A report of my first visit to India in 1990.
Before I went to India on a long business trip a
man from the Full Gospel Businessman's Association prayed that the
Lord would use me during my trip. I arrived in India on Nov. 9th
1990, I flew to Calcutta and got the overnight train to Rajganpur. I
am staying in a guest house eating vegetarian food only, apart from
meat about once a week in another guest house. I am in India on
business to commission a computer to control the cement kiln here.
On my first day at the company guest house in Rajganpur I met an
Australian evangelist who was preaching at a local church that
night. There I met a local Indian pastor, Praveen, who pastors three
cottage churches at Sundargarh a town about 60 km from Rajganpur. I
also met Matthew from the 'Jesus for India' organization in New
Delhi. They told me about the Bible training centre which will open
in Feb. 1991. Matthew will be the director and Praveen will be the
main teacher, he and his new wife will live below the centre, he got
married in December 1990. Two weeks later I went with Praveen to go
to one of his churches where I was asked to preach, all invited
guest are supposed to preach (he did not tell me beforehand!). A
number of the Christians, including Praveen, are filled with the
Spirit.
In the afternoon I went with him, on a borrowed
scooter, to see some of the local tribes people who were animists
but are now converted to Christianity through Praveen's work. It was
a wonderful experience to see these people who have 'turned from
idols to worship the living God'. One family with whom Praveen lived
when he first arrived in the area became Christians, they now hold
prayer meetings instead of drinking. As a result of their witness a
number of other families have become Christians Everywhere I went I
was asked to pray for the family I was visiting, including a sick
girl from the tribes. They literally live in mud huts but with
concrete floors. There is a small Catholic church in the village, I
don't know whether it is used. There are about 29 converts living in
the village and one of them will be coming to the training centre.
Later in the afternoon I went to see a building they are going to
use as a bible school to train people as evangelists in the area.
One of the wonderful things about India is that
everything is much cheaper so with finance from the West it is not
difficult to support a bible school. For example it costs about
6,000 Rs ($200) a year to employ a cook. Furniture would cost about
the same amount. To rent the building for the year is only about
$400 a year. Generally wages in India are 10 to 20 times cheaper
than in the UK, but so are the living expenses. I met another Indian
evangelist who knows Praveen quite well who gets an allowance of 550
Rs a month ($20), he has a wife and young child to support. I asked
him back to the guest house for coffee, but he declined on the basis
that he did not want to give his palate a taste for such things. The
Australian evangelist is making a documentary video for the bible
training centre so I hope to use it to generate finance, prayers and
interest in the training centre and Christians in India when I get
back to the UK in February.
Idolatry is rife amongst the Hindu's with many
temples and idols to be seen. Among the animists alcohol is used
freely as a social drink instead of tea. Any convert to Christianity
faces opposition from his family, this prevents some of the nominal
Christians becoming fully committed. As in the West adultery is also
a problem. There is some persecution of Christians from the Hindu's
who want to wipe out Christianity in Orissa state. The area around
Sundargarh has about 30% animists and 65% Hindu with a small number
of Christians. Orissa state is 95% Hindu, 1.9% Christian (Protestant
55% and Catholic 45%) and 1.6% Muslim. India has 2.7% Christians out
of a population of 880 million about 30% of these live at
subsistence levels. India however is a net exporter of food. In
December the weather is warm in the day and cool/cold in the night
in India, in the summer it gets much hotter 30-40+ deg C. The
monsoons are in July when most of the rain falls. Most of the
educated people speak English as there are two national languages,
English and Hindi. There are about 18 state languages, so most
people speak a local language and at least one national language.
Praveen speaks ten languages, but he has a gift for them. In India
50% of households live below the poverty line of 9,000 Rs/year
($300), or 750 Rs/month ($25/month). This rises to 66% in villages
of less than 1000 people and falls to 16% in cities over 1 million
people. In rural India 27.5% of households have a monthly income
less than 350 Rs ($12) and only 3.4% of rural households have
incomes exceeding 2,500 Rs/month ($80), in urban areas this rises to
17.1%. Only 6% of urban households have a monthly income in excess
of 4,000 Rs ($135). The worst states are Bihar, West Bengal and
Orissa where 63% of households fall below the poverty line. At
Rajganpur a labourer gets 32 Rs/day ($1). Men and women are paid
equally. The women are generally better at lifting and sweeping as
they are more conscientious. An engineers starting salary is about
2,000 Rs/month ($70) rising to 10,000 Rs/month at retirement ($330).