October, November, December, 2000
Open Letter from P.M. Thomas, DIRECTOR

www.himalaya-mission.com

Christ's injunction that we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world needs to be taken to heart. I believe this salt and light should permeate the entire culture and society. This will only happen when his people begin to think and live from a holistic worldview. For too long, all we could see has been restricted to decisions, baptisms, and churches.

Since 1995 I have had a vision to see the Body of Christ address a glaring issue observed the world over-land and soil degradation in arid climates.

In keeping with the vision and timing of the Lord I have submitted my resignation with HEM to further pursue our long-term vision. It has been my joy to serve the Lord here in India for the past 6 years. As I look back at my "internship" I am grateful to Lord for all the things I have been taught. It has been a great joy serving our missionaries and interacting with the missions community in general. I am especially appreciative of Pastor P.M. Thomas for giving me a position of responsibility and trust.

My departure is not to quit serving in missions but rather to further train for greater skills and effectiveness for the future. We plan to return to India within 5-6 years. Thus my family and I leave not with a Good Bye but rather a See Ya Later. A more detailed testimony is given on the page 13. Our permanent email address remains the same at . Shalom.

Jon Frank

Dearly Beloved in the Lord,

Love and greetings from the Himalayas in the precious name of The Babe of Bethlehem!

God's Leaders Are on the Mountain Top

As we have just entered the 38th year of our ministry in the Himalayas it was also a time of heart searching and repentance in the light of the word of God. In Ex 17: 8-16 we read, " When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. When Moses' hands became heavy, Aaron and Hur also joined him and supported his hands". So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people. The Lord wants to give a message from here to all in Christian leadership. It is the duty of the top line leadership to lift up the hands and wait on the mountain top. Or in other words, the person who sits at the mountain top becomes God's leader and others could be bypassed.

When it becomes difficult for Moses then the second line leadership (Aaron) and the third line leadership (Hur) joins and helps. The rest of the battle in the valley is done by the fourth line leadership (Joshua). Office work, bank, money, constructions, food, court cases etc. in spite of all their importance, are the things of the valley while the actual battle is done on the spiritual level by the top level leaders. They sit on the mountaintop and "fight against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age and against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places". (Eph. 6: 12).

The actual battle is done on the mountaintop by Moses, Aaron and Hur and not by Joshua in the valley. Peter realized it quite late and he said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. We will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts. 6: 2-4). People who sit and fight at the mountain top automatically becomes God's chosen leaders. They receive all the secrets and revelations from God. That is why God said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing" (Gen. 18: 17). People who dwell in the heavenlies get not only His secrets but also declare them to the world. Psalm 25: 14 says, "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, And He will show them His covenant".

May we as Christian leaders repent for wasting our precious time in secondary issues and come back to this lost secret of prayer life and close communion with the Lord, which many mighty men of God in the past have cherished.

Himalaya Missions Institute

The second session of our missionary training started on September 21st and ended on October 29th. Twenty missionaries from different parts of India and Nepal who have completed the HMI missionary training have received their certificates during the annual conference in October and gone to different parts of the Himalayas with their burden and vision to plant Churches. Twelve missionaries who are yet to complete have gone for their practical work and will be coming back to complete together with the next session. If you know any committed young Bible College graduates who have got a burden for the un-reached people of the Himalayas, please recommend them for our coming training beginning from March 1st 2001.

Constructions

We have completed the finishing work of our multipurpose building, in which we are now having classes, dining room, common kitchen, guest room, library etc. The next important need before us is the accommodations for the new missionary trainees, our single sisters and office staff most of who are staying in temporary accommodations. Therefore we are now making another 1800 sq ft of accommodation, which we hope will answer part of the problem. What our dear Lord has done in the last 4 years in this new place in the building of our new office, Church and now the rest of these constructions are far beyond our dreams. Our dear Lord provided for every need at the right time and we continue to count on Him. To Him be, all the glory.

Children's ministry

Our sisters at Gorakhpur continue to work among the children in villages. Some of our children are facing persecution from their Hindu parents. Recently one boy called Raj Kumar was forced to bow down before the idols: when he refused to do so, his elder brother beat him up very badly. In the end his father asked him to leave him saying, when he will grow up he will do it willingly. Now the boy is very strong in the Lord. Praise the Lord!

