Church Planting & Mercy Ministry Home Page
Mark and Hepsibah
Village Ministry
Greetings from India. We believe God is calling us to reach our district consisting of 1,486 farming villages and a population of over 400,000 people. Ninety percent of our villages do not have a church. Only 2 percent of the population is Christian.
Presently, we are equipping and supporting pastors and their lay leaders in our area to plant more churches. We are praying to expand our ministry in 2021 to plant new churches throughout our district.
We plow the hard rocky soil in our area with good works in Christ’s name. We have ministries like sewing and tailoring schools for mothers who need extra income. We offer free Day Care centers so the moms can work. We have after school tuition classes for the poor school-aged children who are not currently enrolled in school. We also have literacy training. We work to help the needy start small businesses. For ones who are hurting, we offer medical care, a counseling center, and help feed the orphans and widows.
Our social work has opened to the door for evangelism, Bible distribution, home care groups, and discipleship training of lay leaders and church believers.
During the Covid lockdown, we were able to help 95 pastors by giving about half of them enough food to help the poor in their churches. Additionally, we gave over 100,000 drinks, 25,000 food packages, 20,000 immunity boosters, 4935 kg tons of rice with all the spices and cooking oil they needed to the homeless and migrant workers. We helped the local police force by giving them face masks, sanitizer, plastic gloves, face shields, water, and food to over 300 police officers and associated workers. Please uphold us as we continue to try to do more for His glory.
Church planting ministries: By the Grace of God, we planted three churches in different villages. The Covid lockdown prevented us from visiting these new churches. But our churches were never closed. Praise God! Every day, morning and evening, there was prayer. They prayed without ceasing. Miraculously, no one in these three churches were affected with Covid. God protected their young souls acting out in faith! At the end of December 2020, there were seven people who gave their lives to Christ and expressed their faith through water baptism. Hallelujah!
Care groups: There are care groups going on every week from Monday through Friday in five strategic locations in our villages. There are usually 15-20 people gathered in each group. We are teaching them Tommy Bitner’s chronological teaching of the Bible. We are getting new Christ followers in each group. Praise God!
Sunday Classes: There are three Sunday classes being held in three villages. We actually had five but two were closed in two villages because of great opposition from the Hindu villagers. We are still praying for those two villages to get open doors.
One girl named Sa***, is a fourth grader who is nine years old. Her grandpa had a fever over three days. She went and asked her grandpa, “Can I pray for you to Jesus who will heal you from the sickness?” Her grandpa was amazed and he thought that nothing would happen. But because she asked, he said, “Okay, pray.” When she prayed, with a heart full of faith, her grandpa started feeling better. On the next day, he was completely healed from the fever. He was surprised and came and shared this experience with us. “Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You might silence the enemy and the avenger.” Psalm 8:2
Day Care Center: Here we take care of the children of poor parents who have to go out daily for what we call “daily wages.” Jobs like teachers, government workers, and others earn a monthly salary. The daily wage earners perform house cleaning, baking, and other jobs like these. While they are at work, we care for, protect, and feed their children. It is all free and opens the door for the Gospel. We are teaching the children biblical respect, good manners, spiritual lessons, and how to pray. Through our quarterly gatherings with the parents and kids, we are able to reach their parents with the love of Jesus. Last year, we were not able to run the center.
Tuition Centre: Many underprivileged children are not able to pay the expensive school fees. So their parents bring the children to our center. We provide them with specialists to tutor them. Currently, we have 45 children attending. We offer help from the first grade level to 12th grade. We are taking care of each student with food, water, and educational helps.
Tailoring Project: The purpose of the tailoring school is to help women learn a trade and a living. There are many of them who started to stitch clothes and earn money in their home. Praise Jesus! We are praying for sewing training centers to be opened in two villages in 2021. We will be needing ten sewing machines. Each sewing machine costs $150. I humbly ask you to pray about this. We are able to help the women with so many needs. It really is an unbelievable ministry.
Counseling: Pr*** is an 18 year old girl. Her parents were able to save her from a suicide attempt. She was very depressed when her lover deceived her. They brought the girl to us because it was a mystery to them why their daughter would attempt such an act. We spoke to her humbly and prayed to God for the right words and the right guidance for it. God opened her heart and she shared with us everything that happened in her life. We prayed in our hearts and listened very carefully to what she shared to us. After that we talked with her using scriptures about the purpose of life and the trust that her parents had placed in her and how much God loved her. God opened her eyes and she realized her mistake. She cried, verbally repented, and joined us in prayer. We will continue to follow up with her and present the Gospel. Please keep her in your prayers. The battle is won but it is not over.
Because of Covid, many of our ministries were operated with just a few people. We are praying that God brings in a harvest of souls in 2021. Please consider joining our team.
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