcome addictions, and many other topics.

The tablet also contains the Jesus film and books from several other authors to encourage the pastors and help them grow healthy communities of faith.

Teaching the Next Generation

One of the primary focuses of this particular conference was reaching the youth. In recent years, India has experienced a youth explosion. With more than 600 million people under the age of 25 (over half of their total population), they currently have more young people than any other country on earth.¹

Throughout the week, Pastor Manglubhai soaked up the training like a sponge, hearing these methods for reaching the youth through technology for the very first time. By the final day, he believed God had given him a whole new strategy for reaching the next generation for Christ.

“It is totally new what we are receiving here,” he said. “After going from here, I will try to divide the people into groups. I will concentrate on children’s ministry and I will concentrate on youth ministry. I hope that God will bring many more people to Christ through this matter.”

The content on his new tablet opened up a world of possibilities. Before he even stepped back on the bus to return home, Pastor Manglubhai excitedly told us about some of his plans to share Joyce’s program and show the Jesus film to his neighboring communities.

A fire had been lit…and it was about to spread to many, many more people in the coming months.

Expanding Their Boundaries

As we wrapped up our conference in India, there was still one last surprise. You gifted 12 of these local pastors with motorbikes to literally accelerate their ministry and the spreading of the Gospel.

Unlike more developed areas, these remote communities aren’t connected by bus systems or even roads in many cases. So, for these pastors who walk or ride bicycles miles each day to share the Word, it’s difficult to overstate the impact of these vehicles.

Pastor Anil Gamit, one of the recipients, wasted no time with his new gift. “In the three weeks since I got the bike, I at least make four to five trips every week to different villages and show different videos from this tablet,” he reported.

“This has been really effective because wherever we go now and tell them we have Joyce Meyer videos to show, more people get together and they are so attentive. More people come each time.”

In rural India, pastors face huge obstacles. But with God’s help, you are turning those challenges into great opportunities to share Christ with people who, in many ways, have never been more open to the Gospel message.

For instance, we first held a pastors’ conference in Surat in 2017. Since then, we’ve already seen over 3,300 new churches planted through this initiative. Best of all, hundreds of thousands of people have begun a new relationship with Christ!

Building on that progress, this new group of pastors has been encouraged, trained and fully equipped to carry on this amazing work and now reach the youth in an unprecedented way.

And it all begins with your incredible support that makes it all possible. Because of you, the church in India is growing, changing, multiplying…and setting hearts ablaze.

_{1. theguardian.com}