HIMALAYA HARVEST NEWS
January - March, 2002 PART 1

"For who, having heard, rebelled? -.. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." (Heb.3:16-19)

Christian life has it's ups and downs. Sometimes we walk by pastures green and sometime we lie down by still waters. Sometimes we find ourselves walking through valleys called Shadow of Death . At other times there is nothing but trackless wilderness where you long for an oasis of cold water and a tree for shade to rest awhile.

What's your attitude when you go through times like these in life? What would you like to emerge as when God is leading you through fiery furnaces of trials? When God led the Israelites through the desert, people emerged out with different results at the end of wilderness journey.

A majority that grumbled and that kept grumbling to the end. They had seen the terrible plagues their Mighty God had brought upon the Egyptians because they would not let the Israelites go, (Ex.7-11). They walked through the Red Sea on dry land while God fought for them with their enemies and "Israel saw the Egyptians dead-: (Ex. 14:30) Yet, they were not willing to put their faith in God. As they proceeded further into the desert they came at Marah and grumbled for water. God made bitter water sweet and revealed himself as the " the Lord who heals: (Ex. 15:23-26). At Rephidim and Kadesh they grumbled for water again, and lo, water gushed out of flint rock, (Ex.17: 6, Nu. 20:11). Once they were relieved from the fear of enemies, we read in Exodus 16 that their craving for meat outgrew everything else and all they wanted was "pots of meat" they enjoyed in Egypt. God commanded the quails to fill their camp and rained manna from heaven every day for forty years. However it became a snare for them as God struck the stoutest of men while the meat was still in their mouths, (Ps.78: 30-31). Israel's apostasy and idol worship further added to their rebellion and sin. Thus, they behaved as though their God did not exist. So, in His anger God decided not to let them enter His rest, (Heb.3:11). And the most serious thing to be noted here is that all this time the Israelites were thinking that they were going to Canaan. In fact, they were repeatedly going over the same path during the forty years in wilderness. Their disobedience and disbelief that God is able to deliver the giants into their hands at Kadesh-Barnea led to their destruction. The grumbling generation perished in wilderness and never reached Canaan. Beware, brethren, lest there be any of you an evil heart of unbelief :(Heb 4:12).

On the other hand, being a refined leader, Moses learnt to live by the Divine guidance that would sometimes restrain him when the clouds came down by day and the fire by night. He learnt to trust God when He commanded him to lift his staff over the sea and move forward while the enemies were in hot pursuit right behind them. He experienced that "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." (Duet.8:3) Moses received Living Words written by the very finger of God to be passed on to generations to come. In forty years he learned some of the greatest lessons on forgiveness when his sister Miriam spoke against him (Nu.12:13). He learned to be humble when Korah, Dathan, Abiram stood against him with 250 leaders with them. After 40 years of walking with the Lord, he learned his last lesson that one needs to be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to become angry for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires (James1:19-20), when finally he was not allowed to cross over to Canaan (Duet. 34:4 ).

The wilderness was shaping two other men-Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Juphunneh who were silent spectators of wilderness events. After years of walking in the wilderness they had learned to live by faith rather than sight. While a ten-men-majority report on Canaan brought chaos and fear among Israel, Joshua and Caleb, a two-men-minority, tried to instill faith in the hearts of people and dispel fear. They displayed unshakable faith in God even when people were ready to stone them to death. Later God testified about Caleb saying, " my servant, has a different spirit and who follows me wholeheartedly" (Nu.14:24). They were the only two people of their generation to cross over the Jordan and possess the promised land. Thus, we see that the people under the same circumstances responded differently and came out with different results. The decisions that we make today will have a lasting effect on our future. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us and as well to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. Heb (4:1-2)

Aruna Roy

Love and greetings to you in the precious name of our dear Master!

Recently some of the secular newspapers here asked me to give an article because my last article on THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST published during Christmas, was well received by people. I am giving below a copy of the latest one I am preparing now. We will appreciate your prayer and comments as this will go to about two hundred thousand readers in N. India. My main intention is, in these days when anti-Christian activities are on the increase in India, we need to remove some of their misunderstandings.

In the last few years, this question has been asked and discussed several times by several people in India. How did Christianity come to India and from where? Some say it has come from England with the coming of the British East India Company in the 17th century. Some say it was brought by the American Missionaries in the 18th century. One thing is sure; there was no Christianity or Christian Church in most parts of North India four hundred years back. This one side of the question has been emphasized and projected by speakers and media in India several times. Very few people here have ever bothered to make a study on this question. In this short article we are trying to discuss in the common man's language the relationship of Christianity with India.

