|
VISION 2020 ASIA |
| "Where there is no vision the people perish." |
Dear Friends of Christ: October 2001
Greetings once again in the mighty name of our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ. Leon and I arrived safely home at our scheduled time. Like many of you when we saw the terrible devastation in NYC we could not believe our eyes. We received word of the terrorist strike shortly after it occurred. We had just arrived home to Pastor Mani’s residence from an evangelistic meeting in one of the neighboring villages.
I am very grateful to all of you who prayed for us. We
had an excellent two-day meeting at Hyderabad. Initially
we have asked five of the national Indian brethren to serve as our "National Advisory Committee" for
2020. Dr. Jeevauratnam Baraga [Acting Chairman], Pastor V.D. Mani,
Pastor Athem Khyiang, Pastor V. Moses Vijayakumar and Pastor Vijay Bhaskar.
These are all very good men who deeply love the Lord Jesus and
souls. Dr. Baraga is the founder
and Director of Bharat Bible College near Hyderabad. He is also the President of the Bible
Baptist Fellowship in India. We
were deeply honored by his presence and counsel. We also had the privilege of
challenging his student body from the Word of God before leaving Hyderabad.
Upon
leaving Hyderabad we drove eight hours South to Eluru. We inaugurated Dr. Mani’s new building
at the Bible Baptist Seminary.
What an honor and blessing was this special occasion. They have immediately begun to use
this beautiful new campus. Our
first 13 Vision2020Asia students are in training at this new location. I was overwhelmed at the thought of
all that God has done. They had
worked tirelessly to ready the new building for our arrival. It is beautiful. Brother Leon and I also had the
privilege to visit four new churches that have recently been started by
graduates of Pastor Mani’s Bible College. In one of these villages the Chief
publicly thanked us for coming and sharing God’s Word with his village. He said that we were the first
foreigners who had ever come to his village. The Chief’s near 100 year old mother
had recently been converted. That
same evening when I gave the invitation to trust Christ the Chief raised his
hand for prayer. We are asking
God to save that entire family.
In another
village where we visited one of these new churches, the people just kept
coming and coming. When we gave
the invitation there were over twenty who made decisions to commit their lives
to Christ. This was a day meeting
and I was very surprised by the tremendous turnout. I preached a message on the “Grace of
Giving” and these people who have so little of this world’s goods committed to
give even more . I believe God is
going to do a great work in that village. It is such a blessing to preach to
people who are so hungry for God’s Word.
After we
left Pastor Mani’s ministry in the South he traveled with us to Sikkim. We were met at Gangtok by Pastor Athem
Khyiang. This was Mani’s first
visit to this remote Northern part of India. We had a wonderful time with our
missionaries Athem and Indu and we got to meet their new daughter Grace. She is beautiful. We all spoke at different locations
Sunday morning. Brother Leon
spoke at the new church at Ranka and had one more soul saved making a total of
six souls saved during our stay.
The Ranka church is growing.
It was wonderful to see Ashok, the young Buddhist man that Leon and I
led to Christ in February. He has
been baptized and he is growing in the Lord. We are planning to use Ashok’s large
home for our Vision2020 training center.
We will be renting eight rooms from his parents. We also plan to move Grace Academy to
this location. It is a much
better facility. I have a special
prayer request in this regard.
Two years ago I gave Athem my Compaq laptop. It is old and not working
properly. There is an immediate
need for a new computer for our Vision2020 Center and Grace Academy at
Sikkim. The approximate cost is
$700. If you would like to help
with this need, please send your gift to Open Door Baptist Mission and
designate it for “Vision2020 Computer Fund”. A monthly gift of only $20 will
fully support one MIT (Missionary In Training).
On Monday morning, September 17th, we said good bye to Athem, Indu and Grace and we boarded our helicopter at Gangtok and flew to Bagdogra where we said our good bye’s to Brother Mani. We had no idea upon our arrival at Delhi if we would be able to return home. We decided that we would show up at the airport even though our flight had been cancelled. Due to Northwest’s flight pattern close to Afghan’s border our flight from Delhi was cancelled. The Lord used one of the Northwest agents in Delhi to get us another flight on Air France. He was able to find us two seats to get us to Amsterdam via Paris. My luggage was lost at Paris. I had sermon outlines and messages that I have worked on for over thirty years in that suitcase. Needless to say its contents were irreplaceable. The morning it arrived in Greenville the gentleman from NW called me and asked me if I had been praying for my luggage to be returned. I said, “Yes, just that morning I had asked the Lord to please return it to me safely”. He said, “Your prayers have been answered”. Due to the tight security at airports any luggage without passengers was not being sent through customs. After ten days I received my luggage. The Lord is so good. Praise His holy name!
Please continue to pray for Vision2020Asia. Pray specifically for the students undergoing training and then for God to use them as they are thrust out into the harvest. Pray that God will send us quality young people to undergo this training. It is our desire to matriculate 2,000 students from each of our centers by 2010. This is a BIG goal but by God’s grace it is possible. We are going to be using a course of study that was very successfully used in Zaire. In six years 11,000 students were matriculated through the course. It is very intense and covers Genesis to Revelation. Pray for Pastor Mani and Athem as they develop the curriculums for each of their respective Center’s of Evangelism.
Brother Jim Starr