For the past 2 years I have been attempting to visit Pastor
Sonu Singh and his lovely wife Pinky in Amroha northern India and in September
of this year the date was set! Both my
parents lived in India during the time of the British Empire and I was just a
twinkle in my father’s eyes as they left in 1947.
After a very comfortable flight with British Airways direct
to New Delhi, I at long last met Sonu & Pinky in the flesh. We had often communicated by video phone
over the past 3 years but this was quite emotional. Now we had a three-hour drive in front of us
and there was no way I was going to sleep!
The drivers in India are crazy and never stop blowing their horns, and
many a time of the way I thought I was going to meet my Maker sooner than
expected.
I was shown around their humble home which they rented and
was soon treated to one of the delights of Pinky’s home –made curries, and
believe me it was delicious! This
couple have given their lives completely to serve the Lord and they do not seem
to waste a minute of it. They now have
12 pastors in their ministry and have established 8 churches, but their vision
is to set up many, many more! They have
2 motorbikes which were donated to get around to their various locations where
they have started churches. Some of
these are over 3 hours away in the Northern jungle. T hat evening they took me to meet Sonu’s
parents who also live in humble means.
I watched as a couple of monkeys
swung from tree to tree, yes this was definitely different from
Guatemala.
My first night I rested well and the following morning
needed to use the lavatory which I found to my surprise was just a hole in the
ground. That not being bad enough I
looked around for toilet paper but there was none to be found! I will not tell you how I dealt with this
problem. Showering was even better
and consisted of throwing a basin of water over oneself. But it was cooling as the temperatures inside and outside the house
must have been over 40 centigrade! Dressed
and ready for breakfast I joined them all cross-legged on a couple of large
double beds pushed together. By this
time I was already sweating and felt as if I had never dried myself after
having my “shower”.
Later in the morning we left for an evangelistic outreach
where Sonu had laid out a large tent which we found out later could not even
accommodate half the people that came!
Over 4,000 attended some people as far away as 500 kilometers! Word gets around fast when a stranger is in
town! After a good hour of worship
played just with bongos and a small keyboard the leaders came up on the
platform and presented me with floral
garlands as a sign of respect. I was
really touched and tears began to openly flow from me. Then came my introduction and I shared the Gospel. Afterwards hundreds of Hindus received
Christ as their Lord and Savior, rejecting the thousands of other gods they
used to worship. The Lord then
followed this with hundreds of miracles and healings. The deaf were hearing again, many of them! The lame were walking, many of them! Other sicknesses were healed and demons were
cast out of many people. I must admit
I was sweating profusely as I prayed for these wonderful people, and even
though there were people fanning me, I am sure I must have lost a few pounds on
my first day.
The meeting ended after about 6 hours and then we went to
visit a few houses where we continued to pray for many more people. It was then that I truly noticed the hearts
of Sonu and Pinky and their team. They
would not stop until the very last person had been prayed for, even when they
came to the houses where we were “resting.”
The following day being Sunday I was woken up quite early to
be told that some people had come to the house expecting me to pray for
them! Sonu was looking tired but I felt
quite well, especially after the breakfast of Curry and Parathas. One thing I was truly happy is that
Pinky knew I drank lots of tea so my cup was also kept well filled. At 11.00am we left to visit the Jungle visit
of Madhupri, a three hour drive away.
Sonu was telling me about the tigers, elephants, monkeys, snakes and
other animals in the jungle and I was a little but apprehensive what to
expect. But God was in charge so I placed it at the
back of my mind as we went down narrow dirt roads with big holes in them. In this Hindu village were 700 people whom
Sonu and his team brought to the Lord – A whole village saved! They have built a church for the people
but still need a roof which costs about $500.
If you want to help then please send a donation marked “Jungle Roof” to
the address below. The church was
donated by one of the women in this town after she got saved. Here also Sonu has fitted a water pump
for the villagers. What a blessing to
these people he is!
The next day we all woke up feeling tired but happy with
what the Lord was doing among us. After a time of prayer and refreshing and some
breakfast, Sonu and Pinky took me on a rickshaw through the town to buy some
gifts for my family. How we never got
killed on that rickshaw is beyond me!
Once more the hot weather took its toll on me and I was therefore glad
to sit on a shop where they had electric fans.
A quick fizzy drink brought relief to me as Pinky chose a typical dress
for Christa and my daughter Antonia as well as gifts for Edwin and my grandson
Jeffrey.
After a snack lunch and some rest Sonu informed me that we
would be visiting a few families who had invited us to come and pray for them,
and then we would return to our first venue as we had heard that quite a few
people hade gathered for a prayer meeting.
At our first house I was offered hot goats milk which I thoroughly
enjoyed and then plenty of water and tea.
At each house we visited we had the same plus cake and biscuits. I enjoyed praying for the families and their
house. Then the big surprise was to
follow!
At the meeting where we expected about twenty of thirst
people to attend, over 4,000 had arrived!
I was shocked. They had hastily
erected a high platform with a sound system and put a worship group
together. Later I had heard that some
people had come from as far away as 300 miles.
Word travelled fast, and having my picture in the national paper saying “Preacher
comes to share about the True God”, obviously got seen by many people. Later, I also heard that many came because
they had heard about the many miracles
that had taken place. They started talking about this God that was
using men to heal them of all their sicknesses and that certainly got them
interested.
