Report on Trip to India
Thanks so much for your prayers!
God really blessed our time in India. It was filled with lots of hardships and intense spiritual battle, but the Lord broke through with great victories. We had a chance to minister in many villages, to feed the hungry, dedicate several wells where drinking water was desperately needed, and to minister to orphans, the elderly and the neglected.
There were less pastors than anticipated at the pastors’ conference, but there were still 674 pastors present and they seemed really blessed and challenged by the teachings they received. Among other things, they were taught the each one win one strategy, and embraced it passionately.
As for the crusades, there were 5000 people present on the first day and 1,500 came to Christ. On the second day, 25,000were in attendance and 650 came to Christ. On day three, which was also the day of the Hindu Festival of Lights and Ramadan, (celebrated much like our Fourth of July and New Years Eve combined) there were 20,000 in attendance and a further 1,400 came to Christ. Then on the last day, there were 30,000 in attendance and there was an amazing mass conversion. When Chris gave the invitation, it seemed like the whole stadium responded, and we had no way of counting such a large number. It could have been anywhere between 15,000 and 25,000 who gave their lives to Christ that night.
Though we don’t know the exact numbers, we do know that each sector of the crowd had a pastoral team responsible for it and that they will know who was in their section and have followed them up. Harvest India has the most efficient follow-up strategy that I have ever seen, so I have confidence in the work they are doing.
On the last Sunday there, we visited a couple of churches and they were already overflowing with new converts from the campaigns, and Harvest India is also busy at work establishing at least 25 new churches out of the new converts who came from various villages in the area.
Thanks for praying.
Blessings,
Mark, Chris, John, Hazel, Claire and Eileen