In India there are still temples that have temple prostitutes. This practice has gone on for thousands of years as we read throughout the bible. The darkness of sin destroys so many lives.
One of our Serve India pastors, before he came to know Jesus, used to be a priest at one of these temples dedicated to temple prostitutes. The lifestyle of such a priest is very wicked, and through this debauchery, he contracted HIV and his health started to deteriorate fast. He became extremely thin and was dying. The doctor gave him only a few days to live.
As he lay dying, his grandmother, who had a Christian friend, brought him a bottle of oil and anointed him and said he would be healed. The miracle happened. Gradually he was healed!
Today he is healthy and at a normal body weight with no signs of HIV. He is now married and has two healthy children. He has a congregation of 80+ people in the same village where he was temple priest. The Lord is using him to heal many people. What a privilege it is to serve this brother who has taken on the challenge to plant five more churches. *****This is a new mission field for Serve India; please pray that we are able to find the sponsors to support this field. *****
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Serve India Minsitries; The Time Has Come!
Greetings: By the time that you read this article, we will have begun our service with Serve India Ministries. This is the most difficult yet rewarding assignment we have ever had. We are teamed up with three other USA staff who, like me, are raising their support and investing there lives into the mission field. I am serving with:
Gene Mackie, a former contractor who has done work in Sudan as well as with Gospel for Asia. Gene keeps the ministry schedule up to date as well as manages many of the correspondences from the mission field to the supporting churches and donors.
I am also serving with Susan Westfall, a 20-year veteran of the mission fields of South America. Susan also served a tour with Gospel for Asia as the videographer. Susan has dedicated her life to fulfill the great commission, is our Operations Manager, and runs a very disciplined and tight ship. When it comes to administrative budget, we are very lean and mean because all of the missions-dedicated funds are sent to India for their specific projects. Not even the administrative budget in Asia is taken out of the proceeds. All the administrative funds are raised separately.
We also are blessed with Todd Cornwell, who is a gifted CPA and has given his time to Serve India as well as an adjacent ministry called Good Measure. Todd defines integrity and keeps us very current with tax law and our IRS reporting.
Then of course there is Brother Ebenezer Samuel, and his bio is too long to enter in this blog, but here is a link that you can go to in order to learn more about our founder.
He is a 32-year veteran of the mission fields of India, beginning as a young man with Friends Missionary Prayer Band, where he would preach from village to village for just $25 per month. He then served as the director of Trans World Radio India for 13 years as well as the Asian director of Gospel for Asia. He carries our God's vision very well, and I will tell you more as time goes.
Pray for us as we serve, and please be generous as the Lord enables you; the Lord's return is closer and closer so let's serve together and await His return.
Gene Mackie, a former contractor who has done work in Sudan as well as with Gospel for Asia. Gene keeps the ministry schedule up to date as well as manages many of the correspondences from the mission field to the supporting churches and donors.
I am also serving with Susan Westfall, a 20-year veteran of the mission fields of South America. Susan also served a tour with Gospel for Asia as the videographer. Susan has dedicated her life to fulfill the great commission, is our Operations Manager, and runs a very disciplined and tight ship. When it comes to administrative budget, we are very lean and mean because all of the missions-dedicated funds are sent to India for their specific projects. Not even the administrative budget in Asia is taken out of the proceeds. All the administrative funds are raised separately.
We also are blessed with Todd Cornwell, who is a gifted CPA and has given his time to Serve India as well as an adjacent ministry called Good Measure. Todd defines integrity and keeps us very current with tax law and our IRS reporting.
Then of course there is Brother Ebenezer Samuel, and his bio is too long to enter in this blog, but here is a link that you can go to in order to learn more about our founder.
He is a 32-year veteran of the mission fields of India, beginning as a young man with Friends Missionary Prayer Band, where he would preach from village to village for just $25 per month. He then served as the director of Trans World Radio India for 13 years as well as the Asian director of Gospel for Asia. He carries our God's vision very well, and I will tell you more as time goes.
Pray for us as we serve, and please be generous as the Lord enables you; the Lord's return is closer and closer so let's serve together and await His return.
The Love of My Life
Janey is doing very well. She is busy keeping the home and teaching Bennie with his homeschool and training him to be a mighty man of God. We were able to attend a Valentine's banquet at church that was centered around the recent "Fire Proof" movie. The movie has caused me to reflect much more the gift that Janey is to me and how perfectly she completes me. I often say the difference between Janey and Ben is that Janey will light up a room when she enters and Ben will take charge of the room. Her smile puts anyone at ease when they meet her and children have always been attracted to her. It is very hard to imagine that we have been married going on 27 years. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were first married and driving to Camp Pendleton, California, from Arkansas with our little car stuffed full of all our possessions.
I very much look forward to going old with her and seeing our grandchildren!
