Herb Hoefer
Update
17 January 2006
Family and Friends,
It's been a special joy to have most of the members of the LCMS World
Mission Asia Management Team here in India over the past two weeks. Our
Executive Director, Rev. Bob Roegner, had been here last year and was
convinced that our partner church, the India Evangelical Lutheran Church,
could indeed reach the 20 million projected for the Ablaze goal. Now it's a
joy for me that our AMT group also can see the real potential of God's
People here.
I continue to visit congregations around the church. Tomorrow I head out to
one of the most needy sections. I have not been there yet, and I need to do
what I can to encourage them. It's always heartbreaking and frustrating to
meet these people in their struggles, but just my presence on behalf of the
LCMS gives them hope and strength in their desperation.
Last Sunday I was at a congregation whose church had completely collapsed
in the heavy monsoon rains. They have a school, so they moved in there for
their Sunday worship. The schools in India are supported by the government -
whether run by Christians or by Hindus or by Muslims, but they require that
no religious activities take placed on the premises. When the Education
Officer saw that they were holding worship in the classrooms, she stopped
all the teachers'
salaries. They've now been without salaries for the past seven months. They
have just now gotten enough money together to lay the foundation for the new
structure, but they need $25,000 more. It's a rather large congregation, but
they are all poor peasants.
It struck me that the teachers really didn't complain about the hardship.
They just seem to see it as part of the challenge any Christian will face in
carrying out his/her faith.
One interesting detail from this congregation is their pride that one of
their children took first prize in the Sunday School contest of the
district. He memorized 282 Bible verses! How's that for putting me
to shame. Today I had the privilege of hearing the reports from the
probationers-as-church-planters. They are here for the liturgy training that
Dr. Linda Borecki is conducting over these three weeks - one week for the
seminary students, now for the probationers, and next
for the newly ordained pastors. One of our AMT members already has his eye
on her to do the same for the Lutheran church in Indonesia.
It's exciting to hear from the probationers how all of their work has been
blessed by our Lord. They all have experienced growth over the past year and
a half of service. Almost all of them need at least one
church site for their new congregations. Their worry is that the
Pentecostals will step in - in their usual fashion - and pluck the new
congregation by providing the worship facility for them. One of them even
took out a personal loan - equivalent to twenty times his monthly stipend! -
so he could provide a small plot of land for his people to erect a small
shed for worship.
It's striking how many of them spoke of their worst opponents now becoming
their supporters in the community and even coming now for Baptism. It seems
that those who resist the most are the ones being
touched the deepest. Once again, one stands in awe of these people coming
forward even though they will lose all their gov't. privileges
(scholarships, seats in college, housing allocation, etc.) once they become
Christians.
They are using some creative ways to form relationships with the community.
A couple of them have started after-school programs for the children.
When the parents see how much better their children are doing in school, they become strong supporters of the ministry and start coming to worship as well.
Most of them have Hindus as regular worshippers, usually about 20% of the
congregation. The average number of baptisms over the past 18 months of
ministry seems to be about 15. It looks like at least two of
the sixteen probationers will have self-supporting congregations by the end
of their three-year service, if we can get them a site and building.
This set has three women who are probationers for deaconess ministry. It's
amazing how they also get out into the street and on the road between
villages to make their calls. They even have to preach and
lead worship, for there are no pastors around for these new, remote
congregations.
It's late, and I'm off early in the morning. I'll pick up the discussion on
my return.
God bless.
Herb