News from Nepal and India
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, I would imagine most of us have heard in recent days while here in the States, thankfully, it seems that the Corona virus has been subdued and cases are dropping---but in India and Nepal, there has actually been an explosion of COVID-19 with terrible effects. As we are a global family of churches, this is personal for us, because we have brothers we are meaningfully connected to in Nepal and India. So could you give us an update about what's going on there?
Mark Prater:
Let me start with Nepal. And you're right, Ben, we build relationally even as we expand globally. If the Lord continues to allow us to do that we want to build relationally. That's very important to us. So these are our brothers that I'm about to talk about. Before I get into specifics, I'm going to talk about Nepal first. I think it illustrates a partnership. And what I mean is that you're on point for Liberia as a member of Dave Taylor's Emerging Nations team. For Nepal, we've got Aaron Mayfield, a bi-vocational pastor in Austin, Texas, and Allen Dicharry, a bi-vocational pastor in Midland, Texas. Both pastors are college graduates who are on point for Nepal. And so I'm grateful for these brothers as I am grateful for your work in Liberia, and for what they're doing in Nepal. Aaron Mayfield has been interacting with our primary contact in Nepal. I'm not going to use that pastor's name for the purpose of security, but if you were at our pastors conference a couple of years ago you would have heard him share and you know who I'm talking about—he and his wife. So Aaron sent an update to Dave Taylor, which I just got this morning, and wanted our guys to know--not just to be updated, but to pray. So COVID has hit Nepal pretty hard. They've planted around 15 churches in Nepal. The email says that several pastors have actually died because of COVID. I don't know how to quantify that. He also went on to say that there are members of those churches who are pretty sick with COVID and they're trying to get oxygen to them because the hospitals are full. So please pray for those churches. Our friend and his wife did just get their second dose of the vaccine. So that's good news, but I'll continue to pray for him and his wife and his church and the churches he cares for, because the need is really great there right now.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah. And what's going on with JP in India? I remember meeting him a couple of years ago at the pastors conference. I just immediately garnered a deep respect and admiration for the man and his ministry--but they're also facing challenges in India. What's going on there?
Mark Prater:
That's right. Yeah, JP and his wife traveled to the pastors conference three years ago. I think it was 2018 if I remember right. That relationship has been fostered and developed by Todd Peterson who's on point for India. Again, he's a member of Dave Taylor's Emerging Nations team. So thanks to Todd Peterson for the work that he does. JP has a church in the Andhra Pradesh region of India, which is the Southeast region of India, which has also been hit by COVID. And they've had several folks that they're trying to reach out to and care for because of that. But his wife, two weeks ago, was close to giving birth and tested positive for COVID. So JP was saying, “please pray, I don't know how the doctor is going to handle this”. And then several days later I got a picture and good news that she had delivered twin girls. So JP and his wife are first time parents with twin girls, and mom and babies are doing well. So continue to pray for JP, his wife, and that church which is reaching out to a primarily Hindu community. And as you pray for JP, pray for his ordination process. It looks pretty likely that he will complete the ordination process sometime in the next few months. And when that happens, he would be the first ordained elder in Sovereign Grace in our new ordination process in India, and that will be another step to formalizing his partnership, and his church's partnership, with Sovereign Grace.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's great. Well, thanks for the update. I'm thinking, wow, Texas is really involved in the nations. All three of those men. So thankful for those guys. And I'm very grateful for the partnerships we have globally as we continue to pray for God's mercy in India and Nepal. So thanks for the update, Mark. Thank you everyone for watching. We'll see you here next week, lord willing. Bye for now.