Friday, January 31, 2014

Church Dedication in India
January 2014


I recently had an opportunity to make a return visit with our ministry partner, Khen Tombing, at Manipur State in Northeast India.  I met up with the team that had arrived earlier and it was wonderful to hear about their experiences prior to my arrival.  They visited three rural villages and set up "health camps" to care for and help many people who often have no access to any healthcare.  They had a great time in these villages, sharing testimonies of God's work in their lives, and performing an evangelism skit for the people they met.  

I arrived on Saturday evening and saw that we were scheduled to visit three churches the next day.  We worshiped at Munhoih (Good News)  Presbyterian Church, a church we helped to fund and dedicate just a year ago.  This church opened its doors with about 40 members and now has about 120.  What an honor it was to be invited to praise God with these members for His work in growing this congregation. 

Following this service, we headed to the dedication service for Ningthoukhong Presbyterian Church, our second church plant with Khen Tombing's ministry.  The leaders there gave all of us special attire that would be culturally appropriate for worship with new believers from the Meiti tribe, a predominantly Hindu people group.  I had the privledge of bringing a message about the promises of Jesus to build His church.  Again, we were all honored to meet our new brothers and sisters in Christ and worship our God with them.  

The evening service was at Rayburn Presbyterian Church, and the service was full, both in attendance and in activity.  There were several special things planned for our team, in addition to the team once again performing their evangelism skit for the congregation. They were applauded with loud cheers during and after the presentation.  After giving my first full length sermon ever, translated by Khen and making it twice as long, we also got to take communion with the congregation. What a great service to end a very full and amazing day.  

Most of the team headed back to the US, however, Roy Oishi and I ventured on to Yangon, Myanmar for the next portion of our missions trip.  You can read more about our time there in my next post.  

Submitted by Mark Diener, Global Missions Director.  For more information about our Global Missions program, contact Mark at mdiener@covenantpalmbay.org