V2H In India First Couple Of Days

Vision 2 Hear is in India until March 10th working with our partner Sion Assembly Church in Vijayawada. We are very excited to be here and assist in sharing the gospel of Christ through preaching and meeting needs of people. The travel took us about 42 hours ( including the layovers) to get to our final destination for the next several days. Aside from a few minor challenges, our trip was uneventful, but long. Having spent yesterday and today recovering and catching up on much needed sleep, we have ventured out into the community already to visit some of the church locations and see some of the people.

This small sanctuary hosts the first services for SAC on Sunday mornings at 6am. With about 40 or more people sitting inside and then more outside, Pastor Ravi kicks off the day with the first of 7 services!

Pastor Rajendra and his brother Ravi take turns commuting to the various locations on Sundays, sharing the responsibilities of pastoring and preaching.

The small strip of land on the right is where the newly founded church at Noona meets on Sunday evenings at 7:30pm. With over 100 cramming onto this dusty pathway, the church gathers and worships God each week. They are currently looking at another space to better accommodate the growth of the church.

We also stopped by the grave sites of pastor’s mom and dad. It was interesting to see how they honor the dead and their more specifically their parents. The grave site will be redone with a headstone that will have both pictures of their parents engraved on it.

The graveyard was broken into three sections with the Christian section being the middle and the Hindu on one side and the Muslim on the other. I was able to go over to the Hindu side before we left and actually view a burial. This was very interesting! The man was placed in an upright sitting position and put into a hole about 6 feet into the earth. There didn’t seem to be any kind of embalming given to his body. I captured some pics of the family and the gentleman but I won’t post at this time.

This pic is from the Christian side where a recent burial was made. You can see the fresh flowers over the heap of dirt. On top of the flowers there were some sticks of incense burning.

Here’s a major reason why supporting the work in India is so important. It’s because people are dying and they need to hear the message of Life In Christ. With more than 1 Billion people in India and the majority of them being Hindu or Muslim, it is vital for the churches in India to have our prayer and financial support. Everywhere we turn, there are these kind of shrines on houses and buildings. With people offering their gods food, money and prayers, it’s sad to see such worship to a god that cannot hear them. As partners with SAC ministries, we are helping to make sure the gospel of Jesus Christ is being shared in a society that doesn’t know the God who created them. More updates coming soon!

For more pics, check out www.vision2hear.com