Life Mission International

Happy village

People from Irula colony are filled with Joy when they saw water running from the tabs for the first time in their life in the history of their village. These people were brought here by the government as a settlement area to prevent them from catching snacks for livelihood. The government dug 2 bore well in this village, because these are not deep, it dries up during summer and does not have enough water to provide for the village.

When the GCC team visited this year, during that time, due to drought, only few pots of water would come from the hand bore wells and people had no other source for water. This has burdened the hearts of the team members, they started praying for the need. Thus not only they could contribute and raise the needed money for the water project but through their prayer, heavy rain started pouring next day.  When people saw the rain they were so happy, they continued to work in the construction site in the rain.

Since the government bore well were not deep enough (probably around 100 ft deep), we decided to dig around 500 feet. Thus there will not be shortage of water even during the summer. We also bought a powerful submarine motor which is one and  half horse power to fetch the water. We have a 2000 liter over tank, and 3 outlets of tabs for the people to collect the water.

People were eagerly waiting for the inauguration as they saw the work completed. Almost the entire village gathered for the colorful occasion. Children were singing praises to Jesus for the water. It was a memorable day!

In this thanks giving ceremony to inaugurate the water project, the Irula people were so thankful for the gift they have received. The women were in tears thanking the LORD for what He has done for them. It was a holy movement for the entire village.

 As the tabs were opened by the village head KASI, people were shouting and making joyful noises. Watch this small video to feel the pulse of the people around the tab. Thank you GCC and the people who are reason behind for this Joy.

 

Irula Children Education

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GCC took the initiative to train the Indian Pastors to reach  the local communities through the Local Church. One such church focused on the most backward community in Kalavai of Vellore district. This community lives under below poverty line and they don’t have the means to send their children to the paid school. Some of the parents prefers to send their children to rear goats or catch rats for survival.

The church along with the community leaders and life mission took the initiate to eradicate the illiteracy among the irula tribal people. The following people met on October 16th and formed a board to meet this need. They are;

1. Kasi – Village head – President of the board

2. Rajendran – A Irula Tribal man - treasurer

3. Pastor.Sam- Local Church Pastor - member

4. Kuppan – a leader from Sam’s Church - member

5. Anandaraj – Life mission Representative - Secretary

They discussed the need for the up-liftment of the community, the village head thanked the local Church and Life mission for taking the initiatives. They have decided to set up a board to eradicate illiteracy in the kalavai Irula colony by helping the children to go to the school. They have found  11 of the children are eligible to go to the nearby school.

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The following are the decision taken in the first board meeting.

1. Mr.Rajendran the upcoming tribal leader has pledged to donate rupees 250 per month towards this project.

2. They have also decided that rupees 30 will be collected from each of the Irula family per month for the project.

3. Pastor Sam has pledged to donate rupees 500 every month towards this project.

4. Mr.Anandaraj has pledged to donate rupees 500 every month towards this project.

5. Mr.Kuppan has pledged to donate rupees 500 every month towards this project. He has pledged to provide text books and note books to children for the academic year 2010-2011.

6. Pastor Sam has promised to provide uniform to all the school going children for the academic year 2010-2011. He also promised to bring doctors to this colony once in a month for medical check up.

7. The board also have decided to get one tenth of the sales money from the small scale goat business for this project.

8. The board has decided to open a bank account in Kalavai for the maintenance of the money for this project.

9. The children will go to school from October 20th. The local school has agreed to admit the children.

10. The board has decided to meet once in a month to plan. evaluate and execute the decisions.

I thank God for the outcome and hope to see this grow.

The success story of Sister Latha

This is sister Latha from a Hindu family background. When she was a child she had an opportunity to hear about Jesus in a Sunday school. But she did not follow him. When She was grown, she got married to one of her relative. When she delivered her second baby, some people did witchcraft against her. Because of this she lost her mind, sometimes she would throw the baby, while breast feeding, and run on the road.  Sometimes she would remove the cloths and run. Other time she would scream and roll her head or on ground because of the evil spirit possession. The pain and suffering was unbearable, her husband tried all the possible ways but nothing worked out. They did not know what to do.

Then she remembered what she has learned about Jesus in the Sunday school. So, she told her husband to take her to a close by Church and asked the Pastor to pray for her. There, she got healing. Her heart filled with joy. Then Latha and her husband Srinivasan accepted Christ and started following Christ.They also started telling the truth to all the people around them. They  also actively participated in the Church activities. Srinivasan is currently working in a factory close to his village.

By seeing their commitment and sincerity, her Pastor told Latha to focus on the Meppur Thangal village to plant a Church. The Church had 4 contacts in that village, so she could start with them. Her Pastor also sent her to KGT to get training to plant a Church. Now she has completed 4 modules of training. This training has helped her to share the gospel in a simple and systematic way. Now within one year time, 40 people are attending the service and 15 of them have taken baptism. Her husband also supporting her during his free time. They are so happy to serve Jesus. She said though she is facing lot of difficulties, she is able to overcome with God’s grace. Thank God for this wonderful Sister.

Training session of KGT

We are conducting the Kingdom of God training to plant new Churches. It has five modules training. We conduct 3 days of training for each modules. Each day we begin the day with praise and worship and a small devotional message. Then in the forenoon we normally teach knowledge. They learn why we do? and What to teach at this stage to the people they are leading.  It is basically knowledge oriented subjects. The method we use is teaching. In this batch 46 of the Church planters are undergoing the 4th module training on Leadership.

In the afternoon we do the How aspect of the training. It is basically skill oriented subjects. Here they do the group discussions, presentations, practicing and sharing. This has enabled them to learn the skills and find answers to their struggles and questions. Here they are discussing the character needed to become a leader based on 1Timonthy chapter 3.

 

We also give time for personal counseling, and clarifications. They enjoy the training as they learn new skills. We also ask some of them the trainees to share their testimony. It has both edified and encouraged the Church planters.

When they become successful Church Planter they introduce to other potential people, and that is how we get people for further training. We praise God for these people.

Another Resource for Church Planters

By God’s grace we could start a new batch of Church Planters few weeks back and today we are starting second new batch. Thus for we were giving Xerox copies of notes in a file to the Church Planters. Now we are able to put together all the module 1 training materials into a A4 size booklet. This book contains the following materials.

1.  
2. 1. How to plant a new Church?
3. 2. Issues Prevailing in Church Planting
4. 3. Vision of a Church Planter
5. 4. Devotional life of a Church Planter
6. 5. How to do ministry among children?
7. 6. How to do ministry among youths?
8. 7. How to do ministry among illiterates?
9. 8. How to understand people to share the gospel?
10. 9. How to share our testimony?
11. 10. How to do personal evangelism?
12. 11. Goal setting
13. 12. Practical tips for planting churches
14. 13. Character of a Church Planter
15. 14. Why reporting is important?

 

This has helped us to reduce the cost by 50% and saved lot of space for storing the files. We thank God for One Prayer Network Churches for making this possible.