India Mission Trip
By Steve Pickett

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On December 19, 2006 I left Indiana for India. Along with 35 others from around the state we set out to conduct evangelistic meetings in the villages around the city of Khammam in southeastern India. Pastor Ron Kelly of the Cicero church initiated the trip and prepared the volunteers through several weeks of training prior to our departure. Twelve young people from Indiana Academy were among the volunteers. Every volunteer participated in each of the three major parts of the meetings: Bible story, health talk, and evangelistic sermon. The meetings lasted 15 consecutive nights. Eight separate meeting sites were arranged by the East Central India Union of Seventh-day Adventists. Teams of four of five were responsible for each meeting site. My team consisted of George Crumley, Treasurer of the Indiana Conference of SDA's, his daughter Toni, and Rafael Rodriquez (Rafy) from Indiana Academy. Each meeting site represented five surrounding villages.

The local church conference in the Hyderabad-Khammam area had been busy for several months before we arrived. Church leaders went into each village. They explained to the village elders that they were Sabbath-keeping Christians and would like to hold meetings in or around their village and visit with their people. If permission was granted, they set up two Bible workers in that village to begin visiting and holding meetings with those that showed an interest. By the time we arrived, a group from each village had already been organized and one of the villages had been chosen for the meeting site. Each night the people came from the surrounding villages in the back of trucks or tractor wagons, usually very packed, and traveling 20-30 minutes.

It was a growing experience for us to present the Gospel to these people and see how different life is for them compared to what we know here in the USA. After so many nights of speaking through an interpreter, we wondered how much they really were grasping of what we said. Near the end of our meetings we asked for testimonies on what they had learned, having our interpreter translate back to us. We were all quite pleased to hear what they had learned about God's love, sin and salvation, and health issues. Attendance at our meetings began at 40 or 50, but as we visited in the villages each day, it grew to 200 or so by the end of the 15 nights.

We had a special morning meeting in each village before the baptism for that village. That was when we discovered that there were many more interests than could make it to the nightly meetings. Overall, there were over 400 baptized in the five villages worked by our team. We also gave out 480 Bibles printed in Telegu, their native language. Other teams reported similar numbers in attendance, baptisms and Bibles distributed.

Near the end of the meetings, an eye clinic was held in several of the villages and many were taken to the Adventist Hospital for cataract surgery. We wished we could have been there when they returned with clear vision! Each village was also promised their own new church building. These will be built soon by the local conference with monetary donations from USA. Cicero Indiana Seventh-day Adventist Church sponsored the mission project including, 40 church buildings at $3500 each, 25 local Bible workers at $600 each per year, and the cost of holding the meetings. At the time of our departure, they had raised 70% of their total goal of $296,500 for the whole project. As of this writing, they still need $30,000 to build the last eight churches. To help finish the goal so these churches can be built soon, please contact our Spencer Church or the Cicero Church directly.

The experience was a very good one for me, changing both how I see myself and the world. Here in the USA, there are opportunities available for those who need help or would like to improve their circumstances, but few such opportunities exist in India. The average income in the areas we worked was around two US dollars a day. Most of these people work hard and would make good use of any chance for improvement. I realize now that what I might spend here on some trivial gratification could make a real difference in the life of someone over there. The chance to attend one of our SDA High Schools would certainly be life changing for one of these children, but the cost of $200 per year would be out of the question for most of them. We are working out the details to assist John Sundar (the local translator who helped with our meetings) in sending his son to Spicer College to finish his theology degree at $1,000 per year. Some of the issues that seem so important to us here in the USA seem trivial now that I realize how much I have it in my own means to really make a difference in the life of someone living in these circumstances.

There are many opportunities to share the Love of God and His counsels for our success wherever we may be, but if you get the chance to visit one of these developing countries, you should make that experience your own. I have heard others who have been to developing countries say these things for years, but having experienced it first hand has been life changing for me.

More pictures of the trip can be seen at www.danielpickettphoto.com/india