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Waldron Mission Fund |
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Under the oversight of the elders of the Crossville church of Christ, PO Box 211, Crossville, TN 38557 |
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Vol. 40 July 2006 No. 7 |
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HER NAME IS MERCY
This report is the remarkable story of a young woman, Mercy Wilson, who epitomizes the reason for the existence of the Coimbatore Bible Institute for Women. The school is located in a small village called Chettipalayam (Chetti-pul-lay-yam) in Tamil Nadu, which is India’s most southern State. The little town lies twelve miles west of Coimbatore, a city the size of Memphis. Tamil Nadu itself is about the size of Tennessee with a population of more than sixty-five million. It is this state in which we (Banner Elk, NC; Crossville, TN and all those of you who are supporting this effort) work with thirteen schools of preaching to train native Tamil brethren to reach their own with the gospel. This Bible school for women is just that – a school to ground Christian women in the faith. It is not a secular school. Their average age is 18.5 and they put in 24 hours per week studying the scriptures. In the two years’ training they spend more than 2,000 hours studying the Bible and memorize more than 1,300 verses. These young sisters are not being trained to be preachers (I Cor. 14:34) or teachers over men (I Tim. 2:11-12), but to be good Christian wives and mothers and to teach women and children. Between 1994 and 2006, 479 have graduated after completing the two full years and many others have completed one year or more. When Mercy was born, May 15, 1977, her parents gave her the name of Eswari, which is the name of a Hindu goddess. In 1992, she was baptized into Christ and the same year entered the school for women. Her grasp of the word of God and her skill in teaching became evident while she was a student. Thus when she graduated in 1994, Lilly who was the principal, wanted her as a teacher. It was about that time that she decided to change her name to Mercy. Even though she was very young her teaching skills became almost legendary. Once another sister came as a guest teacher and Lilly said, she is very good for she teaches like Mercy. She continued to teach until 2001, but something happened that year that forced her to give up her teaching position. By far the vast majority of marriages in India are arranged, thus in the spring of ’01 one of our teachers at the school of preaching in Dindigul took brother J. W. Samson the school principal (director) to meet Mercy’s parents in order to arrange a marriage between his son, Peter Wilson and Mercy. Concerning Peter’s part in negotiations, at one point I asked him if he had ever spoken to Mercy and he replied I did once on the phone. Her parents who are so-called. “high caste” Hindu’s had no objection to her marrying a Christian, but they did object to the wedding because Peter and his parents were lower on the ancestral totem pole in the Hindu caste system. Not only did they object, but insisted that Mercy, even though she was 24 years old, must give up her job and come home where they could keep an eye on her until they could find a man of suitable caste to be her husband. In the fall of that year I visited Mercy’s home to try to persuade her parents to let her at least return to the women’s school to teach. As I spoke with the family Mercy stood quietly nearby, desiring to be an obedient daughter, but shedding tears like raindrops openly. One good thing was that her folks would let her attend worship each Lord’s day. Things continued over the next nine months with little change, then in June ’02 (the month classes begin), her mother and father said she could return to the school for a two week visit. Laura and I were a hundred miles away in Dindigul when we got this news. On Sunday June 16th I spoke for the church that met on the grounds of the Dindigul school of preaching with Peter Wilson serving as my interpreter. I had asked the preacher at Dharapuram, where Mercy attended services, to get her to the phone after the close of the morning worship. I had Peter phone to see if she was listening for his call. She was, so I told him to tell her he would call back immediately and to hang up, which he did, then I said now call her back and say, “Will you marry me.” He replied. “I need to speak to my mother first.” “I said, no, you are 25 years old.” Thus he phoned her and she agreed to a wedding right away, so we secured a preacher who could perform the ceremony and two days later (June 18, 2002) those two young people were married on the grounds of the women’s school with all her friends
and co-teachers present. Her parents stayed away for about three months and then came for a visit. After which Peter sent an email saying, “they ate with us in my father’s home, which they would never have done before.”
