ICC Note:

According to reports from the group Christian Aid Mission, hundreds are coming to Christ despite the persecution escalating in India. Specifically, Christian Aid Mission described in a report how one of India’s hotbeds of persecution, Kandhamal, has become one of the most fertile grounds for evangelism. Religious conversion remains a point of contention in India. Often, Hindu radicals falsely accuse Christian evangelists of forcefully converting Hindus to Christianity as a pretext for attack. Several states in India have banned religious conversions without government approval. 

4/22/2016 India (Christian Today) – Despite mounting persecution, Christianity is thriving in India as hundreds of Hindus and tribal animists are embracing Jesus Christ, the Gospel Herald reports.

One of the areas where conversion and evangelistic events are taking place is in the jungles of Kandhamal District in eastern India, which used to be “a hotbed of Hindu persecution of Christians,” according to the Christian Aid Mission.

Although Hindu fanatics once used these jungles as their killing fields for Christian converts, they remain the sites for evangelistic events, which a local ministry director said have been “wildly successful.”

So far, the director’s group has held 14 such evangelistic events since last August, with 1,000 to 2,000 attending each one, the Christian Aid Mission says in its latest report.

“By God’s grace we are holding evangelistic jungle camps everywhere the violence took place,” the director said. “It is God’s doing. The violence took place almost everywhere in Kandhamal District. We held a jungle camp at one village church, and in 2008 that church building had been attacked, broken and set on fire, and the believers had fled to the jungle for safety.”

The Christian ministry director, who did not give his name for security reason, said thousands of Christian converts regularly gather in the jungle camps to hear the Word of God. “They are happy to accept Jesus as their God and Savior and to live for Him in the midst of persecution,” he said.

The director said true stories about healing and other miracles are convincing more and more Hindus and animists to abandon their old faiths and turn to Jesus Christ instead.

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