India Part of Modern World.    A year ago I went to India. We learned much about our Association Free Lutheran Congregations—India. India is booming as development continues on a fast track, but the poor and disadvantaged are left out of prosperity because of education. As a congregation, we are attempting to help the education of children of “the down-trodden people,” the poorest caste in India, through our educational assistance to the AFLC-I. Many would like to assist them in building an educational building, but our own AFLC has relatively few dollars and has allocated those resources to other mission fields. Our AFLC World Missions Committee is attempting to be good stewards, and we need to continue to pray for them and their wise management. Zion’s own mission support continues to be focused on those down-trodden people and education. We have a small sum going to that support from Silverhill every month.

     The hard facts of any building program abroad relates to the “exchange rate.” We know that things are slowly getting more expensive in our own country. But with the loss of our dollar’s purchasing power abroad, the cost of the $100,000 Chirala educational building of last January is now at least $110,000. It is not an inflation issue, but rather an exchange rate issue. In the case of India, you just can’t buy as many rupees today per dollar as you could a year ago.

     We could live with some exchange rate problems, but there are other forces at work again in India. The most repressive and reactionary Hindu party has re-emerged on the Indian political stage in a western province near Pakistan. We may be in the early stages of return of Hindu repression of all religions that do not embrace the multi-god Hindu religion! It is a spiritual conflict on one level, but very concrete and social on another. In practical terms for the AFLC-I, we in the U.S. may have limited opportunity to assist that church as it seeks to build an educational structure for the poor in Chirala.

     The World Needs Jesus.    The Apostle Peter understood about accessing foreign cultures and presenting Jesus to the people while the doors were open. He was visiting the Mediterranean coast of Palestine and had a vision at the place he was staying. Shortly after, Gentiles come to that home and asked him to come to Gentile Cornelius’ house. God’s Good News of Jesus had come to the Jewish people, then to those Samaritans, and now to the Gentiles! God had to give Peter a vision about what God wanted shared to get Peter moving. The Gentiles ended up receiving Christ!

     Visions in a New Year?    The world is getting smaller in many ways, as we can see from the flood of goods coming into our country and as we see from our own purchases every day. As we take time in our daily walk with the Lord, in our quiet times and in our prayer times, perhaps it is time that we listen to the Lord for direction with our mission dollar. For instance, we are already helping support the education of little people, but they grow up. The AFLC-I is now trying to help aged Indian women who have been rejected by their families because they are Christians. They are destitute, so the AFLC-I is trying to assist with basic needs. Check out our Ministries Page to see what we are doing on a variety of outreach and mission fronts in our congregation.

     Share the stories of mission with others in our congregation that you know of or have heard of. We need to hear stories about people and churches doing things, because it helps us hear the direction that the Lord of the Church is taking its people. Perhaps you could pray for God’s direction this year for yourself. God bless you as you seek His voice and direction!