A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE “India Project”
By Pastor Sherwood
About 20 years ago, I met Rev. Noah Bower, a minister from India, and a graduate of Bro. Lester Sumrall’s bible school in South Bend, IN. He shared how his father, who had ministered all over India, beginning in the 1940’s, had eventually brought his sons into the ministry with him. Noah explained how the Lord led him to the formation of Harvest Vision Ministries with about 110 congregations scattered across Central India. He kept encouraging me to come and see first hand how God was moving in India. I finally accepted and went to India on a three week ministry trip. On my second trip there, the Lord began to show us the scope of “The India Project”.
India has over 1,250,000,000 people with about one half under the age of 25. More than 60 % of the population lives in villages or rural, hard to reach areas, with most having never heard the Gospel. God gave us a plan to use the Association of Faith Churches and Ministers (AFCM) International Training Center (ITC) video bible school curriculum in conjunction with the already established work of Harvest Vision to train ministers to reach the population of India.
Since a modest beginning in 2004, using the video bible school format, over 400 ministers have been trained and sent into the harvest of India and approximately 200 are in training right now. Even though there has been great success, there have also been challenges. We were deeply involved in providing humanitarian aid after the tsunami of 2005 on the east coast of India. Also, over 20 bible school graduates have been martyred for their faith. One of our school leaders was beaten by an anti Christian mob and eventually died. Another has had his home burned to the ground by religious militants. But God is faithful. Over 200 new congregations have been formed and in one area over 2700 people have been saved in the last six months.