Regina Sebastian, Mini Abraham, Manjula Narjinary and Iholi Swu report from Gorakhpur that the Lord is helping them in their ministry. The children are regularly coming to their classes. They continue to witness for Christ in their families and villages. Some children face persecution from their own family members. They tried to force them to worship idols and when they refused, they are badly beaten. Sister Regina was able to attend King's Kids South Asian Conference organized by Youth With A Mission, held in Calcutta. She was refreshed in her spirit and blessed by the conference.

We had our annual conference on October 26-29. About 180 Pastors, missionaries and evangelists were on the campus for a time of spiritual refreshing. In the past we were unable to accommodate wives and families but this year they have been invited and so our campus was doubly full. We had a team from Lakewood Church and Dr. John Thomas, former principal of Calcutta Bible College to speak in the various sessions. The speakers emphasized being a servant of God by serving our leaders and each other starting with the verse, "Lord what will Thou have me to do"? This has been a challenge to many.

One of the lady leaders Miss Renee Branson spoke on the power of the spoken word and how power flows when we speak in the name of the Almighty God.

Living Martyrs

It was a thrilling moment when about a dozen missionaries who were persecuted for Christ in the recent times stood on the stage on the last day of the conference and gave their testimonies. Many of them were so moved that it was difficult to stop them. All of them have now gone back to their stations spread over 3000 Kilo Meters from Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh to continue to serve the Lord with renewed vision and strength

New Stations

This year by the grace of God we could open 9 more new stations by our trainees. Right after our October conference Ashish Dodum and Taranjeet went to open a new station in Arunachal Pradesh. Ashish is from the Nishing tribe and hopes to plant a Church among his own people.

Allahabad Prayer Seminar

On November 11th -15th we had a blessed prayer seminar at Allahabad led by Dr. Zachariahs Tanee Fomum, from Cameroon of West Africa. About 600 people mostly Christian leaders from different parts of North India took part in it. Most of the delegates made a new commitment to start fasting and prayer.

886 people baptized

Two of the thrilling baptisms of this year at Gorakhpur were the baptisms of Joel Srivastv, formerly Lakshmi Shankar Srivastav and also of Om Prakash Gupta. Now we praise the Lord their family members who were against them so far are now slowly coming to the Lord. According to the reports we have received so far from our mission stations, in the last one year, 13,217 people expressed their desire to follow Christ. Out of them 886 people stood firm and took baptism and joined our various Churches. To God be the glory. As we praise God for all these new people whom the Lord has brought into his fold, we shall also appreciate your continued prayers for these new believers especially for those who were not bold enough to take baptism.

Good Bye to Jon Frank and Family

Jon Frank from USA who has served as our office administrator from 1994 has now decided to return to USA in preparation for his long-term vision of entering some of the closed countries with the gospel. He came as a young graduate from the Christ For The Nations in 1994, married Rebecca one of the members of our church at Udhampur and now they have 3 beautiful and intelligent boys, Jethro, Ariel and Jesua

They have been a great help in the office and also a blessing in the campus. As we say good-bye to them we also pray for God's richest blessings on them and their future ministry.

Our associate pastor Charles who has married our accountant Silla also have been asking permission for some time to go to the field for church planting. This would also mean that our office and church work would be suffering until we find the right people to take up such important posts. We shall appreciate your prayers and suggestions for this immediate need.

Family

Father who went to Udhampur with Santhosh when we went for our overseas visit in March is now staying with my youngest brother Philip in Ramnagar in Jammu Kashmir. We are in touch with them through telephone. We are happy to write he is keeping fairly good health for his age. He is now going to celebrate his 100th birthday on Jan 5, 2001; Santhosh continues to supervise the work in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. He has opened two more new mission stations in the Kashmir valley at Srinagar and Sopur. Our daughter Grace and her husband Rev. Johnson George are often in touch with us by telephone and they continue to head an independent evangelical ministry in S. India.

Wedding Bells

Our missionary Sajimon, now working as the acting principal of Totopara School at the Bhutan boarder and Mini from Kerala were marred in October. Both of them with two other lady teachers from their school also came for the October conference. Now Mini also has started to teach in our Totopara school.

Weather

Whether continues to go cooler and soon some of our mission stations on the mountains will be under snow for the next few months. Prayer is needed for these missionaries as well as all others as they face this winter and continue their ministry.

