Cover Story for November 3, 2005
Virginia Baptists have carried out ministries in India for years-most recently in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami that hit the nation last December. Now those efforts are resulting with a full-blown missions partnership with one of the country's Baptist conventions.
This month Virginia Baptists will sign a partnership agreement with the Indian Baptist Convention of Kerala.
Indian Baptist leaders Kunjumon Chacko and Sabu Thomas will be in Woodbridge Nov. 10-11 for the annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia to participate in a signing ceremony. Chacko is chairman of Prison Fellowship India and head of a Baptist children's home there. Thomas is a graduate of the India Baptist Theological Seminary and will coordinate the Indian side of the partnership.
The partnership links Virginia Baptists with a fellowship of less than 100 churches in the southern state of Kerala. Baptists in India are organized in regional conventions; there is no convention that includes churches from the entire country.
In February, two Virginia Baptist leaders-John Upton, executive director of the BGAV, and Jerry Jones, team leader of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board's glocal missions and evangelism team, will travel to India to meet with Baptist leaders there.
The Virginia/India partnership will have several focuses:
• Rebuilding the Baptist church at Kulachel, a fishing village destroyed by the tsunami.
Craig Waddell, partnership and short-term volunteer coordinator for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board's glocal missions and evangelism team, said that the floor and roof should be finished by the end of this month, and the church needs a Virginia Baptist construction team to help it in November or December.
• Providing five more fishing boats to families who lost their means of livelihood in the tsunami. Already Virginia Baptists have funded 10 boats, all of which have been distributed in Kulachel.
Chacko estimates that each boat provides a living for five families. Assuming each family has an average of six persons, each boat will improve the living conditions of about 30 Indians.
The gifts of boats have had an impact on Indians' spiritual lives as well, said Chacko. A prominent Hindu leader in Kulachel opposed the Baptists' ministry there. But seeing their concern expressed tangibly, he changed his mind. During an evangelistic meeting in the town's boat yard, he professed faith in Christ.
“I asked people who wanted to accept Jesus to raise their hand,” said Chacko. “I saw the Hindu leader at the back of the crowd, and he was waving two hands.”
The former Hindu is now leading a Bible study, he said.
• Build two out of five proposed cottages for the Precious Children's Home, an Indian Baptist ministry for children who lost parents in the tsunami. Construction already has begun on the two cottages. Virginia Baptist partnership leaders hope to raise funds for the other three cottages.
The children's home already has eight cottages housing about 500 children, most of whom would have had to turn to begging to survive, said Chacko. He hopes to send at least some of the children to university.
“The tsunami was a difficult education,” he said. “Some of the people had lived on the coast for generations. They lost everything, including their past.
“We are learning how to minister in a crisis.”
• Provide an additional uniform to each of the 2,000 children for whom Virginia Baptists provided uniforms earlier this year. Indian educational regulations require school children to wear uniforms-a requirement that many families found impossible to meet after the tsunami.
Upton and Jones hope to distribute the uniforms during their visit in February.
“This has given us an entrance into many Hindu homes,” said Chacko.
• Complete construction on a men's dormitory at the Indian Baptist seminary. The seminary has about 56 students, said Chacko, who come from each of India's 13 states, as well as Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal. He said the school has a goal of 100 students.
Staff report