Evangelism comes from the Gr. euaggelion the verbal form of which means announce and/or preaching of the gospel or good news — of and about Jesus Christ. Therefore, gospel is a communicated message. Evangelism includes a warning (about sin and the consequences of sin), an explanation of God’s remedy for sin- the gospel, and the clear call to repent and believe the gospel, by faith. Repent means turn to God through Jesus Christ; repentance means a change of purpose, a change of will and a change of mind to agree with God.

I would like to share a rare experience of mine in my second mission trip to North India which was in Mar 2010. A three days’ fasting prayer was arranged in our Nagpur church. Including believers, about 50 plus people came together and that was the average on all the three days. On the first day, as usual the local pastor of our church, Pr. Saji K Philip was translating my message to Hindi (the common language of those who gather there), as I was speaking in Malayalam.

When a message needs translation, the speaker gets only little less than half the time of whole message time. I was feeling in my spirit that if I could speak to them in Hindi itself, I could have shared a double portion of what I could spiritually feed otherwise. On the second day, I believe, my message was being translated but there came a time, that the pastor was keeping his mouth shut even when I repeated the same sentences the third time; I was looking at the pastor and the people and I asked him why he was not translating. Then, to my amazement the congregation and the pastor told me that I was proclaiming the message in Hindi only!

The pastor got seated and ever since, all these years wherever it is needed, I am sharing the messages in Hindi. I give all the glory to God. It is not that I am talking Hindi for the first time in my life, I speak Hindi but never ever I imagined that I could preach in that language. I have come across pastors from Kerala who have/are working in North India for ten plus years and they don’t preach in Hindi; I am not exalting myself above others but these were all confirmations to me that the mission works we are entrusted with, are in the perfect will of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Many a time we have had/have to travel through the forest and extreme remote villages and much of the interior places; knowingly and unknowingly we have had to pass by terrorists areas; and, in a 7-10 days of trip we usually travel around 2300 KM but we could experience the amazing grace of God all the time. Sometimes we find it very difficult to hire a taxi because the drivers (the local people) say they choose to live more and hesitate or deny taking us to the places where Lord wants us to go! We serve a living God who has promised never to leave nor forsake us. I believe every Christian is a missionary and every non-Christian is a mission field. But we request you to pray that we keep going only to the right places at Lord’s timings.