Herb Hoefer
Update
24 January 2006
Friends and Family,
I discussed with the supervisor of the probationers-as-church-planters at
the seminary, Dr. Monikaraj, on the effect of the program as these young
pastors moved into their regular parishes. Besides the effects I discussed
in the last Update, he observed that a major difference has been the support
provided for the purchase of sites. So often in the past, young pastors,
congregations, evangelists, etc. have made these efforts in founding
congregations, only to have Pentecostals take them over by providing a site
and a chapel for the new believers. Now that we have made the effort to get
the congregation well established, the men feel that their efforts will last
after them.
In general, they now believe that others will support them when they make a
major effort on behalf of the Kingdom. Indeed, this is what they have
continued to experience in their parishes, as their congregation members and
others have stepped forward to support their mission efforts. Now they
actually believe that the church will support them if they take the
initiative.
One of our Chennai pastors took me out to a meal with his family last night.
It is fascinating to hear from them how grateful they are to the LCMS for
uplifting them with the Gospel to new dignity, status, and hope, from the
degradation of their outcaste status in the general society. They look at
their co-caste members living in the oppression of the Hindu world and know
that "But for the grace of God, there go I." I always tell LCMS visitors not
to be shocked by the adulation poured upon. It has nothing to do with you
and me.
It is their way of expressing gratitude to the current representatives of
the mission of God that set them free.
One of my articles was published recently in "Missiology." In entitled it
"Proclaiming the Gospel of the Ascended Lord." I tried to demonstrate how it
is the experience of the living Jesus that brings most converts from major
religions. Yesterday I had a conversation with such a Brahmin convert. He is
from a wealthy family in Madurai that fell on hard times. He and his wife
had decided to commit suicide along with their little boy, rather than
endure the shame and poverty any longer. He had bought the pesticide to
inject.
The night before, he wanted to have one more night ofcarousing with his
friends, but none were around. Instead, he met a young man who told him he
couldeither go do it or he could pray to Jesus to change the fortunes of his
life. "Do you want to go out as a coward?" he asked. The Brahmin protested
that he had seen many moral failings in Christians. To which the young man
responded, "This is not about the imperfections of people about the
perfection of God." The young man also gave him a Bible.
The Brahmin man said that in the past he had torn pages of the Bible and
thrown them to the ground. This time he opened it up to Rom. 7 and
read about the good that we want to do but don't and the evil we don't want
to do but do. He saw this as a description of himself. (Interestingly, this
is the same passage that convinced now Christian sanyassi Dayanand Bharati
about the truth of the Bible.)
His wife had been fasting and praying for 38 weeks to her family deity. When
he asked her to pray with him, she protested. But he said that their god had
done nothing for them all these months. He then fell to his knees along with
his wife and wept. Then he suddenly saw a huge light. He hesitated to say
anything to his wife about it, for fear that he was just hallucinating.
Instead, his wife spoke of it and how hands with dripping blood were being
placed on his head. They both saw the wounded feet below them. Soon
they found people returning money that had been loaned and even stolen from
them and they were back on
their feet financially.
Now he is a regional manager of a financial firm. They were baptized
in a Pentecostal church, but now just go to different churches without
affiliating anywhere, as is the pattern of the "Jesu bhaktas" I've been
working with. In typical Hindu words, he says, "Jesus is my master."
He also recounted a lesson he learned from a leper. At first, he had become
quite proud from his new-found personal relationship with Jesus. He said he
had expressed to the leper that he would be healed if his faith were as good
as the Brahmin's. The leper replied that his faith actually was stronger,
even though he lived out in the open quite bereft by society. He lived day
by day in the grace of God, knowing of His daily care to find him food and
shelter.
The leper also told of a specific example. He and his co-lepers had been
without food for five days. They rested in the shade of a banyan tree along
the road when a flock of cranes flew by. Suddenly, one crane dropped down
into his lap. He was quite befuddled about this, of course. Next, a car
stopped, and the wealthy man stepped out to ask if he could purchase the
crane. His boy had seen it and asked for it. He received Rs. 200 for this
gift from heaven, and they all ate for quite a while on this.
This aft. I'm off to help with the Madhya Pradesh Lutheran Church in central
India. God bless.
Herb