Við byggjum kirkju á Indlandi
Hvítsunnukirkjan í Keflavík hefur nú hafist handa við að byggja kirkju á Indlandi, nánar tiltekið í þorpi um 150 km frá borginni Visakhapatnam. Þegar bróðir okkar Prasanna Kumar frá Indlandi var hér í apríl, þá sýndi hann okkur myndir af þessarri byggingu, sem á að vera bænamiðstöð og biblíuskóli fyrir svæði sem margir kannast við og kallast Orissa. Á þessu svæði hafa verið miklar ofsóknir gegn kristnum, hús þeirra brennd og þeir lifað í stöðugri hættu.
Nú um leið og hafist var handa við bygginguna byrjaði mótstaða frá hindúum á svæðinu. Hins vegar hefur bróðir okkar Kumar sagt okkur frá kraftaverki og er sagan svona: Eldri kona, móðir eins ráðandi manns í bænum þar sem kirkjan rís, hana dreymdi draum, þar sem hún sá Jesús og kirkjuna. Hún sagði við son sinn, að hann skyldi ekki hindra þessa byggingu. Hann kom síðar og sagði frá draum móður sinnar og tjáði Kumar að hann myndi standa með honum. Hann lagði síðan hornstein að byggingunni. Og það verður að teljast kraftaverk að hindúi leggi hornstein að kristinni kirkjubyggingu.
Nú kostnaður við að byggja er svolítið frábrugðin því sem við þekkjum. Það er ráðgert að þessi bygging sem við sjáum kosti um 30.000 dollara eða um 3,4 miljónir króna. Takmark okkar er að ljúka byggingunni fyrir áramót. Staðan í dag er sú að það er verið að klára grunninn. Byggingaraðferðir eru líka ólíkar okkar, eins og sjá má á myndum hér neðar.
Bréf frá Pastor Kumar, sem segir okkur frá upphafi starfsins
Dear Pastor Kristinn,
Greetings in Jesus name.
Thanks for your reply.
I already shared few things about ministry but I want to give clear picture of our ministry for Orissa. But I don't have any chances to start ministry in Orissa because I don't know their language.
You can keep this history in your website.
In 1994 three families came to my house (in Visakhapatnam) requesting to start a ministry near Orissa state (from Visakhapatnam to Ministry place one way 150 KM). With God's guidance I went with them and started a ministry in that place.
Please watch the pictures (so you can understand beginning of this ministry). Worshipping under the trees in Orissa near our ministry village. Sometimes we used to go and secretly worship God in those places. After some time we started the ministry at our church present place. This place,was also very rough, because most of the people are Hindus and many Hindu temples are there. In the beginning of the ministry I got lot of problems with those villagers.
Several times we wanted to start our ministry at some other place, but the Holy Spirit never allowed me to move from this place. Because of our prayers, God moved in a wonderful way and many women got visions and dreams about Jesus, including the village President's wife. God honored our prayers. That is the reason I invited the village President to lay the foundation stone for our present church building .
One day while fasting and praying, one sister got a vision about a new church building and that church building should become a very big Prayer tower for Orissa. According to that vision we prayed and decided to build the church in that Village. Many people advised me to build the church in Visakhapatnam and that would have been very comfortable for me, but I had to obey the Holy Spirit. Me and my wife decided to stay in that village after building the Church.
That church villagers are very poor, but the vision for that village church is so great. One day I asked the Lord "how can I build a church in this small village and these people are so poor". God showed me the word Mathews 14: 15 - 18. I preached a sermon from that verse and I asked them to give offering whatever they had. With that offering we built small hut (seen picture) in 1996. We worshipped 4 years in that small hut and in the year 2000 we built new church. Then in 2002 we got big blow in our ministry and many leaders separated from Word of Truth Ministries and they took many people from our church.
In the beginning of the ministry (in 1994) many people were there and many people were baptized (you can see the church congregation and baptisms in pictures). Because of that big blow I wanted to go back to my city and start a ministry there but the Holy Spirit never allowed me to go back to my city with the ministry.
I still live in Visakhapatnam because of my children education. I used to say 4 days in ministry place and 4 days in Visakhapatnam.
Praise the Lord! God heard our prayers and many new people came and were baptized. And God honored our peoples offering in my small church and multiplied their offering in Iceland. What a wonderful God is our God.
As our new church building will become a big prayer tower for Orissa, every month 2nd Saturday morning 8 am to evening 4pm we want to start fasting prayer for Orissa and Prayer for the Nations. We want to invite many pastors from Orissa and from my city for this prayer cell.
In our new church building we can give good training for Orissa´s young Christian people and send them back to Orissa for evangelism. This is the main vision for our new church building.
When we finish the Church building work, you and your team and brother Jakob will come and open the church and start all our prayer projects.
With Love
Pastor Kumar.
Fleiri myndir hér.