Even though Christianity does not have any long tradition in North India, that is not true about South India. There are several Church buildings in South India still existing, which are more than 1000 years old. There are several other signs and symbols also in S. India, which prove that there was Christianity and Christian Churches in Tamilnadu, Kerala and also in the Southern part of Karnataka right from early centuries. Tradition says St. Thomas; one of the twelve disciples of Jesus came to South India after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, preached there and founded seven Churches, which are still existing. He died as a martyr at St. Thomas mount near Chennai. The church building built on the spot where he is believed to have been killed by some local people who opposed his new faith, still exists on St. Thomas mount. His body was buried at Mylapur near Chennai and the grave still exists. These two sites are two of the main tourist attractions of Chennai even today. Government of India has produced a postal stamp in 1952 in memory of the 1900thth death anniversary of St. Thomas. When St. Thomas established these seven churches in South India about 2000 back, people in England and America had not even heard the name of Jesus. When the Western missionaries came to Calicut following the coming of Vasco Da Gama in 1498 there were already several Christian churches in different parts of South India. Christianity reached America following the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and the 12 Catholic missionaries that followed him from Portugal in 1492 and following that, by the several migrants from other Western countries. Of course it reached England earlier; but much later than we had it in India.

Secondly, Bible says, "Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, a small town in the present day Israel. Several secular historians from Eusebeus dating back to the early centuries also agree to this fact. As we all know, Israel is a part of Asia. Thus Jesus was an Asian and not a Westerner. Not only that, the whole life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus took place in the same region of Asia and He never crossed over into Europe in His lifetime on earth. Thus Christianity originated from Asia and there was no Western touch to Christianity in its origin.

Now thirdly, even if Christianity is imported from Western countries, will it become inferior in any way? Why is it that more than 99% of the Indian population value imported items with greater respect and value than our national products? Why is it that our own government, right from the top most position gives so much interest to a visit either from or to Western countries. Why is it there is so much of rush and long line of waiting for visa in front of the Western Embassies starting even before midnight? Whether it be in technology or defense or money or education, if we are sincere we will admit, that we still look up to Western countries.

Fourthly, we are sure all people will agree with the fact that God and religion have no geographical, national, language or cultural barriers. If there is a God, He must be the God of all people, all nations and all languages and India is no exception. Christianity reached America through the migrants from Western European countries, Islam came in 712 A.D. to India from the Middle East and the Moghal emporors promoted it and the Aryans brought their Vedic faith from Central Asia into India in 2000 B.C. after driving away the Dravidians to South India. Thus there is no original religion of India except Budhism and Jainism.

Finally, wherever Christianity is preached and followed, there has been all round progress. People and nations have come out of darkness and foolish traditions; people became more educated, society progressed, technology grew, and ethical and moral standards went higher. The headhunters of Nagaland and Mizoram have become a singing and praising and loving people. The anti nationals in these states must be seen as exceptions as in any other societies and religions. Christianity is a highly patriotic religion. Bible clearly teaches; "submit to rulers and authorities". All Christians are expected to submit to their national authorities and work for the welfare of their respective nations. The only time when they are allowed to break this law is, when they are forced to act against their faith or deny their faith because God is supreme. Millions died as martyrs on this one issue down through the centuries. Christianity is the way of the cross and there is no place for violence in Christianity. The state of Kerala where Christianity reached first has the highest percentage of literacy in India today. The man-eaters of Central African forests have become man lovers and educated when Christianity reached there. The Red Indians have come out of their primitive life in the thick jungles of America and are some of the highly advanced people of the world today. What we mean by all these arguments is, Christianity is not a Western religion and so if at all there is any credit, it goes to our continent of Asia from where Christianity originated.

After moving into this new place, in the last 5 years, we were making accommodation for our office, staff, guests, Church and training center and we were living partially with rats and mosquitoes and sometimes snakes also in an old house, which the owner says is about 60 years old. Our drawing room was under a large tree in front of our house and dining room was in the narrow verandah. Now we are in the process doing some major repairs for that old building and so I have been quite busy since the last two months. Since there is no proper place for us to move, we continue to live in the same house and are now making a new roof on our old roof making our narrow verandah wide enough for a drawing room and dining room. I want to assure you, so far we are alive under the double roof with all their shuttering and bricks and cement!! Now the next step is, part of the old roof has to be dismantled.