Shoes removed and put with the many hundreds of other pairs,
(It’s a wonder people find their shoes later) we walked to the platform with
people attempting to touch us. I
watched as people were climbing high walls and houses to get a glimpse! Little did I know but this “quite prayer
meeting” was going to go on for over 10 hours and I would only have an hour or
two in which to get ready for my flight back to Germany! I was glad for the big electric fan that
blew into my face during the worship plus the two people at the back fanning me
with their home made fans, what a luxury! As the worship continued so did the
manifestation of many demons and soon we were down among the people casting out
these evil demons and brings healing and many miracles to them all.
After what seemed like hours and with my profusely sweating
again two men heaved me bodily up onto the platform again to rest a bit. I was glad of this and cold water was
brought to me. But the people decided
they would jump up on the platform to get prayer from me, so I continued as
they brought them to me, but after a while there were so many up on the
platform and for my own safety I was literally carried off by two “minders” and
taken to a Sonu’s mother’s house and placed in a chair. What
came next was just ecstasy! They started
to massage my legs and feet while one other woman massaged my neck – heaven! But soon some of the people were
clambering over the 12 foot high wall, even though the meeting was still going
on, someone had said, “The holy man is in the house!”
As tired as I was I could not stop praying for these beautiful
people who had seen God perform so many miracles. One by one they were brought to me and one by
one they were ALL healed! And the
same time at the meeting Sonu and his team were seeing hundreds of miracles and
healings. Such simple faith. I remember that Jesus said, “Only Believe.” Nothing more, nothing less, and yet we in the
West make things so difficult for ourselves.
I asked why people touched my feet after I had prayed and heard that
this was a sign of respect. I felt so
humbled to be used by God here in India.
With my body still being fanned and having drunk what felt like to me
the whole village well I continued to pray and pray having no idea what time it
was, only that is was night time. My
greatest joy was asking the Hindu people if they wished to receive Christ as
their Lord and Savior and that they would renounce their gods and to see the
joy in their faces as they were set free.
Some whole families came forward
for prayer and told me through Pinky interpreting that each night they
were disturbed by demons. I was able to
cast these demons out and tell them they were new creations in Christ and that
they would now sleep in peace.
Meanwhile back at the meeting Sonu had had to call in the
police to control the crowds. We all had
not expected so many people; otherwise he would have had police security. Soon Sonu and the team came back to the house
and then I was again escorted by a man each side of me and in front. I felt like one of those superstars you see
on TV surrounded by bodyguards, but this time it was to get me to the car as there
were many people outside the house waiting.
Soon we were on our way back to the ministry house. I looked at my watch; we had been
ministering for over 10 hours! At the
house Pinky was preparing dinner! I
quietly declined and fell into my bed hoping to sleep, but I couldn’t for the
just thanking God for all that had happened that day and every day. Then the electricity went again and of course
the fans. Sonu and team somehow got some
sort of cooling going but now it was time to get up and not sleep! I had been in my bed just over 2 hours,
exhausted but happy.
Pinky had made me my usual cup of hot tea and then we went
into the prayer room where Sonu told me 2 men had been waiting all night for
prayer. I prayed for them, I prayed
for the team, and I told them they were such a blessing. I knew by this time that god had spoken
clearly to me that this was to be a new ministry for both Christa and me. We drove the 3 hour trip to the airport and
I had to hold back my tears as I said goodbye to Sonu and pinky and some of the
team. I knew this was not the final
goodbye and soon I will be returning.
There is a great hunger and thirst in Northern India, an area
that has hardly been evangelized. Sonu
and team are doing just that and winning whole Sikh villages to the Lord. They are doing it all in faith as any funds
they receive are shared among them all.
Nobody goes without, they are a team!
I was touched to find out that there were many days when they would all
go without food because of lack of funds.
I did not find this correct as the Word of God says a worker is worthy
of his wages. One of the biggest problems
of Sonu obtaining help is the lack of trust of people in the Western word. There are, of course, and it is well known,
many false pastors on the FaceBook and elsewhere who have false ministries just
to obtain money from the Western world. This
of course hurts ministries such as Sonu and Pinky’s. There have also been people who have
visited their ministry and not given a cent towards taxi fares or food.
Sonu and Pinky have “adopted” both Christa and myself as
their Mum and Dad and as such have given us full authority to speak into their
lives and help their ministry which we have been doing over the past couple of
years. Some of these people who have
visited their ministry I am sure have been sent by the devil, as they have put
negative remarks on the Web. I have
spoken and warned these people that unless they withdraw their remarks I would take
action to have them removed from place such as FaceBook and Twitter. These have now been withdrawn.
The needs of this ministry to function and to win millions
of the Sikh people to the Lord are great and we are addressing them one by one
and prioritizing them. I write this
blog in the hope that some of you can become part of seeing Northern India won
for the Lord, not only by your prayers but also by love-gifts. It is not just a matter of evangelists
coming here and sharing the Gospel as they would in any other county; it is
different here. Because of the high rate
of illiteracy these people have been brought up on oral stories. It is
a well-known fact that their memories are far superior to us who read
literature. People in India are unaccustomed
to a Western style of learning but more inclined to biblical storytelling in
cross-cultural contexts and who want to train others to become storytellers. Paul Koehler who was a missionary has
developed a program to train storytellers in their own languages and it has
been a great success. Storytelling is found
to be superior for knowledge transfer and for bypassing resistance to the
gospel in oral contexts, thus
presenting evidence of the effectiveness of biblical narrative among oral
learners. For interested readers, his
book is called “Telling God’s stories with Power.”
For more information about the ministry of Sonu & Pinky,
please go to their website at: http://www.salvationforindianschurchministry.com/partnership.html a
GLOBE UK:
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God bless
you all and I pray this Blog has spoken to you.
Jeff
& Christa Mills
Guatemala
For your notice,
I come under the covering of www.globeeurope.org
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