PERSECUTED FOR THE GOSPEL.

Apostolic Faith Mission–Paul Silvanus

Pastor Praveen Kumar was born into a Christian Family and from an early age he learned to love God. His father was a pastor and Praveen watched his father face many challenges and even persecution and yet his father never complained but kept on praising God in all his circumstances. As a young boy growing up, he too was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps and serve God. In 2010 after graduating from mission school, Praveen chose to work in the mission fields of Maharastha rather than the comfort of his own state, Kerala. The dialect here was different and being far away from home was a challenge to the young man but like his father he was determine to preserver for the glory of God. He started a mission field here but just when he was beginning to be fruitful the Holy Spirit told him to move to the Theni District of Tamil Nadu, an unreached place where people’s resistance and intolerance toward Christianity was well known. A little apprehensive but trusting God he went there with his wife and child.

He started the first church (the only church in the area) in a small village with 5 adult church members and 15 children. Encouraged by the children he started a Sunday school for the children which blessed the children greatly. A few months after he had been there Ps Praveen was called to pray for a Hindu man, Mr Annadurai who lay dying in his home. Mr Annadurai met a major accident in Madurai City and was very badly injured. He was admitted to the hospital there but his family was told there was no hope and the authorities asked the family to take him home. Ps Praveen visited him every day to pray for him and each day Annadurai began to recover slowly. He was supposed to go for surgery but as he began to recover he did not need the surgery. Praise God he has completely recovered and has accepted Christ. When news of this miracle spread people wanted to know Praveen’s God and after 6 months his church had grown to 50 people. People here however, were still afraid of the Hindu neighbours and 30 of them took water baptism secretly. A lady who had received healing for her ailment donated her land for a makeshift church to be built and the church began to grow. The Hindus there began to resent Ps Praveen.

Perumayi was well known in the village for her special power to help Barren women conceive and many women would come to her and they would be able to conceive after she performed some rituals over them. One day Perumayi fell ill and could not sleep at night. She tried everything but to no avail. Desperate she came to Ps Praveen and was delivered from evil spirits. She was healed and accepted Christ and this angered the Hindu extremist. They made a police report that Ps Praveen was converting Hindu (anti-conversion law) by giving them money and they brought with them false witnesses to confirm their story. Police came and arrested Ps Praveen and he was taken to the police station for interrogation. After questioning him for a few hours and taking his statement he was released but had to attend a court hearing four days later.

Ps Praveen called me in Chennai and asked the church to pray for him and I immediately sent out urgent prayer requests to all the churches and also to AO Malaysia who has a powerful intercessory group to pray for Ps Praveen, that the truth will prevail. Our team members and I also prayed and cried out to God to save Ps Praveen from false imprisonment. On the day of the court hearing, Ps Praveen was there on time but after waiting for half an hour, not one of his accusers turned up. To his amazement, 50 of his church members who were new converts turned up to declare in writing that they had converted of their own free will and were in no way forced. They did not want to hide their conversion anymore but came boldly to declare that they had accepted Jesus as their Lord and saviour. Now neighbouring villages are inviting Ps Praveen’s to come and pray with them.

Prov 21:31 The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance and victory are of the Lord.

                                                    Perumayi proud to be Christian now

Ps Praveen