04/16/2020 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – In November 2018, International Christian Concern (ICC) launched an ambitious campaign to help bring the Gospel to India’s rural and unreached communities. We called this the Bibles and Bikes for India Initiative.

Through this Initiative, ICC set the lofty goal of equipping 1,000 rural evangelists with a new bicycle and 100 Bibles. With these simple tools, evangelists are empowered to bring the Gospel to rural communities previously beyond their reach.

To date, ICC has empowered almost 700 rural evangelists. While their outreach work has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as India’s national lockdown, ICC remains in close contact, providing support and following up on their ministries.

Pastor Daniel Prasad is among the nearly 700 evangelists empower by the Bibles and Bikes Initiative. Like many, he is social distancing and is currently unable to use his bicycle to reach the rural communities in his area of southern India.

Despite the current circumstances, ICC recently met up with Pastor Prasad, virtually, to talk about the impact of the Bibles and Bikes Initiative on his ministry. While this was the main focus of the meeting, Pastor Prasad also shared how an evangelist riding a bicycle changed his life more than 20 years ago.

“I come from a very orthodox Hindu family,” Pastor Prasad told ICC. “I came to know Jesus through a Gospel tract I received from an evangelist who came to my village in 1997. At that time, I was fed up with life because nothing was going smoothly. My father was ill, my family was in a financial crisis, and I had no peace.”

“To find peace and get out of these problems, we tried sorcery, pilgrimages, and all kinds of rituals,” Pastor Prasad continued. “Nothing seemed to work.”

“Then I read a Gospel tract that had been distributed to me by a Christian evangelist,” Pastor Prasad explained. “In that tract, I found answers to the situations we were going through as a family.”

“This is why I am so passionate about the distribution of God’s word,” Pastor Prasad told ICC. “It was God’s word that changed my life forever 23 years ago.”

In addition to the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, Pastor Prasad also deals with opposition from radical Hindu nationalists. Despite these challenges, Pastor Prasad remains committed to reaching the unreached with the bicycle and scriptures he received from ICC.

“I strongly believe there are people everywhere who are going through struggles similar to what I went through before I received Jesus,” Pastor Prasad said. “I often think about the evangelist and the Gospel tract that came to me all those years ago while I am traveling from village to village. The scriptures I hand out are the answers these people need in their lives.”

Since receiving his bicycle and Bibles from ICC, Pastor Prasad and his son have been able to visit several new villages to spread the good news. They have even started a new fellowship in one of these villages, despite the opposition they initially encountered.

The coronavirus pandemic and India’s national lockdown will likely continue to affect the evangelists empowered through the Bibles and Bikes Initiative. However, ICC will continue to follow up with these evangelists to support them and record the impact their ministries are having on India’s rural and unreached communities.