Please feel free to give Janey a call and say hello, or just drop her an email at janeandmikee@msn.com.
Ben's World
It is great fun to watch Benjamin learn new things and take an interest in new studies and subjects. He is really improving his chess game and seems to play more offensively than defensively. He is doing very well in his homeshooling and is racing through his curriculum without missing a beat. I am very impressed at how easily he is able to diagram a sentence and can quickly pick out the subject noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition and object of the preposition. He is able to read his Bible very extensively and even likes to stay up late at night reading it. As a parent, you want to tell him to go to sleep but you can't tell him not read his bible. He was giving me a lesson on the book of Jude the other day and telling who Jude was and why he wrote the book and what the problems were with the churches he was writing to.
Basketball is going very well for him and he will have his last game this Saturday. Most games he will score a couple of baskets, but he is getting more willing to pass the ball to the open man. I tell him that an assist is as good if not better than scoring. Most of the boys he plays with don't want to give up the ball because they want to score. We are really seeing his skill level in basketball improve very quickly, but I strongly emphasize to him that I am much more interested that he display the character of Christ and not how many baskets he makes.
I look forward to being able to take Bennie to India in the next couple of years; at least that way I know that Janey will come with us! She won't let me take Bennie to India without her. :)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Loaves and Fishes
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The story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with 5 loaves and 5 fish is probably one of the most recognizable stories in Scripture. In the days of Jesus feeding your family was the most important task. Hours per day were spent in the fields preparing the crop for harvest, and if the harvest failed it would be disastrous. There wasn't any government safety net for the common citizen to turn to. So we could imagine the excitement that arose when Jesus performed this miracle! Here is a King that can multiply bread; talk about prosperity! He must be the Messiah. As the story unfolds, we learn how the masses tried to make Jesus king by force and Jesus' response to the crowds eventually drove most of them away as we read in John Chapter 6.
I think that the real point of the miracle points more to the giver than the crowd that received. Think of the little boy who came to Andrew and offered his 5 loaves and 5 fish. Possibly the little boy had the extra to sell to the crowd? Whenever you travel to many parts of India, you will see thousands of people on the sidewalks selling just about anything so they can make enough money to survive. But I believe what we can take from the miracle is the fact that God can take our gifts or donations and multiply them! That is the exciting thing about partnering with native pastors in church planting. For $35 per month or the cost of a dinner out, we can help reach 5 villages with the Gospel and in turn bring the bread of life to thousands of villages. One could even say 5000 people would be witnessed to and a church planted among them.
I know that God has and will always prosper His people when they follow His principle, but have we ever stopped to think about how much God will multiply our gifts? 2 Corinthians 9:10-12 says
Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;
Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.
For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;
We can safely say that when we give with the right motives according to God's will, God will multiply our giving and make it do much, much more than if we spend it on ourselves. Our commitment to you as you give to our ministry is to do all that we can to multiply your gift to touch thousands with the message of the Gospel. That is how God's economy works!
We love you; Michael, Jane and Benjamin Erwin; Serve India Ministries
I think that the real point of the miracle points more to the giver than the crowd that received. Think of the little boy who came to Andrew and offered his 5 loaves and 5 fish. Possibly the little boy had the extra to sell to the crowd? Whenever you travel to many parts of India, you will see thousands of people on the sidewalks selling just about anything so they can make enough money to survive. But I believe what we can take from the miracle is the fact that God can take our gifts or donations and multiply them! That is the exciting thing about partnering with native pastors in church planting. For $35 per month or the cost of a dinner out, we can help reach 5 villages with the Gospel and in turn bring the bread of life to thousands of villages. One could even say 5000 people would be witnessed to and a church planted among them.
I know that God has and will always prosper His people when they follow His principle, but have we ever stopped to think about how much God will multiply our gifts? 2 Corinthians 9:10-12 says
Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;
Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.
For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;
We can safely say that when we give with the right motives according to God's will, God will multiply our giving and make it do much, much more than if we spend it on ourselves. Our commitment to you as you give to our ministry is to do all that we can to multiply your gift to touch thousands with the message of the Gospel. That is how God's economy works!
We love you; Michael, Jane and Benjamin Erwin; Serve India Ministries
Friday, February 20, 2009
Church Planting Report from Remote North India
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One of the pastors serving in North India that Serve India partners with recently sent us a report from Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the most densely populated regions in the world with 150 million people living in an area the size of Missouri. Yet only .016% of these people are Christian. Our pastor recently led a man to the Lord who was a “magician.” These “magicians” are much more than sleight of hand artists but use witchcraft and demonic powers. Over the centuries, these magicians have used these powers to exert control over communities and profit from the fears of the local people.
