Accomplishing The Impossible

Accomplishing the Impossible

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Mat 28:19  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Mat 28:20  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Greetings to you, friends and Family. We wish you Gods grace and peace and His richest blessings upon you this day. We give all honor and praise and glory to the Creator and sustainer of all mankind. Even as we labor in these final hours of Earth’s History our prayer for you as well as our selves is that we be found as faithful witnesses for Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

It has been sometime since we have posted a blog due to our very busy and hectic daily schedule and our constant travelling these last 6 weeks.

Since our last post we had the privilege to visit a place called Temple city which is located in a city called Madurai. We were told that Temple City is to the South of India what the Taj Mahal is to the North and so we were happy when our friends Joel and Sucilla Israel  organized a 2 hour tour for us to this place. As soon as we entered the vicinity of Temple City we were astounded at the great mountains of idols, each containing the images of more than 30,000 Hindu gods. These mountains of Idols were erected there hundreds of years ago to honor the millions of different gods here in the Country of India. This amazing City dates back as early as 650B.C. and we even saw 2 Temples there whose tops were made of real gold. We learned that the Temples themselves took a few hundred years to construct and more that 60 kings gave treasure and skilled workmen to the construction efforts. These Kings though contemparies of each other were in solidarity and oneness in their cause to create a City that would give praise to Hinduism forever.

We spent a few hours there and took pictures of many different and fascinating Architecture and well as art work. But we must say without question the most fascinating part of our trip there was that we were able to see paganism first hand and ancient Babylonian worship for which God overthrew and destroyed many cities in Biblical times. We saw the people offering sacrifices to molten calves, and hideous gods of all shapes and descriptions. We saw people doing penance for their sins and we also saw the places where people would bring pounds and pounds of gold to offer to these gods as sacrifice. We were exposed to all the allurements and entrapments and we were able to see firsthand  the enticements and seduction of this false religion, that Satan has used as a stronghold in this Nation of over 1 billion people. We saw the long lines of worshippers, many of whom pilgrimaged hundreds of miles to come and attend worship. We also saw  the sincerity, the dedication and the tears of a people searching, a people who were pouring out there tears and treasure to idols of wood and stone who cannot hear or answer them. I left Temple City with a firmer resolve and dedication to expand the name of Christ in this land where the Gospel message has hardly begun.

The title of this Month’s blog is “accomplishing the impossible,” I know that to some it may seem quite a provocative sounding title. But if we were to be honest with you, our arriving and thriving in India these many months have been to us just that. This Mission trip was birthed through much prayer and study of God’s word. We knew for sure without the shadow of a doubt that God was the one who had inspired us to come to this distant land as Missionaries. Yet surprisingly, many of the financial pieces were not in place at the time for us to undertake this great journey. God wanted this Family to learn experientially what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. God helped us tremendously to get things in order at home and helped us to get out of debt before our trip. But few of our friends and Family knew that we came to India with our airline ticket in hand and only enough money to take care of our Family for 1 Month. We had read and believed all of god’s promises in the bible and the Spirit of Prophesy and so we came to this Ancient and distant land of India many thousands of miles from home to spread the Gospel. Knowing only 1 person in this Country of over 1.3 billion people the Simpson family arrived in India on September 25, 2010 to do God’s Mission. I remembered how we were down to our last $100 shortly after we began our work and how after it was almost spent God blessed and provided for us.  We want to submit to you today friends and Family that our God is faithful, and that He will never fail those who put their trust in Him. Many of you have submitted to God’s leading and have made yourselves instruments in God’s hand to aid us in our Mission project here. We want you to know for absolute certain that you have given and invested in the greatest of causes, even the cause of the Gospel.  We want to extend our sincerest most heartfelt thanks to you for helping us to build up the infant Churches in India. We know that only on that great day of the final Harvest will we see the fruits of our labors.  We have been self supporting Missionaries for the past 6 Months  yet  we have not made any personal appeals for financial help as God has more that met our greatest expectation of Him.

Upon arriving and acquainting ourselves  with the Villupuram Region we quickly realized that they were in great need of  committed souls to provide the following:  lay pastoral training, help in strengthening their small congregations,  dedicated individuals to conduct home visits of MANY people who have been discouraged and left the church,  training  the members on the fundamental beliefs, offer relief aid to many who’s homes and churches were destroyed by monsoon rains and electrical fires and over all encouragement and love.

This task seemed overwhelming at first but by God’s grace we constructed a plan to visit every small church and company in the Villupuram region and to conduct a one week Evangelism meeting in ten of those villages.  The devil tried to discourage us from every side with lack of help and funds, help and transportation in the beginning. But as we pressed forward by faith the Lord provided the funds and the help for us to be able to accomplish everything that we set out to do.  I would be lying if I did not tell you that it was the biggest challenge of our lives.  We all fell very ill often and had to learn to live in not so ideal living conditions, but God aided us daily to reach our goal.  It was such a great feeling that in spite our sufferings, whenever we walked into any village in the Villupuram Region most of the villagers would be come running toward our directions and they would know exactly who we were.  It didn’t matter so much if they knew all our names but that they knew that we were Christians and that we came to spread the love of Jesus Christ.  Even if they did not attend our meetings or come forward for prayer they knew that we were there and that we were not some typical tourist (foreigners) who came to India for a holiday.  They knew that we would extend our hands to greet them and that we would hold their babies and hug them.  They knew that we would listen to their problems and offer aid to those who we could.

We had a final meeting last week Sunday for all the villages that we entered.  It was so touching to see and hear so many people testify of God’s goodness and to hear their appreciation for our service in their villages.  It was touching to hear the testimonies of those who were grateful to God for leading us here, grateful to those who financially supported us and grateful to our family for dedicating the past six months of our lives to their villages and Region.

We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to those who responded to the call and rallied to our aid for the land purchasing project in the Meyyur Village. You will be happy to know that that Pastor Johnson from Chennai has also rallied to our aid and is going to help us purchase the land in April. He is also formulating plans to build a Church for these our persecuted Brothers and Sisters who have no house of worship.

We will be returning to the U.S this week.   By Government mandate all foreigners with visas have a maximum of 6 Month to reside in India after which they must vacate the Country. So we must make our exit in the next few days in order to be in respect and full compliance with the Government. Our Mission trip to India has not ended, but has just begun. We will take the next few months to work, plan and pray as we try to organize a return to India by August for another Missionary tour of several Months. We thank you again for your prayers and support to the work here in God’s Vineyard, from the Simpson family stationed in South India may God bless you, Maranatha.