Saturday, October 16, 2010

A Macedonian Call

October 17, 2010

Missions is not an optional department in the church ministry.

It is intrinsic to our calling as a church. Like a fish cannot but swim, a bird cannot but fly, so a church cannot but do world missions. However, the church will only be most effective and involved when she focuses her energy, resources and prayers on one mission field.

For BHLC, we have identified our mission field – the Dalits of India. Thus, it is our church’s aim to empower the Dalits of India to break the caste system.

Born as the ‘untouchables’, they have been labelled by the Hindu scriptures as the ‘unborn’, which in translated means, ‘it would be better if they had never been born’.

As sub-humans, they are denied water, education and healthcare by all levels of society. After being oppressed for more than three thousand years, the Dalits have finally cried out, ‘enough is enough!’ Open invitations to Christians have been issued by the Dalit leaders - not unlike that of the Macedonian call in Acts 16:9-10,

"During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

What do we do with such a vision?

We must conclude that NOW is the time to stand with them.

To that end, we have committed to help build a school for them in India.