Father who has completed 101 years old on January 5 is keeping fairly good health for his age. He is now staying with my brother Mathai and family at Udhampur. He continues to spend much of his time in prayer and intercession. Santosh was away for 3 months visiting some of our friends, relatives and prayer partners and also speaking in meetings. Christy was away in Kerala to visit our prayer partners in S. India and has just arrived. I am planning to make my next visit to Middle East and USA. Grace and her husband. Rev. Johnson George with their newly found church planting organisation is now slowly extending his ministry to N. India.

Emmauel Sandhu our missionary at Ramban got married to a believer named Blessy on 12th December 2001. Another of our missionaries, V.A. Benny working in West Bengal got married to Shiny in Kerala on 24th November 2001. We wish them God's richest blessings.

After a long hot summer season, and devastating monsoon rains, we had a severe cold and dry weather and all had changed to warm clothes. Now the winter clothes are being taken out one by one. The last few months were difficult days for most of our missionaries especially for those living on the high altitude areas among the snow. The coming summer will be pleasant for the high altitude areas but unbearably hot for those in the plains and valleys.

The present session of our HMI training is now postponed to April 1 when we are expecting another batch of 25 Bible College graduates from different Bible Colleges. We continue to look to the Lord for more committed Bible College graduates with a heart for missions to reach the Himalayas for Christ. Our next session will start from June 15.

According to reports received so far from our mission stations our missionaries have contacted 1,10828 people and 5452 people expressed their decision to accept Jesus as their personal savior and 56 were baptized and added to our various churches in the last 3 months.

The Street Children's Ministry of our sisters is going on well with new children. We have 58 new children now. In spite of opposition, some of the old village children also come occasionally for our Sunday worship and other special meetings. They are afraid of another attack by communal elements. Some have backslidden because of fear, while some are still quite firm in their faith. These innocent children stand in need of prayer.

Our Missions Director Pr. Charles has just returned with his team after a blessed tour to some of our mission stations in India and also ministry in a Hindu festival in Nepal. Here is a summary of his news.

"If God be for us who can be against us? God proved this in our missionary tour again this time. A team of 7 of us with a senior member of our church Bro. Ivan Joseph set out for Nepal from Gorakhpur in our Mazda bus for ministry on the occasion of the Hindu holy dip at Triveni in Naraini River, in Nepal. We started on 10th Feb. after Sunday worship. There was a special prayer of dedication for the team before we left, in our church here. The journey was quite tedious through Bihar because of bad roads and fear of dacoits on the way. We traveled even in the late night hours and reached Bethia church by midnight. We halted there for the night and on the next day we started the day's program with an open air preaching in the Bethia market, where a large crowd listened attentively to the word of God. On our way to Triveni we stopped at Bagaha where our missionary Rajender and family are working. He soon joined us and we proceeded. Rajender is very good in the local dialects and was a great help to preach the gospel to the local tribals in their language. We distributed pamphlets and many people came forward to buy Bibles and other literature. We proceeded from there conducting open air preaching in different places on the way, in villages and tribal areas in the deep forests and reached Valmiki Nagar, where the holy dip was taking place. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims were pouring in from different parts of India and Nepal. The main tribals in this area are the Tharu, Dhangad and Musahar. People come to take dip in the river Narayni at this time of the year (February 12th). When we reached there it was a great joy for us to see our missionaries Bro. Silas Rangmo and Taranjeet Narjinary along with a new believer travelling a long way by bicycle through thick forests to work among these pilgrims. Since the pilgrim site was in the Indo-Nepal border, we divided ourselves into two groups. One group went inside Nepal and distributed tracts and Bible portions and the other team concentrated on the Indian border among the different tribals on that side. We went into the crowd and distributed over twenty five thousand tracts, Bibles and Bible portions. It was a moving sight to see pilgrims coming to the festival and taking the dip in spite of freezing cold weather and even at odd hours and gladly accepting the word of God from us. Some of our team members had some problems because of cold weather; but God kept all of us safe under His wings. On the way back, we stopped at Tootibari where two of missionaries are working and had fellowship with them. We returned safely to Gorakhpur rejoicing in the Lord. Please pray for the thousands of people who received the good news that they may know Jesus and be cleansed by His blood".

Our whole campus is now gearing up for another Pastors Seminar (Clinic) from March 4-8 sponsored by Evangelism Explosion International in which many senior pastors from HEM and other organizations are expected to participate.

Now let me close by quoting the following selections, which have been a great help and blessing all through my ministry in the last 48 years.

He (Jesus) was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.

He had no credentials but Himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying His executioners gambled for His garments, the only property He had on earth. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race.

