Loving greetings from Andaman Islands to our beloved partners at The Bridge International. May God continue to bless and strengthen your husband Steve and you in the furthering of the Gospel. Thank you for your love and kindness toward my family and ministry! Our family is well, although my wife, Sarama, has problems with her neck due to a serious car accident a few years ago. Our two daughters are happily married and have one daughter each, the youngest is two years old.
Easter gave many opportunities to share the message of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ
In Port Blair (capital) we continue to care for needy children in two facilities; presently we have a total of 90 children in Bethany and Calvary Children’s Homes. It is going well. By God’s grace, in the Andamans, the ministry of ICF is slowly expanding. In Indira Nagar and Chouldari a few new families have accepted the Lord. We are opening worship and prayer fellowships among them.
Our main burden is sharing the Gospel and planting local prayer Centers in Andaman Islands, but also on India’s mainland. ICF has planted a new ministry in the state of Punjab among the Sikh people. The Lord is blessing Pastor Gagan who from there is reaching people in Jammu and Kashmir (disputed area between India and Pakistan) as well as in Himachal Pradesh (the northernmost region bordering the Himalayas). The ministry has grown to a point whereby we urgently need a facility in Punjab which could serve as ICF’s Regional Head Quarters for these three states and also include a Bible Training School.
In West Bengal, 2.5 hours train journey from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) we started a ministry among Bengali speaking people, which has now expanded to 13 fellowship groups. We are facing the issue that the local ministry leaders are very poor who work long hours on other people’s farms to make a living. This limits the time they can devote to their mission work. A few months ago, I visited West Bengal and baptized 21 people. Now, several new believers are again ready for baptism, and some desire to attend Bible Training School.
Testimonies
In the last few months God has been so gracious to see a few young people come to faith in Jesus Christ. One of them is Mohammed Khan. He was born in the Middle Andaman. As a little boy, due to his parents experiencing an irreparable crisis, they placed Mohammed in an orphanage in Port Blair. While he was there, both his parents died but Mohammed was not told about it. At 16, after he had reached the time limit of his stay in the orphanage, he was dismissed.
During one of ICF’s outreaches, we met Mohammed and shared the Gospel of Salvation with him. Even though born into the Muslim faith and brought up as such, when he heard about the forgiveness of sin by a loving Savior and the gift of eternal life, his heart was deeply moved. He made a decision to accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and embrace the Christian faith. He has been baptized and is presently enrolled in a Bible training course. He is facing severe opposition from two of his sisters. Please pray for Mohammed Khan!
The second one is Shahrukh Khan and Reeta Kandulna. Shahrukh was born into a very rigid Muslim family in the village of Namunagar in South Andaman. His upbringing was not very pleasant. Soon after his father’s death, his mother married another man who was a drunk and very abusive. Throughout his childhood, Shahrukh lived with the terror of abuse and filthy language both from his mother and stepfather, so he grew up a brokenhearted man.
To sustain himself, he dropped out of his studies and began looking for work. During that time he got married to a women from a Hindu family, which caused more problems in his life. Opposition from his own family as well as from the Muslim community became intense.
A few months before our Mission Team was doing a Gospel outreach in Namunagar, I came across Shahrukh. He was processing large amounts of tobacco products. As I started to talk with him about the consequences of uncontrolled tobacco use, and continued by telling him about the marvelous life he could have through faith in Jesus Christ, God’s love flooded his heart and he came to faith.
His wife, Reeta was a radical Hindu, and at first would have nothing to do with her husband’s newfound faith. Gradually, as she observed the transformation from darkness to light in her husband’s life, she was also drawn to the love of God through him. After a while, she also accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. So Shahrukh Khan and Reeta Kandulna are today an active, Christian family who boldly share their faith.
They still live in the village where Shahrukh grew up. The villagers are staunch Muslims and hostile to the Christian faith and Christians, so the family is facing severe threats from them. Please pray for Shahrukh and Reeta and their two small children!
Preaching, teaching, training, baptizing, worshipping, feeding, comforting… India Christian Fellowship with Varughese Mathew and his team are reaching out to the orphans, the marginalized, the hungry for Truth, with the Good News of God’s love! YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTNER WITH THEM… JUST CLICK ON THE Donate BUTTON ABOVE, AND HELP SPONSOR THEM AND THEIR OUTREACHES!
From R.K.’s Corner
We live in a culture where big is always considered better. It is quantity over quality. “How much” or “how many?” are often the questions we ask to evaluate that which we seek to validate. This attitude has also saturated our Christian communities. “How many church member does your church have, how big is your ministry?”
The Lord’s measurement is very different. In Luke 15, Jesus presents several parables by pointing out the eternal value of each individual human being. One is the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in the safe enclosure to seek out the one that is lost. Jesus concludes in Luke 15:7, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”
Varughese Mathew and his wife are among our partners who have forged a road less traveled, seeking to care for one individual at a time. In 1988, this young Christian couple living on India’s mainland heard God’s call, obeyed, walked away from life’s securities. Instead they brought the Biblical message of a loving God through the forgiveness and redemption of Jesus Christ to unreached poor and destitute peoples living in the Andaman Islands, an archipelago situated 1,000 miles from the mainland coast in the Indian Ocean. There, they have lived and served the Lord for 33 years.
In 2005, while seeking to find a reliable source for direct distributing of humanitarian relief funds among victim living near the epicenter and seriously affected by the massive tsunami, we came across Pastor Mathew and his Indian Christian Fellowship (ICF). Andaman Islands were close to the massive underwater earthquake which caused the catastrophic tsunami disaster which flooded the coastlines of the countries situated along the rim of the Indian ocean and beyond. Pastor Mathew was highly recommended by our evangelist friend in Norway, Aril Edvardsen who knew him through his own ministry Troen’s Bevis. They had sponsored ICF for a number of years. Since then, at times we have helped sponsor some of ICF’s individual missionaries and various projects. Pastor Mathew has visited our home in South Florida, so Steve and I have come to know him personally.
In addition to managing their two children’s homes on the island, and evangelizing, training and sponsoring indigenous fellowship leaders throughout the archipelago, the Mathews have expanded their ministry on the mainland of India by establishing small missionary centers and prayer fellowships in Northern India near Pakistan, the border region of Kashmir and the Himalayas, as well as in Southern India near Bangladesh. In this Bridge Report, there is a brief update on ICF’s activities, as well as a few testimonies of individuals who have come to faith in Jesus Christ.
For more background information and to familiarize yourself with the Mathews, ICF and The Bridge’s participation, copy and paste links in your browser of prior Bridge Reports on our website:
https://www.bridgeinternational.org/pdf/january2005.pdf
https://www.bridgeinternational.org/pdf/march2006.pdf
https://www.bridgeinternational.org/pdf/november2010.pdf
https://www.bridgeinternational.org/pdf/august2012.pdf
https://www.bridgeinternational.org/2015/06/