Walking In The Footsteps Of A Native Missionary

By Chris Pick
Special to ASSIST News Service

INDIA (ANS) -- Recently I was given the chance to walk in the shoes of a native missionary through hostile areas of India and see firsthand the impact they have in reaching the lost for Jesus Christ. It all started not long after I went to India in 2011 and had the privilege to learn more about native missions.

With the Meesalas: Chris Pick, Pastor Kantharao (President of RMI), Sastry (Vice President of RMI), Johan, and Pastor Ratna Raju

Last year, God opened a door for me to go to India. And while there, I learned more about native missions. While in India, I saw firsthand the impact many mission agencies have on spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ in a poverty-stricken nation. It wasn’t long after I returned home that a door opened for me to return.

Vice President Sastry Meesala of Rehoboth Ministries India (www.informi.org) invited me to come back to India and see the work they are doing in Southeast India. RMI was founded by Kantharao Meesala, a pastor in a place called Vuyyuru - one of the states of Andhra Pradesh, India. He grew up in a Hindu family and did not know who Jesus Christ was.

 In the mid-60s, he was diagnosed with cancer, and no doctor could heal him. Nor did he find healing in the false gods of his religion. He came to know Jesus Christ through his wife. She went to a church hoping that Jesus could heal him. The local pastor came to the Meesala’s home and prayed over Kantharao. And he was miraculously healed! He then gave his life to Christ. 

This healing brought Christ into his life. Because he became a Christian, he lost his relationship with his parents and had to leave his village. But he chose Christ over his family. He confessed his sins and was baptized. And that same year God called him for His ministry. He has served the Lord since 1965 without backsliding. Two of his seven sons also serve the Lord in the work of RMI.

RMI also trains native missionaries and sends them out throughout India to unreached villages. The missionaries RMI trains in their Bible school are trained intensively day and night for 40 days. On weekends, they send them on different ministry assignments to various villages to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The trainees mostly come from poor families and are first generation Christians - coming from Hindu backgrounds. They can read and write Telugu (the local language). But they cannot speak English. They are provided free training, food and transportation expenses. After the six weeks of training are complete, they are sent out to unreached areas for church planting and discipleship ministry.

The dates were immediately set for me to go to India with RMI in January 2012 for six weeks, but religious persecution broke out in the area where I was going. So the trip was postponed until May. Because I was involved with several projects at the time plus finishing up a recording project in Nashville, I knew this was going to be an exhaustive trip going to India for six weeks. With the RMI trip, I would have three back-to-back trips – and I would be away from my wife for a total of three months. But I felt the Lord calling me to go and see the work RMI was doing.....

Continued