By Joel and Carla Ellis
A family from a Hindu background recently visited a church in North India. They came because of family problems they were facing. The father is a staunch Hindu, and did not want to come, but allowed his family to attend. They didn’t know anything about the Bible or Christianity.
The pastor gave the son, Raju, a Global University book called Who Jesus Is. He was eager to take the book home and start reading.
God planted a seed in Raju’s heart that day that changed the course of his life.
Soon afterwards, Raju came to a small youth gathering at the church and said to the pastor’s wife, “I want to accept Jesus as my personal savior.” The pastor’s wife was surprised and said, “Are you sure you really want to do this so soon?” Since Raju was from a Hindu background, the pastor’s wife expected that it would take a few months for him to understand what it meant to be a Christian.
Yet Raju said, “Yes, I am ready. I don’t want to wait any longer.”
On Sunday morning, during a time of testimony at the church, the pastor called Raju to the front and explained that Raju was ready to surrender his life to Jesus. The pastor began to help Raju say a prayer of salvation, but Raju stopped him and said, “No, I want to do it myself.”
Raju had memorized the prayer from the back of the Global University book.
He proceeded to pray out loud in front of the entire congregation, acknowledging Jesus Christ as his only Lord and Savior. He then began to share what he had learned about Jesus from the book. The pastor was amazed. He did not expect such maturity from this new young believer.
There was so much quality in the testimony that Raju shared that day. The pastor thanked God for Global University’s book, Who Jesus Is. Now Raju is ready to be baptized. This is a significant step for a person from a Hindu background, indicating his complete devotion to Jesus.
God saved Raju through the life-giving words of Who Jesus Is… a book that was translated through the giving of generous people like yourself.
Who Jesus Is is now being translated into nine different Indian languages and is one of the books used by the church in India to train 35,000 pastors to plant 25,000 churches by 2020.
This could be the largest church planting effort in history.
Such amazing stories of salvation cannot be accomplished without your help, though. Thank you to everyone who has supported Global University throughout the years. Our calling is to win the lost and train the found. We can’t do either without your prayers and support.