Me: What a nice looking quiet scene.
Prodigal: Yes, it looks part of a nice village somewhere far off.
Me: I can tell you about a nice village somewhere far off if you like.
Prodigal: I am all ears!
This is from the book The God Who Hung on the Cross by Dois Rosser Jr. and Ellen Vaughn
In India, in the state of Andhra Pradesh on the east coast, one of ICM’s very first churches was built in a town called Kotasiralam. A beautiful, unwavering young woman in that church heard the Mini Bible College on the radio; she became determined to get its Gospel message to unreached tribal people.
This tribe, known as the Sora people, lived in remote village in the hills, wearing loincloths, growing a few crops, and hunting small game with spears and arrows. They intermarried, sometimes practicing polygamy, and looked to shamans to serve as intermediaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead. These shamans would often go into trances, during which the spirits of the dead would speak through them.
Understandably, the Sora people lived in fear, constantly needing the placate deities who were thought to control their crops and rain. There were darker gods to be appeased as well; those who might cause drought or sickness received offerings of animal sacrifices.
The determined young woman in Kotasiralam could not rest with the thought of these tribal people living in fear and bondage. No one had ever made the journey to their villages to tell them about Christ.
Finally a group of Christians from the church agreed to go. They hiked and hacked their way through the jungle for eight hours before they arrived at the first Sora village. They shared the Gospel. Astonished, overwhelmed with the joy of this good news, everyone in the village decided to follow Christ. The delighted barefoot evangelists made their way to the next village, and the next, with similar results. So they eventually built a daughter church in the area.
Three years later, that same church had built 73 daughter churches in Sora areas.
All because of one determined woman who would not give up.
Proverbs 15:5
A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent.
Jennifer Van Allen,
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincousnseling.org
