Story number 2 for 20 Jun 2003

(India)– Elsewhere, anti-Christian violence incidents in India are on the rise. This comes as no surprise to those counting the states adopting anti-conversion laws. For Trans World Radio’s International president, David Tucker, it’s a cause for prayer. TWR broadcasts into India from outside, but for new believers, their new faith is costly. “When they want to come to the point of baptism and church membership, we take them to a lawyer and we get them to stamp that they are prepared to convert to Christianity. That’s the way we’ve done it for many, many years. We’ve planted over 600 churches in India in that way.” Tucker says a church begins with a listening community, and, “…when the community builds to about 100 people, we will probably build a community center. It will be for educational work during the day, we do baptisms there, it will give clean water for the village. So, there will be a development within the village itself. This isn’t an outside force coming in, these are the Indians doing their own evangelism.”