Persecution

Following are some major incidents of Satan's attack and also God's wonderful provisions, after we wrote to you in September. Following is the summary of one incident.

Thomaskutty, Principal of Little Birdie's School near Bhutwal in Nepal and also involved in missionary work there was coming to Gorakhpur in connection with his school work and also to meet some of us. At Gorakhpur he got a seat in a crowded taxi coming to our side. It was getting dark. In the midst of the conversation some people in the taxi found out Thomaskutty is involved in Christian work along with his school work. Soon they diverted the car from the main road and turned to a lane and took him to a deserted room and asked him to renounce Christ and become a Hindu and even threatened to kill him if he did not obey them.

After about midnight they blindfolded him and four of them took him to a Kali temple and asked him to pay homage to the goddess Kali, which also he refused. They dragged him by the hair and also forced his head to do everything they wanted. He was under their custody for 3 days and nights and on the third night he was released. The last thing they warned him was, if he will inform this matter to anybody outside they will cut him to pieces and sacrifice to their gods.

On the fourth morning he reached us and narrated his horrible experiences of those 3 days. Almost all our people advised him to take up the matter with the police and government even though all knew that very little good will come out by approaching the local police or government. But he was afraid of retaliation from those people. At last the minority commission here decided to take up the matter and reported to the senior police officers. Almost all the newspapers here published the whole incident.

Soon enquiries started from several government agencies, newspapers and police. Some of them visited Thomaskutty's school in Nepal with the help of the Nepal police, recorded the details of the incident. But so far the authorities have taken no action. The minority commission has now appealed to the central government for a CBI enquiry into the incident. We are glad to report that now Thomaskutty is more firm in his faith and commitment and says he wants to praise God for counting him worthy to suffer for Jesus. He continues his ministry through his school. We want to express our special thanks to all who responded to our email and prayed for him and his family and also for all who wrote to us. Even though we have been hearing of threats by communal elements here, this is the first time such an extreme case has happened in this place.

Many of our workers are facing very difficult times. We have got another case before us in which a new believer Om Prakash Gupta from one of our stations had to runaway for his life as there are thrests on his life because he said he is going to become a Christian and was boldly witnessing in his whole village. Now he with his wife and 3 children are with us at our base. He is very strong in faith and has asked for water baptism, and so on Oct 27, I gave him water baptism after knowing the possible consequences. There were threats of attacks from fanatics. But by God's grace there has been no problem so far.

Following is another SOS we have received from Pastor Samjee Kallimel. "One of the pastors in U.P, Ram Kishan Rana was arrested and put in jail just because they worship in their school building. They have a gathering of 250-300 Tharu Tribals at Najgouta, Kheeri District. Since there was no other place for them to worship, they used to conduct their worship in their own school building, which they built by the request of the village pradhan (village chief). The land also was given by one of the local converts. They were using that building for worship also. The SDM (a senior government officer) visited this village and called the pastor and warned that no more Christian activities should be conducted in the school building. Following that the police officers came and asked Ram Kishan Rana to demolish the building. Ram Kishan Rana and his friend who donated the land were arrested because they did not demolish the building. Police officers threatened Ram Kishan Rana that his legs and hands would be broken and sent to jail along with other believers. All the believers were afraid and we all were praying for them."

At last Mr. John Joseph of Minority commission intervened and now Pastor Rana and his friend are released on bail after paying a bond of Rs. 200,000 for both of them. Samjee was asking if this was the bail amount for those who worshipped Jesus in a school building, how much should be the amount for a dacoit and a murderer. Now they have to attend the court every week and pay the advocate for nothing. It is just harassing and making a mockery of law. Now the case is going on. I am sure you will realize how much all these dear ones stand in need of your prayer. The last news was they are going to start the worship again in the building.

Saved from Robbers

Pr. Charles, a former police officer who is now pastoring in Lucknow visited us last month and shared a thrilling experience. He has returned from an evangelistic tour to West Nepal. We all were moved and also praised the Lord when he narrated the following experience. He also wrote down the following summary for us before he left for Lucknow.

