At our arrival, people would gather in a home or as many as a hundred would group around a tree where we worshipped, I preached, and then a friend from Canada and I prayed for anyone who requested it. It was heartbreaking to see the pain and damage these people live with but it was also encouraging to see God heal many of them. A baby was born in one of the villages just before we arrived and the village elder told me it was my responsibility to name the baby and bless him, so I named him David -- 'beloved of God'.

Some of the villages were 100% Hindu and we did raw evangelism. Others, where churches had already been planted, were predominantly Christian. After several days of going from one of kind of village to another, I mentioned to my interpreter that no one in the Hindu villages looked us in the eye or smiled. Everything seemed dark and depressed. But in the Christian villages everyone smiled and laughed and was very open. "Why?" "Just look at the Hindu gods," he said. "They are always angry. But our God is a smiling God and he makes us glad."

After two weeks of teaching, visiting their chruches, and staying in their homes, I experienced enough to know that our relationship had just begun. The potential for doing good in Orissa is limitless and these Christian workers are the ones to do it. I plan to support them and be a resource to them for years to come. I may return as early as October 2004. I ask you to be with me in this.

As most of you know, I have been working on a book for a couple of years entitled, The Father Jesus Knows. It is finally finished and at the publishers. I have not been given a publication date, but if you want a free copy let me know and I will send you one when it comes out.

I am off to Australia in a few days, where I will leadership conferences and mission training events.

More good news later.

Peace and all good,
Ken

Orissa State, India

My time in India was rich and productive, taxing and exhausting. I've found that effectiveness often comes with trial and such was the case on this trip. It took 40 hours of travel to reach Orissa, which is located in eastern India. As mentioned in my previous letter, this area is the second poorest in the country and is also the place where Christians are the most persecuted. An Australian missionary and his two sons were recently burned to death, in their car, in northern Orissa, after preaching in a Hindu vilage. One of the pastors I taught was severely beaten last year for evangelizing in the south. (See excerpts from article in link below). Before I went, the pastors told me to ask for prayers of protection. Thank for praying. All went well.

We spent the first week at a central location where I taught and trained 35 church planters and their wives. We studied the centrality of grace, servant leadership, and the power dimension of ministry. They are motivated, very intelligent, and hungry for knowledge. Their questions indicated a high degree of theological and biblical insight, which I very much enjoyed responding to. Many of their questions concerned how to advance the Kingdom of God in a hostile environment. I drew from my experience as a missionary in Eastern Europe, 35 years ago, for practical applications. One pastor asked how we in America respond to persecution. My response -- "We don't face what you would consider persecution." To which he replied, "How can you follow Jesus and not be persecuted by the world?" Good question. How would you answer?

During the second week, we traveled to some of the villages where churches are already planted and to some of the villages where they are in the process of planting. By villages, I mean a gather of homes without electricity or running water. We vistied as many as six villages in a day and walked to many of them because there were no passable roads for our vehicle.