Pray For India

I recently received a couple of emails from Gospel for Asia with some news of current events in India. The first concerns persecution of new converts.

Gospel for Asia regional leader M.A. Lalachan said the bills in the two states were passed to "make conversion tougher, targeting Christian missionaries and their activities."

The Chhattisgarh government, run by the fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), pushed for the bill "penalizing those who change their faith without informing the authorities."

The second concerns the terrible flooding occurring due to the monsoon season.

"When I heard about it, I was just numb," said Dr. K.P. Yohannan, president and founder of Gospel for Asia, reporting on the monsoon floods that have inundated western India and left more than 1,000 people dead and millions homeless.

"There is a monsoon every year," he explained, "but never in history has there been one of this magnitude."

The floods have been so extensive that a major natural gas plant has been shut down, and people are dying from waterborne diseases. The BBC has reported that 66 people in the state of Maharashtra have died from disease, including 37 in Mumbai (Bombay).

This one really hit home because I support a missionary through GFA in Maharashtra. I recently received a letter from him detailing what he is doing and how I might pray for him. I now know (to some extent) how the early Asia Minor churches must have felt when they received letters from Paul, the missionary they supported.

May God be glorified in India.