During Sunday's 7am devotions, we were joined by Sonny (left in picture) and Ramdas (right) from the Gujarati mountain tribes.  They drove 3 hours from the mountains that morning to tell us their amazing story.  While Christianity has been growing in the Gujarati tribes, a Hindu political leader recently made it his goal to forcibly convert all Christians back to Hinduism.  He ordered everyone in the tribes to hang a flag outside their homes if they were Hindu, and hang nothing if they were Christian.  Local police, meaning aggressive leather-clad gangs on motorcycles, were to round up the Christians from their homes and force them to be rebaptized as Hindus.  The Hindu leader also approved plans for a massive Hindu temple to be built in the area as a landmark for Hindus to come and worship.

The people were afraid.  Over 500,000 Hindus were expected to come and watch (and possibly enforce) the rebaptisms.  The Christians asked ICM's Burt Reed for counsel.  Burt and the tribal leaders discussed the Bible's promise that you will suffer if you choose to follow Jesus, but they also discussed the power of prayer.  The people prepared their hearts and prayed fervently as they saw Hindus begin to set up their tents.  When the day came, God answered their prayers!  Less than 50,000 Hindus set up camp, and the local police never arrived to force the Christians to the water.  

The Christians are not out of danger, and the Hindu political leader is running for a higher office, but God is continuing to perform miracles in these tribes.  Sonny told us that their group has partnered with ICM to build 11 churches, which in turn have planted 55 daughter churches.  They have now reached 12 of the 20 mountain tribes and baptized 14,000 people, all within the last 12 years.  They plan to reach the remaining 8 mountain tribes by the year 2020.  Our group was humbled and blessed to be with these men before our day of visiting ICM churches and blessing the foundations of two new ones to be built.  God is doing powerful work in India, and we can't wait to see more in the next few days!

Adrienne