LCMS World Mission Blog

“I am now in Ambur, where I have been visiting the incomplete chapels so that I can give a report on their progress. I visited 10 locations in the past two days. Only two of the chapels have been completed so far. In order to make mission funds from the U.S. stretch, the India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC) has distributed the money to each location, so each location is only covered for 5 to 10 percent of the total cost. The rest has to come from the congregation.

“The usual practice is that members dedicate one month’s income, along with their regular weekly tithe, for the building project until it is completed. They also appeal to former members and sons and daughters of the congregation. When it comes to the finishing stage, typically people will pick up some aspect: the floor tiling, doors, windows, pulpit, baptismal font, altar, and other parts. It is amazing how important this effort is to the church members here and how much they work and sacrifice to complete it. I asked one of the pastors how his members could give so much, when I know that at least 80 percent of them are very poor. He said they just eat less. Wow.

“One particular joy is meeting the ones who have risen to leadership in Lutheran institutions. The director of Bethesda Hospital is a leader of a prayer group that visits over a hundred villages every year to pray in people’s homes, mostly non-Christians. The new principal of the Concordia Teachers Training Institute was tearful as we discussed this morning her new responsibility. She felt a special burden to train the students in the Bible and to evangelize among the Hindu students. The government has given permission to open a women’s section the institute, and she hopes to accomplish that soon. Another new headmaster of a high school gathered his own and his teachers’ funds to put up a beautiful compound wall, with spaces all along the roadside for Bible verses.”

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