Monday, November 20, 2006

Hyderabad

Well I have left the team to trek to Hyderabad. Ian has gone on to Japan, the HTB Alpha guys (Nick and Al) continue the Alpha program and everyone else makes for Blighty.

The internal flights to Hyderabad were great and I arrived about midnight grateful to be collected. I am staying at the Operation Mobilisation Campus whichis one of the main centres for the work in India.

OM India has grown to be the largest field, George Verwer - founder of OM, has a real heart for the nation and started visiting in the early days. Now they have some 2000 staff across the nation.

Some of the ministries:

  • STL books - literature distribution
  • Evangelism teams - showing the Jesus film 3-4 times per week - I think there are over 400 teams
  • Dalit Education - aiming to teach a people group called untouchables who are marginalised in the community - this is turning into an immense work with education centres being established throughout the nation
  • Good Shepherd Community Churches - when the evangelsim teams have established a small group that gets to the right size a pastor is appointed approximately 2000 churches have been born.
  • OM Conference centre - here on the campus the run leadership courses to support the work. All the time their is a group of students.
  • Medical Clinic - healthcare provision on the site

I suspect I am missing a lot of it - I was asked to preach Sunday morning when I arrived and slept much of the rest of the day as I was so tired. I wasnt sure if they wanted me to preach for 30 mins or 1 hr 30 mins so stopped after an hour!

Tomorrow I am going on a trip to the slums of Hyderabad for which I probably will need to brace myself. It is a privilege to get to go - as a westerner you are always concerned about your safety but I love to go and see what the world is like. It migfht make it rather easy to sell the Merc when I return!

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