South Asia (MNN) — A village has
driven out four women from a Gospel for Asia Bible college because their
evangelism threatened the local religion.
The village, where children
openly drank alcohol and young people married regardless of age or the law, was
compared to Sodom and Gomorrah for its immoral way of life. Sarasa Sengupta, Malati Dutta, Tejal Bose and
Juhi Mukopadhyay had chosen it as the
location for the year-long internship required at their school.
They struggled in their search to
find a place to live, but after much prayer. they found lodging with a local
widow. Initially, their ministry met
with promising success.
The women went door-to-door
handing out tracts; they prayed for the sick, witnessed healings, and saw villagers
come to know the Lord. Eventually the
village had a small flock of 13 new believers.
Other villagers, however, felt
threatened by these developments. The
youth of the village began harassing the women every evening. They taunted them with foul language, threw
rocks at them, climbed up the walls of their house in order to frighten them,
and watched their every move.
The women went on with their work
and trusted God to protect them, but the final straw came when they caught a
young boy trying to peek through the wall while one of them was preparing to
bathe. The women fled the village and sought
advice at GFA's state office, where the decision was made that the women needed
to find a safer location for their internship.
Pray for the new believers in the
village and for GFA as it seeks for another Christian to minister there.
Gospel for Asia currently has over
9,000 students training in over 54 Bible colleges. Its goal is to instill in each student the
vision to take the Gospel to the unreached; provide on-the-job training through
ongoing outreach ministry; give them quality instruction in the Word of God;
and prepare them for pioneer work, hardship, persecution and a life of faith
through Jesus.