All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that"

• "What we give up for Christ we gain. What we keep back for ourselves is our real loss.":-J. Hudson Taylor.

• "There is not an inch of any sphere of life over which Jesus Christ does not say "mine.":-Abraham Kuiper

• "No pit is so deep that He is not deeper still-Corrie ten Boom Earthly goods are given to be used, not collected.":- Dietrich Bonhoeffer "I have never felt homesick since I know God to be my Father." :- Isabella Thoburn

• "I love to live on the brink of Eternity".:-David Brainerd

• "Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved." :-Martin Luther

• "God's work done in God's way will not lack God's supply." :-J. Hudson Taylor.

• "Everything that hinders us from loving God above all things and acts as a barrier between ourselves and our obedience to Jesus is our treasure, and the place where our heart is":- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

• "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.":-Jim Elliot

• "When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die" :-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Yours because of the gospel,

P. M. Thomas

The Sunday Times (News Paper), Jan 20, 2002(Lucknow) Reports.

NEW DELHI: Dara Singh is all set to enter the Assembly election fray as Robin Hood, while Sher Singh Rana is being touted as a newage Udham Singh. So what if Dara is the prime accused in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and Rana is being charged for the murder of Phoolan Devi.

Krantikari Manuvadi Morcha (KMM), the party that is fielding the two candidates sees nothing wrong in their candidature. "They have both worked towards purifying our society. Dara is like Robinhood, Har Dil Aziz, he did what even the government could not do- check Christian terrorism in India. While Rana is like Udham Singh (General Dyer's killer). He is the saviour of upper castes and the custodian of the Tilak, Taraju and Talwar. Their contribution to the cause of Hindutva and upper castes is commendable. Therefore, they are my candidates, "says Ram Kumar Bhardwaj, President of; KMM proudly. The former Air Force engineer also plans to field the other co-accused in the Phoolan murder case. "They have done a great job against reservation, so they are all my choice, "he says. As for the candidates, the election is just another step to promote their 'cause'. Rana, who will contest from Roorkee, thinks he is a good choice, "My fight is for the higher class, I see myself and my party as a saviour of all those who are being crushed by caste-based reservations." Dara, contesting from Muzaffarnagar, reportedly feels: "If Phoolan Devi could contest and win elections twice, why not me?"

His campaign strategy? The Dharmarakhyaka Sri Dara Sena, has been set up especially to defend the accused in public and help Dara win his elections. Mukesh Jain, President of Dara Sena, is especially getting a chariot made for the campaign. 'Part of it will have jail symbol sing Dara's confinement." he says.

His party's agenda? According to Bardwaj, the KMM has just one objective: to re-convert all Muslims, Christinans etc, and bring them back to the Hindutava fold. Needless to say, their candidature has raised pertinent questions about the electoral process itself. While Bhardwaj is openly flaunting his star candidates, the Election Commission can do little to stop them from contesting. "For years the commission has been trying to cleanse the system so that anti-social and criminal elements who are not convicted but have cases filed against them are debarred from entering the electoral arena, but the government is not serious at all," says an EC official. Various proposals and letters, including letters to the Prime Minister and law ministry have been gathering dust, According to noted lawyer Rajeev Dhawan criminals like Dara Singh and Rana can enter politics because of the loopholes in the system,. The Representation of People's Act states: Any one convicted for two years in jail for a socio-economic offence must be dis1ualified. "It is the unwillingness of politicians that is the root case of the problem. Nothing prevents them from being transparent..." In fact, in 2000, the Delhi High Court passed a directive high among other things made it mandatory for the Election Commission to inform the voters whether a candidate is accused of any offence (s) punishable with imprisonment. The matter is now pending with the Supreme Court.Even the Law Commission has sugested that a candidate should be disqualified even if there is an FIR, or if the court decides to press charge against him.

YOKE FELLOW AWARD As this newsletter was going to the press, we received a pleasant surprise that our President Pr. P. M. Thomas was selected for this years' Yokefellow Award for Meritorious Missionary Services. This is the second international award he is receiving. The award includes a citation and a cash award of $ 2000. It was another great surprise for us to know that he decided to donate the whole amount for the ministry in the Himalayas. We also praise the Lord knowing that there are people around the world who are thinking and praying for our ministry and wanting to encourage us. As we praise the Lord for this news, we also want to thank the Board members of Yoke Fellow international for choosing our president, which he deserves. We want to assure them that we all stand with him and that this encouragement will go a long way in reaching the unreached and telling the untold in the Himalayas. HEM Family.

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