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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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WORKING TAMIL NADU’S COASTAL AREA
Crossville, TN March 1, 2005. The Newsletter last month covered a portion of my most recent trip to India. At the time I wrote (February 8th) I was in Pondy Cherry, which is a very nice Indian city on the east coast of Tamil Nadu (TN). That state bore the brunt of the Tsunami when it struck that country on December 26, 2004. Not unlike Florida Tamil Nadu is very tropical with a coastline more than four hundred miles long. It is a haven for tourists from the north during the winter months; thus many of them lost their lives in the Tsunami. People who worked in the tourist hotels that were completely destroyed in that area lost their livelihood, as well. Yet, the worst suffering happened to the poor people who were in the fishing industry. Not only were thousands of fishermen put out of work because of destroyed boats and nets, but a far greater number lost their livelihood due to the loss of jobs that depended on that industry. Unfortunately just yesterday (February 28) I received an email that said the government is estimating that it may take up to six months to revive the fishing industry due to the extreme devastation.
You will recall that we are locating six preachers (two by two) and their wives in three cities on the east coast of the state. My work in that area between February 4th and the 17th was to get four of those preachers located in two cities, Pondy Cherry and Cuddalore (Coo-da-lore). The latter lies 14 miles down the coast from Pondy Cherry. It was not only necessary to find rental housing for the brothers and their families, but at least one of the rented dwellings had to be large enough for the church to meet. This was not easy for often the house owner, generally a Hindu or Moslem, while being willing to rent the house to Christians, would not agree for the church to meet on their property. Besides this, we set up a Tsunami relief program in each city. As of now these things have been worked out and the two brothers who are locating in each city have at least four (eight in all) other trained gospel preachers who come to help from Monday through Friday with the relief\soul winning work.
On the 17th I traveled the 200 miles to Dindigul where we held a two-day (18th and 19th) lectureship on the subject of “Soul Winning In the Wake of the Tsunami.” There were 728 gospel preachers and current students present. About a dozen Tamil brothers spoke and exhorted the audience to zeal for lost souls. I spoke twice and announced that we would use the month of May, which is their summer holiday period, for another bicycle campaign. The brothers were most enthusiastic about this and they believe we may have as many as a thousand preachers campaigning across the state during that month, since many who have regular jobs will have vacations at that time.
While in Dindigul I arranged for 600,000 tracts in Tamil under six titles to be printed. Also, in conjunction with brother Don Iverson, we ordered 20,000 Tamil Bibles and 5,000 English Bibles. And we are arranging to have 10,000 song books printed in Tamil. I arrived back in the US on the 21st of February and expect to be here until the first part of April. Speaking of Don, the day I arrived back in Knoxville he left for Tamil Nadu. Since that date he has worked his way up the east coast of Tamil Nadu checking on the progress of the soul-winning and relief work. Here is a portion of the report he filed on Sunday, February 27th. The first city he mentions Tri-chan-dur lies about 175 miles south of Pondy Cherry .
TRIUMPH IN TRICHANDUR Don Iverson
“In the city of Tri-chan-dur there is a small brother named Perumal. He is a graduate of the school of preaching at Dindigul and is very zealous for evangelism. When we opened the relief and Bible camp at Kanniyakumari (Kan-ni-ya-ku-ma-ri) (KK) he came down to help for several weeks. While there he explained that people were also affected near his village. I traveled there to examine the devastation on January 30 while in the country on a previous trip. At the seashore we found many families who had not been assisted in any way. They had been living in grass huts, which were no match for the Tsunami. I agreed for us to help these people and we quickly found a plot of ground on which to establish a relief camp. To date, Perumal has baptized 51 souls into Christ from this affected area. Though he is small in physical stature, like David he is strong in faith. Thank you, brethren, for training men like Perumal. Many will enter into the kingdom as a result of his persistent faith. Pray to God that we can train many more like this brother.
A TYPICAL DAY IN TSUNAMI RELIEF WORK
“Here is a sample of a day’s work in KK. I arrived here yesterday (Friday February 25). It was in the middle of the day and a sister, Anna Lakshmi, who is the wife of the brother who heads up the school of preaching here, was teaching the Bible to a large group of ladies affected by the Tsunami. A brother was teaching a very attentive group of men.
“After getting up early on Saturday morning I met with the brothers who would be working in five Tsunami-affected areas today. There were about fifteen present. I presented an exhortation on the ways God uses humble men to give Him the glory. Afterwards we discussed our plans, prayed together, and then boarded five vans headed in different directions to government refugee camps and devastated villages. Those in the vans would seek the needy, and bring them back to our relief camp for a good lunch, some very basic needed items from our store room, and Bible study.
“While this was going on I set out with brother Santhanaraj (Saan-tan-aa-raj) to go to another area to open up a relief/Bible camp. We arrived at one newly set up refugee camp near Mootham (Moo-tam). Here we arranged the materials and began to construct a simple building. Our brothers did a marvelous job in the construction themselves for a cost of a little more than $2,000. On March 7th we will begin helping widows and other indigent people out of this building. A brother also trained at Dindigul, whose name is Blessing, was put in charge of the program of work in this location. He will also be preaching for the new congregation, which will meet in the building. Daily we are feeding widows not only prepared lunches but also the milk of the Word of God (I Peter 2:2,3). Next, brother Saan-tan-aa-raj and I traveled to a relief camp, which contains more than 500 families. From this camp we will find the needy widows.
“While at Moo-tam the brothers and I met with a lady who is not yet a believer, named Mary. She has been very good to help us coordinate the relief efforts in this area. I asked her, What is now the greatest need of the people here? She said they needed the (three legged) clay cooking stands and metal trays on which to cook their rice dumplings (called id-di-ly) for their breakfast meals. The small clay stoves cost $2.50 each and the id-di-ly cooking pans are $3.00.
“These people have lost everything. Mary also agreed to assist us by sending the candidates for interviews. This is of great benefit as we could be covered up with indigent people who were not affected by the Tsunami. One day, for example, at the YMCA camp we had rented at KK, we brought in 50 widows for a nutritious meal and the simple household things we are giving to the victims. About fifteen hundred other people showed up outside to get the things we were handing out. Fortunately the police came to disperse them or we could have had a riot on our hands. Mary has a list of all widows and affected people in her area.
“We next traveled back to KK to the building purchased for use in the relief effort. Some modifications need to be made, so we met with some carpenters and made plans for this work. The preacher training school, which has been here for about five years, has been meeting in the house rented for the school director and his family. It will begin meeting in the upstairs of this building on Monday.
MORE GOOD NEWS
“Saturday evening February 26. As I was writing this e-mail the power shut down (a regular occurrence in India), so I walked back to the camp and learned that there were four more baptisms today here in KK. This brings to 154 the total number baptized since our relief work began the first week of January. We fed a good lunch to 190 and distributed needed items for more than 90 households. Also today two hundred miles north at Na-ga-pa-ti-nam our brothers aided another 90 families. A similar number were helped at Cuddalore today and 75 were served in Pondy Cherry. These last two are the cities where brother Jim worked setting up the program from February 4th to the 17th. . Humbly, Don Iverson.”
Closing note: Don is in Pondy Cherry today (March 4th) in order to boost the efforts of our brothers there. May God bless each of you and your congregation for your very important part in this work of faith and labor of love.
In Christian love,
Jim E. Waldron |
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Vol. 38 March 2005 No. 3
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