I came to Saturday with great anticipation: evangelistic meetings at two different locations in the same part of Delhi: Aali Village and Gautam Puri — historically tough areas that are just beginning to open up to the gospel. James, Larry & I would go to these meetings, while the FBCMB ladies would minister to groups of women in two different homes. (I just heard the ladies get in as I was writing, so I have no report from them about today. I won’t make any jokes about how perhaps their meeting went long because of the way women talk or anything like that …)

James, Larry & I rode to Aali village and arrived early, before the meeting was ready and the people had gathered. So we were ushered to the home of couple in the church there. But first you must understand the setting: the church is located in an “apartment” of sorts called “The 60 Rooms.”. It is a 3-story building with a wide central hallway down the middle, and 10 rooms down either side of the hall, for a total of 20 rooms on each floor, equalling “60 Rooms” total, hence its name. Each room was about 10 x 10, and served as the HOME for a family. This is the home we were brought to, on the 3rd floor. The family bed took up most of the room, with a little one-burner gas stove to one side, and half a dozen articles of clothes on hangers at different places on the wall held up by nails.
While we waited, our translator, Ravi, shared his testimony with us. I’ll have to share it in another blog, but it is incredible. It is similar to the Apostle Paul’s!
When all was ready, we climbed up one more flight of stairs to the roof, where they had set up a meeting. There were about 40 total adults, plus a lot of children. After a couple if songs, I shared a basic gospel message with some simple illustrations that I hoped would communicate cross-culturally. I got a chance to review it with Ravi during the cab ride, and he thought that it would translate well. He seemed to do an excellent job; he never hesitated or struggled for words.
After the message I turned the service over to him for the invitation. He spoke for some time, then led in a prayer. It is hard to guess exactly what is going on when you only know about 6 words of a language …
But when he finished, he told me that people were going to come up and share requests with me, and that I should pray for them. Many wanted prayer for a pain or illness, but some were heart-rending. One little girl came with a bandage on her forehead. They said her father was a drunkard, and would beat her. I put my hand on her head and prayed for her: that God would heal her head, and most especially that she would know that she has a Father in heaven who loves her so much … I still tear up thinking of this …
After the prayer time, we took some pictures and then went back to the room for some tea. While there, a woman with a baby came, asking for prayer because her husband drank, and spent all their money. And, Ravi said, she had prayed to follow Christ up on the roof! I had wondered if there had been any professions of faith, but found out they process things a little differently. They share the gospel, lead in a prayer, then the next week the pastors visit and see who was saved, and they baptize them a few weeks later. So we do not know exactly how many may have been saved today, but Ravi believed there were several! Praise God for that! I had prayed –with many of you — for fruit to be born in India, and we saw that happen today!
Well this is getting long, I have no wifi for my computer and am having some technical issues … limited as to what I can do right now, both here and on FB … I can barely keep my eyes open, and I have to preach twice tomorrow, so a short conclusion: the second meeting tonight was sweet, but they appeared to me to be all believers. We’ll see what reports we hear back. We do not know, even in our American system of church, just what the response to a message truly is. But we can rejoice that the gospel was preached today, and that there were lost folks present who seemed to respond. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to share! Please pray for the two church services tomorrow; they tell us they believe that half of those who attend these services may be unconverted! Good night from India!