This former “magician” got a burden for his mentor who controlled a village near his and shared the story of Jesus with him. The mentor wanted to know more and invited our pastor along with Serve India president Ebenezer Samuel to tell the whole village about Jesus. I have included some pictures of this village.
The mentor listened to the whole message intently and said the message was working in him. He has stopped his sorcery and does not worship his gods anymore. BUT he is not a believer yet. He has been reading his Bible for some time even before he heard the message of the Gospel. He now sends those seeking his help to the nearby Serve India pastor to hear the Gospel instead.
There are literally thousands of these small communities throughout India that are controlled by this type of witchcraft, and most of these villages have never had a Gospel witness. Often these villages are difficult to travel to, as the roads and transportation have changed little in 3000 years. The native pastors are very well suited to make the difficult journeys to these villages to plant churches and raise their families in these poor areas. They are the true unsung heroes of the native missionary movement. Most came to these villages with their own resources and had no means of support and with dogged determination started a church in a totally unreached area. There are also thousands of these native pastors dotted across the map of India who have paid the price to establish a foothold in unreached regions.
Please pray for this magician/sorcerer while he reads his Bible that He will receive Christ. Pray that he will have courage since rejection will come from his caste (he is a Brahmin) and that he will have courage not to fear the demons that he submitted to. Pray that he will know the power of God to forgive and protect him from evil and strengthen him from hardship.
This former “magician” got a burden for his mentor who controlled a village near his and shared the story of Jesus with him. The mentor wanted to know more and invited our pastor along with Serve India president Ebenezer Samuel to tell the whole village about Jesus. I have included some pictures of this village.
The mentor listened to the whole message intently and said the message was working in him. He has stopped his sorcery and does not worship his gods anymore. BUT he is not a believer yet. He has been reading his Bible for some time even before he heard the message of the Gospel. He now sends those seeking his help to the nearby Serve India pastor to hear the Gospel instead.
There are literally thousands of these small communities throughout India that are controlled by this type of witchcraft, and most of these villages have never had a Gospel witness. Often these villages are difficult to travel to, as the roads and transportation have changed little in 3000 years. The native pastors are very well suited to make the difficult journeys to these villages to plant churches and raise their families in these poor areas. They are the true unsung heroes of the native missionary movement. Most came to these villages with their own resources and had no means of support and with dogged determination started a church in a totally unreached area. There are also thousands of these native pastors dotted across the map of India who have paid the price to establish a foothold in unreached regions.
Please pray for this magician/sorcerer while he reads his Bible that He will receive Christ. Pray that he will have courage since rejection will come from his caste (he is a Brahmin) and that he will have courage not to fear the demons that he submitted to. Pray that he will know the power of God to forgive and protect him from evil and strengthen him from hardship.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Interesting Information for Charities about Car Donations
I was doing some research today for a ministry client that is looking into signing up with idonate.com, and I came to an interesting conclusion. Did you know that about 2% of American taxpayers will donate a car each year? This amounts to around 300,000 vehicles that are reported on tax returns to the IRS.
Why didn't your ministry receive any of these cars?
If you think about it, let's say that your charity has a mailing list of 10,000 people that you communicate to regularly about your organization. If this is true, then about 200 of the people you communicate with donated a vehicle last year to an organization somewhere.
Wouldn't it be safe to say that if those same people knew that your organization was able to receive vehicles anywhere in the United States or Canada that they might be inclined to donate their vehicle to your organization?
Most donors when donating a vehicle will look for the obvious places, like the organization that has the big billboard on the interstate, or will automatically respond to the radio ad. Most of the time these donors do not have a relationship with these big organizations, but they only give because they have been told that the opportunity exists.
Your charity can receive many of these vehicle donations by making a specific plan to communicate to each one in a very clear way so the next time they have a vehicle to donate, they will remember your organization.
idonate.com can help your organization receive vehicle donations and many other noncash donations through their web site subscription. You can go to http://www.idonate.com/ and click on "Membership."
Why didn't your ministry receive any of these cars?
If you think about it, let's say that your charity has a mailing list of 10,000 people that you communicate to regularly about your organization. If this is true, then about 200 of the people you communicate with donated a vehicle last year to an organization somewhere.
Wouldn't it be safe to say that if those same people knew that your organization was able to receive vehicles anywhere in the United States or Canada that they might be inclined to donate their vehicle to your organization?
Most donors when donating a vehicle will look for the obvious places, like the organization that has the big billboard on the interstate, or will automatically respond to the radio ad. Most of the time these donors do not have a relationship with these big organizations, but they only give because they have been told that the opportunity exists.
Your charity can receive many of these vehicle donations by making a specific plan to communicate to each one in a very clear way so the next time they have a vehicle to donate, they will remember your organization.
idonate.com can help your organization receive vehicle donations and many other noncash donations through their web site subscription. You can go to http://www.idonate.com/ and click on "Membership."
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