"We with our Musical Team went to Nepal for a convention which was to be held from 4th October to 8th October 2000. We reached Tikapur town (Nepal) in a van by evening. On our way up robbers in a forest noticed our van and were waiting for our return. We had some wonderful meetings. Many people were healed by prayer and many delivered from evil spirits and the Lord glorified His name wonderfully among the Nepali people and many were baptized in water.

"As per our schedule we had to leave Tikapur town at 11:00 A.M. October 8; but a police team came to me at 7:00 A.M. and arrested me and our team and also the house owner, our host because he also accepted Jesus and was baptized. Their reason was many people were converted and baptized. I requested the police officer to leave all my team members and arrest me alone. My request was granted and I was kept there in the police station. In the meanwhile some of the police people decided to use our van and go to a place called Dhan Khadi 250 kms away from Tikapur town. The vehicle left at 11:00 A.M. on the 8th. That was the time we had to start from Tikapur to Nepalganj to go back home. The van had to pass through a forest between Tikapur and Lanki, which is an isolated area and where the robbers were waiting for us.

"All of a sudden the robbers who were waiting to kill us and rob our things jumped in and stopped the van. As our van had dark glasses and it was closed they could not see the police team who was inside the vehicle. When the robbers stopped the van and came to attack, the police team jumped outside and started firing. There was heavy firing between the two groups and finally the terrorist group ran away. We do not know how many people were killed and how many wounded; but praise be to God who saved our lives from the hands of these people. Because of this problem the police returned with our van and gave it to us. If I had not been arrested by the police and stopped from traveling we would have been killed on the way; but our God saved us.

"When the police officer heard my testimony he also decided to release me and gave me a lot of respect and love and served me food and requested me to inform him whenever I come to Nepal so that he can come and meet me. I preached gospel to him and to the other policemen and prayed for them inside the police station. All our people and my two sons were in tears when I narrated the whole story."

Friends, we need to pray more for our nation. Time is really short. Our nation is falling away from God more and more every day. Things are becoming harder apparently for the breakthrough with the Gospel. But the surprising thing is people are coming to the Lord more than ever before

I believe our Lord has initiated a mighty move for N. India and we need to respond to it immediately. We can do that primarily by raging a prayer battle and subdue Satan, the enemy of God and man.Let us unite ourselves friends. Let us gather together in spirit before the Lord of Hosts and speak life to death everywhere. Victory is ours in Jesus! Let us continue to pray for N. India, "Lord do it again" so that Acts 2 may repeated not only for the Himalayas but for the whole of India. He has promised, 'Every knee shall bow before Him..." The prophets have seen it that this "Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" and that includes if not start from, the Himalayas.

Christmas Greetings

Dear friends, another Christmas has come. We want to say a big thank you to all of you for your letters, emails and gifts. May our dear Lord bless you and reward you all according to His riches in glory. Wish you all A Merry Christmas And A Very Happy New Year! Soon there will be millions of celebrations all over the world with Christmas carols, Christmas cards, Christmas trees, Christmas cakes and Christmas parties most of which have very little to do with the actual first Christmas. May I quote one verse here from the first Christmas for you to ponder as you celebrate this years' Christmas. "And she brought forth her first born Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn". (Lk. 2: 7) Let us go to the right place to see the Savior and then present Him to this lost and dying world.

Yours to reach this generation,

P. M. Thomas

Himalaya Evangelical Mission
Arogya Mandir, Gorakhpur, U.P. 273 003
Tel. 0551 312357 or 317024
www.himalaya-mission.com

Applications for the following posts are invited from born again believers for our HEM central office at Gorakhpur:

1. One office administrator. Minimum Qualification: B com., MBA, Diploma in Computer and five years experience in a reputed office

2. Accountant, Minimum Qualification: B. Com. and five years experience in dealing with auditing and F.C.

3. One Associate pastor for our central church at Gorakhpur. Minimum qualification. B. D. or M. Div., Charismatic and 2 years pastoral experience.

Apply in the address given above with copies of certificates, recommendations from two Christian leaders, medical certificate, testimony of Christian experience, a copy of your photograph and expected salary. Free accommodation will be provided. Applications are also invited from born again Bible School Graduates who have got a real missionary vision and commitment for Church planting in the Himalaya region.

This news letter is sent to our selected few prayer partners about whom we believe have got a love and concern for the ministry in this hill country. If any of you feel you do not want to receive this bullettin in future, please feel free to inorm us with just one word, "Remove".

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