On August 16, 2004, a little girl was born to Mercy and Peter and they named her Jami. Peter is our computer operator and bookkeeper for the preaching school at Dindigul. Mercy, who is learning English, is a homemaker and mother and rarely has the opportunity to teach as she once did. However, this past May during Peter’s vacation she was invited by Don Iverson to teach the Tsunami widows and other women who have obeyed the gospel over the past 18 months on India’s most southern coast.
Thus on May 24 she was at a place called Moutum, about 25 miles from the Indian Ocean teaching 86 women. They were practically all New Testament Christians, but some few were Catholics and Hindus. All had been studying the scriptures for weeks. Mercy’s theme was the love of God backed up with illustrations of women from the Old Testament followed with the plan of salvation. When she closed her lesson seven ladies made the good confession and were baptized by the brothers. The following day (Thursday May 25) in another location there were 162 women jammed into the meeting place and another eleven obeyed the gospel, then on Friday at yet a different place she had 110 ladies and eleven more obeyed the gospel. Each day she had taught for two and one half to three hours, while Peter watched Jami.
Mercy is an example of what can be accomplished in a country by giving intensive training to godly women who serve as wives, mothers and Bible class teacher in towns, cities and out-of-the-way villages. They become the glue of Christian homes. As of July 1st we have ninety-nine girls enrolled for the class of 2006-07. Three classrooms on the ground floor of the new building for which we borrowed the $40,000 in January were opened for classes on the 3rd. The three rooms on the second floor that will be sleeping rooms for the girls must be plastered, painted and the tile put down for the floor. As I have mentioned before we are paying off that debt month by month as we have the funds. So our building fund needs are $35,508 as that is the present balance.
VEDARANYAM
This is the coastal town I started writing about in May 2005 that is the center for a large population of “Dalit” people. In fact there are a dozen or more outlying villages in the area with a similar population. As I noted back then, Dalits are the poor people that other Hindus consider “untouchables.” Following the Tsunami in April ’05, we took truck loads of rice, other food items and household goods to them and in some cases bought cloth and had tailors make school uniforms for children. At the same time we were helping with physical needs our Tamil brothers began teaching in the streets and homes the story of Christ and His kingdom. The results at this time, 167 have obeyed the gospel and five congregations have been started in Vedaranyam and surrounding villages. Our physical help stopped last year, but it was again called on at the end of June:
Fire accident at Vedaranyam! Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:14:53 +0530 Dear Brother,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus! Today we have received a phone call from Bro.Moses of Vedaranyam Church of Christ. He called us to inform about his narrow escape from a fire accident in his neighborhood. This afternoon, a house in his neighborhood caught fire suddenly and it started to consume the neighborhood also, as the wind was so strong. All the people tried to quench the fire without any success and when the fire brigade came in, eight houses were totally burnt down to ashes. The fire consumed the house just next to Bro.Moses' house. He told us that it was by His grace only that he and his household could escape the fire. In all nine families have lost all of their belongings and some are having injuries also.
Brother in Christ S. Jeganathan
Brother Jaganathan said the government had given each family Rs 2,000\- ($45), five kilograms (11 pounds) of rice($2) and one can of kerosene. In response we sent each family Rs 15,000\- ($337), which included 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of rice ($6.75), 22 pounds of other food and house hold needs ($11.25), $22 cash and the balance $297 to put a temporary roof over their head. TSUNAMI COAST CONGREGATIONS
In the eighteen months since December 26, 2004, there have been 2,218 baptized into Christ along 350 miles of the Tsunami ravaged coast of Tamil Nadu and there are 52 new congregations breaking bread each Lord’s day, with a well trained gospel preacher exhorting them to live godly lives and win souls. I want to thank those who have recently given a special gift to help us make up the deficit in monthly support. I have been back in the States about a month and have been rushing to make up that imbalance. Your investment here will pay eternal dividends. God bless you.
Jim E. Waldron |
