This will be the final quote from "Come, Let’s Reach the World" by K. P. Yohannan. Hopefully this story will help explain just how far our money can go towards missionaries in other countries; those who give up all they have just to share the Gospel to unreached people. The $1 a day challenge seems minuscule, but hopefully now you will see any amount you can give truly counts towards feeding the soldiers of Christ and furthering His Kingdom! “As a teenager, Thomas was miraculously saved from drowning in a swimming accident. Though he was never particularly mission-minded before that day, the closeness of death had a profound effect on his adolescent mind. Realizing God must have saved his life for a purpose, he dedicated himself to the most radical kind of service he could imagine—becoming a missionary in North India. Ministry in North India is an enormous sacrifice for believers in the South. They must give up comforts they have grown up with, moving from lush jungles to scorching-hot plains, from beautiful coasts and rain forests to a world of dust and deserts. Food, dress, language, culture, and religion change. They go from being surrounded by a comfortable, relatively Christian atmosphere in the South to areas where Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims have resisted Christ for centuries. But, to an Indian, the most painful sacrifice of all is giving up career and family ties with all the security they promise. For Thomas, the decision to serve Christ was viewed as insane by most of his family and friends. It meant giving up a fine future as an engineer. A professor from his school was so distraught at hearing of his decision that he visited the family in their home, begging the parents to prevent Thomas from going. But his parents had dedicated him to the Lord before he was born and could not stand in the way of their son’s apparently suicidal desire to start a ministry in Rajasthan, then known as the graveyard of Christian missions in India. So without the backing of a church, missions board, or any other visible means of support, Thomas used everything he had to go to the North. When he arrived in Rajasthan, Thomas had two rupees, or about 20 cents, in his pocket…At one of the lowest points during his early ministry, Thomas fell three months behind in the rent on his single room. Although the rent was only 15 rupees (or about $1.50) a month, he was so poor that he didn’t have money for food, let alone the rent. Without food for days he was slowly starving and almost discouraged to quit. As yet there were no Christian converts in the area. Like most pioneer missionaries, Thomas had no one on earth to turn to for help in a hostile community that hated the presence of a missionary in their midst. He had prayed and fasted for days. Now he was in such despair that all he could do was huddle under his blanket like a child and cry out to God. The next morning he heard a loud knock at the door. Fearing that it was the landlord, he didn’t answer. But the stubborn caller wouldn’t quit. He finally got up. ‘Go away!’ he shouted, ‘I’m leaving today!’ ‘Open up,’ said the voice on the other side. ‘I have a registered letter for you.’ When he opened the letter, Thomas found a postal money order for 50 rupees, or about $5. It was enough to pay the back rent and buy food for a week! For those who know M. Thomas today as one of the boldest and most courageous missionary leaders of North India, it is hard to imagine a time when he was so destitute. But it is a true story that Thomas often recounts today…The few dollars that cannot even buy a meal in an American restaurant are enough to keep a solder of the cross alive for days on the mission fields of the Two-Thirds World.” -Excerpts from "Come, Let’s Reach the World" by K. P. Yohannan (240-242)
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:14:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015