The Outcasts of India

Please meet my friends, the Dalits (untouchables),
the lepers, the widows, the orphans,
and the handicapped.

Every year when we visit India, I am blessed to visit our Christian brethren in over 20 city and village meetings. These believers most often meet in someone's apartment, a home, a thatched roof structure, and occasionally in a small functional concrete building where the pastor and his family also live.

In an area that we would consider the size of most American's living rooms up to 100 people will crowd in and sit on the floor. Often the meetings are held outside to accommodate more people.

Court sharing at a small gathering of Christians and curious listeners in rural India

These fellow Christians are some of the most tender and beautiful saints I have ever been with. I am often reminded of Psalm 16 when I am so fortunate to be with these humble, prayerful, and godly believers.

"As for the saints who are in the land,
they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight."

Yet almost all these "glorious ones" of the Lord (over 95%), including their pastors, are considered by Indian society to be "untouchables" or "Dalits."

Dalits (untouchables) cleaning the sewers in Chennai, India

In the words of an India Christian leader:

"Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India's policy of quotas in education and government jobs. Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks, as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Dalit children make up the majority of those sold into bondage to pay off debts to upper-caste creditors. Dalit men, women, and children numbering in the tens of millions work as agricultural laborers for a few kilograms of rice or 15 to 35 rupees a day (this is not even $1 US ). Even in these modern times, all over India the Dalits are still treated as Untouchables in the eyes of the elite and even of the ordinary people. Having undergone three thousand years of slavery and discrimination, the Dalits find it nearly impossible to get out of this terrible trauma. The general situation of Untouchables is miserable but it is all the more wretched in the case of those Untouchables who have become Christians because they now suffer severe discrimination in two ways - in society and in the Church. We identify them as the Dalit Christians. They bear the stigma of untouchablity, a nightmare in every-day life. Pastor Z. Devasagayaraj, Tamil Nadu, India"

Precious people considered "low caste" and "untouchable" under Hinduism

In every church in India you will find the overwhelming majority of the brethren to be from the "untouchables" and "low castes."

Gathering with these dear, dear saints, worshiping the Lord with them, are another forsaken people of India - the lepers, the handicapped, the widows, woman forsaken by their husbands, and the orphans.

THE DISABLED AND THE LEPERS

Our leper brothers happily hearing the good news of Jesus Christ

Our leper sister praying

After sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people afflicted with polio, blindness, and other infirmities, I saw this elderly woman carrying her polio afflicted daughter down the street. When I saw a rickshaw driver offer her a ride and she refused, I realized how poor they were and I found our driver and took them home. This elderly woman was going to carry her daughter nearly a mile to home!!!

Because of the historic and prevailing belief of Hinduism which affirms that a person's station and circumstance of life is rooted in their past lives (their Karma), there is little or no help from society or government for these suffering people. Karma teaches that if you are born disabled, or in a low caste, or are considered untouchable, or suffer some other misfortune this is the consequence of wicked behavior in your past lives. With few exceptions in India, only the Body of Christ offers the brokenhearted, and the crushed of this world, comfort, hope, forgiveness, and help.

India has the highest number of lepers in the world. Often in the churches you meet Christians, or those seeking the Lord, who evidence the devastating effects of leprosy. It is also one of the last countries to stop the prevention of polio. Throughout India, in the cities and towns you will see people literally walking on their hands, or pulling themselves along, or if they are fortunate, riding a hand peddled tricycle on the street. These dear people are finding their way to Jesus Christ, as He is reaching out to them.

CHILDREN AT THE CHURCHES AND ORPHAN HOMES

A precious orphan

These are a few of the beautiful children at the Miracle Center Home for Children in India.

Each church our American brethren is helping has children needing care. Many of these have one or both parents living, but because the parents are too poor to care for their children they ask the pastors and Christian orphanages to provide care and an education for their children.

A widow praying to the Lord Jesus

THE WIDOWS AND DESERTED WOMEN

Every church has widows. There is historic and ingrained discrimination against women in Hinduism, and particularly against a woman who is "low caste." And a woman who is widowed, even at a young age, or a woman whose husband deserts or divorces her, is considered ineligible for re-marriage. She often has small children, and little or no formal education. She is left to

Sandy praying for a widow

survive on her own. This is a result of the teaching of Hinduism. Before the influence of the gospel, if a woman's husband died, they were often burned alive at their husband's funeral. Sometimes they were thrown on the fire, and sometimes they would throw themselves into the flames of the funeral pier out of dread of living the rest of their life alone, and fear of being abused by other men. This practice was called Sati. William Carey, the great missionary to India in the 1800's finally succeeded in having the then British government outlaw this practice. Yet there remains today in India, great prejudice against a widow remarrying, and their lives are tragic.

An elderly saint at a rural church in India.

Sister Nirmala, a bible woman with two children was driven away by her husband. She teaches children about the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE CHRISTIANS OF INDIA HAVE OPENED THEIR HEARTS AND ARMS

The persecuted Christians of India, embracing the forgiveness and hope of Jesus Christ, accept and welcome these fellow "outcasts" offering them the gospel of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; offering their love, and as much assistance as they can muster from their own meager resources. Christ, through His church, has welcomed, the "outcasts of India."

Court sharing the good news of Jesus Christ at a street meeting

How tragic that the affluent Western church has ignored the abundant New Covenant teaching for us to reach out to, embrace, and help our struggling brethren; to "lay down our lives for our brethren." 1 John 3:16-19. If we were truly Biblical in our giving, we would be taking regular collections in our churches to help our brethren (see 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9). This was the mission strategy of our Lord. He clearly told us in John's gospel:

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

If we ever hope to effectively reach the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Communist peoples, we must begin to not only "love the lost" but to also "love one another." The lost of our world need to see us embracing and helping our brethren who are struggling, and have embraced Jesus Christ at great risk to themselves. Then they will "know us by our love."

Court with a beloved pastor in Sirkakulum District

Our brethren, the "outcasts of India," need our love, encouragement, and help. How important this must be to our Lord! It certainly is important to our brethren!!! We only need to read His and the Apostles repeated New Covenant emphasis on "loving one another," "laying down our lives for our brethren," and "carrying each others burdens." John 15:17; 1 John 3:16; Galatians 6:2.
An article on New Testament Giving

When you help one of the pastors listed with In Jesus' Name Ministries we ask that the pastor use at least half of your gift for food, clothing, shelter, or medical care to help the poorest brethren in their fellowship. (The only exception to this would be your sending a designated gift for a specific purpose such as a bicycle, a motorcycle, medical care, church construction, widows, orphans etc. Then your gift would go entirely to the designated purpose)

A beloved deacon unable to walk because of polio, but rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Word of God

Giving in the New Testament is not intended to be just for leadership and ministry, it is primarily meant to be for those in the Body of Christ, in the greatest need, of food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

Please pray about helping the Body of Christ in India. Your help greatly encourages the Lord's shepherds, evangelists, and pastors, and brings hope and the "proof" our our "real love" to our brethren under their care. This is the most effective evangelism. India is a field ripe for harvest. Literally millions are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. And you are helping the poorest of the poor - "the least of these, the Lord's brethren."

".....I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine,
you did for me.'

"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

The Lord Jesus Christ

Gratefully your servants in Jesus Christ, Court and Sandy Wood

Worshiping at the first service in January