India and Pakistan February 2012 -the Sora Conference

I travelled over the past few weeks with Phil Dempster of Partners International to various parts of India and Pakistan. We logged more than 90 hours on planes, buses, boats and trucks. Our travels were to meet with various South Asian ministry leaders to learn about their work, meet their people and encourage them in the Word and prayer. As is always the case the blessing returned to us multiplied as we were richly encouraged to see God's kingdom arriving in India and Pakistan, God's future indeed arriving in their present! From Chennai we flew to Vishakhapatnam and travelled to the mountains to a temporary camp built by Sora Christians for an annual Bible conference. The Sora people are indigenous in the mountain regions and our host leads a ministry of 250 missionaries who plant churches in these mountains. 15,000 of these people come down to the high valley for discipleship in a setting pretty much like the feast of tabernacles. They build a tabernacle out of bamboo and rice grass and live in small bamboo and grass huts for a week. It was a tremendous thrill to preach to them, to see many of them decide to follow Christ (unbelievers brought by their neighbours from their mountain villages) and then to witness 330 baptisms in a pond on Sunday morning!