DJEM Vellore 2008

Vellore 2008

We had a wonderful time on our second and third trips to India. In January I traveled to the Vellore District of Tamil Nadu (on the northern edge close to Chennai (formerly Madras)) to train local leaders for the outreach we held in February.

As part of a nine city outreach of Luis Palau's Next Generation Alliance, My partner Brandon Ridley and I spoke at evangelistic festivals, pastors conferences, and youth events. We also sponsored a medical clinic and women's conference, all in the area of Panappakkum.

After finishing in Panappakkum on Sunday evening, we drove all night to Madurai to hold a pastor's conference there on Monday. This conference was a direct result of the work we did last spring in this area. The response to my book and the materials we presented has been tremendous, so we were asked to revisit this district while we were relatively close in order to train more pastors and hand out more resources. Thanks to the hard work of Pastor Thomas and his team at the Indian Council of Missions, we were able to hold a very successful meeting with 400 pastors. There is clearly a strong need for this type of educational effort in India.

Here are some general interest pictures from India. Brandon and I had some fun walking around our neighborhood, finding that the locals were more than happy to talk and take pictures with us. We even got to play some cricket. You can find specific pics from each event at right.

Tamilnadu

Panappakkum

Panappakkum was our main festival sight. We held four nights of open air meetings, a youth conference, a women's conference and a medical camp. The X-treme Team joined us for one night and performed at a school assembly during the day. We also got the chance to visit a boarding school for children from very remote villages in a beautiful tropical mountain setting. They gave us a very warm welcome with coconuts and fancy wreaths.

Madurai

As I mentioned at left, the pastoral training we did last April and may was very well received. Since that time, other pastors have been using my book and the material we presented to train others and have been having equally positive results. Because of this, we were asked to try and fit in a quick visit to the Madurai area to do some more training. We gladly obliged, and had a wonderful time. Brandon and I spoke and we provided each pastor with a new Bible, a copy of my book in Tamil, and a copy of The God's Story VCD.

Also, we took some time to plan for the future. Due to the success of the training material, Pastor Thomas and I have developed a systematic plan to reach more of Tamil Nadu (and beyond). We will have more information about that posted on this site very shortly.