A Children's Church Celebration in Gudibunde

You have been following the building of the Children's Church area on the roof of the church at Gudibunde.  Sunday, August 25th brought with it a special celebration at the Gudibunde Church as they celebrate the completion of this special project.

This facility addition will enable Christhia Seva Mission to teach hundred's of children about the loving, saving grace of a living God.

Please join us in celebrating what God has done to make this project possible.




Worship at the church in Gudibunde as they celebrate the completion
of the Children's Church addition that was built on top of the
church building.

 


Of course you can celebrate without a great cake.



The children of the Gudibunde Church celebrating in their new
Children's Church area.



Everyone enjoyoing, celebrating the new Children's Church
area and worshiping the God that has made it
all possible.



Pappanna - A Very Special Testimony



Meet Pappanna and his family, wife Ratamma (left) and daughter Gayrathri

 Matthew has translated and shared the following testimony of  Pappanna in Pappanna's own words.  Please read, enjoy and praise God for how He uses CSM to bring people to a saving relationship with Christ.
------------------------

I want to share my testimony.  My name is Pappanna.  I grew up in a very traditional Hindu family.  From my childhood my parents encouraged me to be good and faithful to the gods we worshiped. I believed in many gods. 

About 10 months ago I became very ill.  I went to doctors and hospitals.  They couldn’t find anything wrong.  They did lots of tests, they couldn’t find anything wrong physically.  So I went to many temples seeking help from the gods I believed and worshiped. I did not get any help from them.  

I was getting weaker and weaker.  4 months ago I became like paralyzed.  I couldn’t stand by myself.  So my wife went and brought a witchcraft doctor, thinking that it was a curse from one of my ancestors.  He did all kinds of things on me to remove the curse from me.  He practiced witchcraft for 2 weeks and it didn’t do any good.  I was getting weaker and weaker.  I gave up hope and told my life I don’t want to do anything any more.  Please leave me alone.  Whenever I die, let it be.

All these times Pastor Johnson and Moses were visiting our village and conducting prayer meetings.  They came to our home and visited with me and asked if they could pray for me.  I said no, I don’t want to do anything anymore, leave us alone and don’t come back to our house any more. I was very discouraged and I prayed very earnestly to my gods and they didn’t do anything for me.  So I didn’t want to do anything with any god. 

The next week pastors came to our village and my wife went and asked them to come and pray for me.  At this time I was bedridden and couldn’t walk.  Because of my wife I told them you can pray.  They shared the gospel with us.  They prayed and left.  For the next 4 weeks they came and prayed for me.  4^th week I asked them to conduct the bible study and prayer meeting in my house. There are several Christians in our village.  They all came for the prayer meeting and started to sing and praise God.  I never experienced anything like this before.  I felt like something is happening to me.  Johnson preached about the paralyzed man whom Jesus healed.  I liked what I heard and it gave me some hope of healing.  I asked preachers come and pray for me.  4 days after, the afternoon, they came and prayed for me.  Then they left.

Day after they prayed for me, I started to lift my legs and move it around. Slowly day by day I started to get better and started to walk slowly.  This convinced me , my wife and daughter that Jesus is the true living God.  All three of us knelt together and prayed and accepted Jesus into our life as the Lord and Savior.  All three of us were baptized on August 4^th.  I walked into the baptistery and walked out of it without any body’s help. 

Amen, Jesus is our savior, healer and the only one God.   Please pray for us.

Thanks for listening to my life changing experience.

Pappanna

July Blessings at the Gudibunde Church - UPDATED AUGUST 14, 2013

The Gudibunde Church is suffering from growth.  A nice problem to have.
This is construction on top of the worship building for a
Children's Church area. 



This worship and teaching area will enable CSM to teach
hundreds of Indian children about Jesus.

 


Another blessing to great growth at Gudibunde is that on July27, 2013,
there were 20 new brothers and sisters in Christ who chose
to be obedient to Christ in Christian Baptism.

 


The construction of a roof over the Children's Ministry area of
the church at Gudibunde nears completion.


_______________________

Updated August 14, 2013

You can see this will be a nice addition to the church building and
will enable CSM to teach hundreds of children in the
years to come.

August 4h Baptisms at Parasandra Church



August 4, 2013 Matthew Mathai had the privilege of baptising many new
brothers and sisters in Christ at the church in Parasandra.  Pastor Moses
is on the far left, Pastrr Johnson on the far right.





Favorite past-time following ANY ceremony at any of the worship centers
in India includes what?   Yep......Eating!!

 

Group Weddings in Gowribidanur Church

July 18th, Mathew conducted a group wedding for three new
Christian couples.  The wedding was performed at our
Gowribidanur Center.



Madhusudan and Rakshita exhchange rings during the ceremony





Nagarai and Nirmala exchange floral garlands as part of the
wedding ceremony.

  


Mathew lead Venkitesh and Prameela in the oath of
Christian marriage.  Vankitesh is also a member of
the Christhia Seva Mission staff.

 















Many members of the Christhia Seva Mission staff
assist in the conducting of the wedding ceremony.



Over 800 wdding guests are fed following the reception.  Many of the
guests were family members who are Hindu.  This was another
wonderful oportunity for them to see how the
Christian community comes together.