On Monday
Andrew took me out to a remote village to meet with two evangelists. We left at about 9:30 in the morning and
arrived at the place around midday. The
drive there was very hectic as it turned from a nice flat highway to a very bad
bumpy road with potholes everywhere. We had to cross into a jungle area so
there was a police checkpoint we crossed through. They checked to see how many plastic bottles
we had so to make sure we don't leave any behind. There were several signs warning of elephants
as they can be very dangerous, Andrew said he has only encountered them once or
twice. We then had to pass through
another police checkpoint as we were crossing the boarding from the state of
Kerala to Tamil Nadu. The police were
very casual and didn't seem to overly care about anything.
After
several driving over several large hills the forest cleared and we saw
thousands of small shrubs everywhere, it was a tea plantation as far as the eye
can see covering huge rolling hills.
This was where the village was situated, about 10,000 people all of
which worked on the tea plantation that was owned by a very large Indian
company called TATA. There was a large
factory and hospital sitting on one of the hills, it looked very strange as it
was literally in the middle of nowhere.
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| Picture of Nilson Samuel and Radha Krishnan overlooking the huge tea plantation |
Driving
past the small village shops and seeing quite poor looking people everywhere
there were two men standing on the side of the road who were smartly dressed
and holding a bible. These were the two
evangelists, there names are Nilson Samuel and Radha Krishnan . We were invited into the place where they
were staying to freshen up, it was a very basic looking small room. They both
have families that live quite far away and would catch the bus to see them once
every month or so. They were both very
kind and could see they had such a heart for the Lord. They have been living at this village for 6
months and very day they would go out to different parts and hand out gospel
tract and witness to people. Most of the
village people have never heard about Christ so they decided to take up this
task of sharing God's word. Both of them
do not have any regular financial support and are quite poor themselves but I
can clearly see they rely on their faith in the Lord to provide for theirs and
their families needs which is amazing.
We all
got into Andrew's car and drove for about 10 minutes up the road then got out
and started to go house to house handing out gospel tract. The houses are very basic looking and as
Andrew said the people would earn very little working here each day. It was an incredible experience as it really
puts faith into action. Most people were
very curious to see what we were handing out.
Some would stop and talk for a while, some were quite anti and would rip
up the tract but most would take it and read it later. However the evangelists said that most of the
people don't have good reading skills so the best way is to be able to talk
with them. One family we met asked me to
pray for a very sick woman which was quite the experience. After about 3 hours of walking around the
different houses we headed back. It was
quite hard being under the hot sun for that long as it was very tiring but
being able to look out over the amazing view of the tea plantation and knowing we are sharing the
good news of the Lord Jesus Christ made it worth the effort.
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| Handing out a gospel tract to one of the village people |
It was
very encouraging to see these two evangelists work, how faithful they are, and
to see them have such a desire to share God's word. They are hoping to have to opportunity to go
into other villages in the jungle and work there but they are finding difficult
opposition from the government. I ask
that you pray for these two faithful men as they commit their lives to the
Lord's work and live day by day in faith.
If you feel the need to give some financial support I'm sure they would
be very appreciative, I may be able to obtain some contact information for
Andrew's assembly which could pass it onwards.
On the
way back home we stopped off at a waterfall that was about half an hour from
the village. Unfortunately it was
pouring with rain but we still got out and walked over to see the waterfall. Standing on the edge looking down at this
gigantic waterfall while soaking wet in the rain was quite the experience. There were lots of people bathing in the
water at the top of it and Andrew said he would come here quite often to bath
as it was quite nice. I couldn't get
over how big this waterfall was and the shear volume of water pouring over the
side with the loud booming sound it made.
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| The huge metro train bridge being built in Kerala |
We
finally arrived back home at about 6:30pm and then rushed outside to stand out
on the main road. The prime minister of
India was driving through this area of Kerala and it was a big thing. All the traffic was blocked off both ways for
a good hour. There were police
everywhere and tons of people lining the streets. But all we saw was a dozen or so official
looking cars drive past at about 100km/hour, I couldn't even see the guy, it
was quite the let down. Tomorrow we will be visiting a Christian girls orphanage in Kerala that is being managed by a New Zealand lady.
