Village Outreach
ICII Village Outreach Ministry
India has a population of over one billion people. There are hundreds of thousands of remote villages all over India, many of which have never heard about the Lord Jesus Christ! Independent Church in India (ICII) helps to support over 160 indigenous missionaries in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan and Orissa. ICII is also supporting missionaries in Pakistan and Kenya as well. As the Lord provides, we want to keep raising up, training, equipping, and supporting more missionaries in these three nations.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
Ministry Testimonies
Unreached people group received Jesus
Tribe finds the Gospel sweeter than honey
God miraculously answers the prayer of brand-new believers
Couple abandons suicide plan after hearing the Gospel!
Villagers at a well hear about the Living Water
Finding Lost Souls Newsletter May/June – 2016
Preparing Pastors And Missionaries To Reach Villages
ICII’s main mission is to support, send and equip native missionaries so they can go into the unreached remote villages and tribal areas to leprosy colonies, start children’s ministries, start Bible studies and home churches, pray for those who are sick and hurting, and to help provide food, medical help, clothing, and other needs for poor and desperate people.
ICII equips these missionaries through pastoral and evangelism seminars, and village Bible schools. Fifty students are being intensely trained for New Testament evangelism. ICII also supports eighteen leprosy missionaries who have been trained to reach those with leprosy.
ICII’s native missionaries are working in the harvest fields of India, Pakistan, and Kenya. These Gospel workers have committed their whole lives for Christ’s sake and many are living in severe persecution for their dedication.
Ways You Can Help
Help us reach out to villages and tribes with the love of Jesus. Your donation will help to bring them the Gospel, discipleship, food, clothing, medical care, and much more! 100% of donations to this program will be used for village outreach.
Providing a gift of a motorbike will allow missionaries and pastors to travel to unreached villages and tribal areas so more souls can hear the good news of the Gospel.
You can support a poor pastor and his family with good quality, healthy rice for only $20 for a whole month! Good rice will give a pastor and his family more strength to do God’s work in India.
Reaching An Unreached Tribal Group
Through the love and support of ICII missionary supporters, real changes are being made in the lives of people who literally live in the uttermost parts of the earth. Jeremiah, one native missionary that ICII has been sponsoring for many years is bearing much fruit among unreached tribal groups. We joined up with Pastor "Jeremiah" (name withheld for security) and his wife, and his Gospel assistant. He had planned an outreach to a very remote area in the higher hills of the region, where there are some extremely poor villages of tribal people. We all loaded up into ICII’s ministry van and we started off toward the mountains. Soon we came to extremely rough paved roads in a forest of bamboo.
Pastor Jeremiah's Tribal Village Ministry
Pastor Jeremiah talked as we drove, telling us that this forest is filled with wild elephants, buffalo, wildcats, and other dangerous animals. For years, he and his wife had been doing ministry in the villages above this forest, and so they had to travel through this area on foot many times. That trip required eight hours of walking in each direction, and the hills are very steep. Pastor Jeremiah’s wife showed us her scars from when she fell and rolled down a steep hill while they were running from a rampaging wild elephant! Yet these hardships did not stop this family from reaching out to these most needy people with the Gospel message of Jesus Christ!
Pastor Jeremiah showed us a stone slab where the extremely superstitious tribal people would hold a yearly sacrifice, offering over two hundred goats to their gods. They would sometimes sacrifice even their own infants in their horrible rituals. He explained how he had gradually earned their trust and started sharing the Gospel with them, at first walking there twice a week.
The motorbike that he got through ICII has greatly helped him reach these tribal people. After we crept along for nearly ten miles on a narrow, steep, and bumpy roads, where elephant droppings were a frequent reminder of what lived unseen in the thickets all around us, we could scarcely believe how Pastor Jeremiah and his wife were able to come to this place so often even with their motorbike, much less without any vehicle at all! We so admire their dedication and determination for the Lord.
Visiting A Tribal Village
As soon as we arrived at the first tribal village, we could feel the poverty and the desperation of the people living there. A rag-tag group of children came running to stare at us, with dirty, torn clothes and unkempt hair. We could see that the people were uncertain who we were, strangers and foreigners arriving in a van. One man, however, stayed at a distance, waving his arms scornfully at us and muttering. After a while, he stalked off into the hills behind the village. Pastor Joshua explained that this was the local witch doctor, who has been opposing his ministry and complaining about his visits for years. The witch doctor is fearful that because of Pastor Jeremiah’s teaching, some of the people have stopped listening to his fortune-telling, and he does not want to lose his livelihood.
Pastor Jeremiah told us that there were some new people present. We thanked them for welcoming us, and we shared the Gospel with them. Many believed on Jesus, their heads bowed as they prayed with us to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior! Afterward, one family, who were the first in the village to come to Christ through Pastor Joshua’s ministry, invited us to their tiny home. As we talked with them, we learned more about this isolated people. Mostly illiterate, they live by hunting and gathering, or on whatever they can get by doing slave-like labor jobs for nearby landowners. Even the stale government-rationed rice is a luxury to these extremely poor people, who often have to catch rats for meat.
The lady of the house showed us a handful of ragi, a type of millet, which the people grind into a flour as a staple food. Medical care is non-existent, and people die of malaria, typhoid, cholera, or other treatable diseases in that area each year. No one, except for Pastor Jeremiah’s team, had ever come up to that place to share Christ with them. Pastor Jeremiah was excited about the new believers, and has plans to expand his ministry in that tribal village.
