On Saturday 22 November, Yesuway Jeevan Mission Manager Immanuel, accompanied by Mission Driver Raja and Advent Christian Conference of India pastor Rev Paul Aruldoss took a long train ride (600 km) from Chennai to Mahaboobabad in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh State to visit Rev Balu Nayak, one of YJM’s ministry partners.
When the train arrived at Mahaboobabad on Sunday 23 November at 4.00am, Pastor Balu Nayak and two of his church members were waiting for the Mission group and they hired a car and travelled to one of his ministry’s outreaches at Pastor Balu Nayak’s native village – Baluthanda. Pastor Balu Nayak’s father’s name was Balu Thanda and the village was named after his father because of the good works that he carried out for the village and its inhabitants over his lifetime.
The village, as is the area around it, is very basic and undeveloped. About 80% of the land in a radius of about 40km from Mahaboobabad town is owned by rich, absentee landlords and the people are very, very poor. Immanuel commented that all the people looked “sombre”!
About 100 people gathered for the Sunday morning service. Only a very few of them were men because many of the men in the district die from excessive consumption of alcohol, and a large proportion of the ladies are widows, caring for their children on their own.
After the service the Mission provided lunch for all who had attended the service. After resting for some time they all returned to Mahaboobabad and went to a river about 2 km from the town where the pastor baptised four young men and Immanuel presented them each with Bibles from the Mission. The group travelled back to Chennai on an evening train and arrived back in Chennai at 10 am on Monday morning.
Early this year we reported that Pastor Balu Nayak had stepped out in faith to purchase land to build a small church at Mahaboobabad as a base for their ministries. The land has been purchased and about 30 to 35% of the work carried out on the building (see pictures below). Construction work has stopped because of lack of funds to complete the building. Please pray with our brothers and sisters that the Lord will provide the resources necessary to complete this building.
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