Ministry of the Word to Anantnag, Kashmir

Anantnag, a business and trading center of Kashmir Valley, was our next destination for the spreading and sowing the seed of the word of God. This too was our first time to visit the city. The only contact we had was just a phone number from one of our contacts from the previous visit to Jammu. 

As we drove down from Srinagar to Anantnag, the entire length of road was teeming with Indian army on duty, perhaps, on patrol as this region has been infested with terrorists. The old stories I heard about this city was frequent bomb blasts and terrorist attacks. What was reckoned as a dreaded place for long, I finally had the grace to visit and tread the same road-line that witnessed many attacks.  

We were welcomed by a brother who has been serving there for some twenty years. Later we visited a hospital run by a Christian group purely with  a mission goal of spreading the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Doctors and nurses with missionary mind have been laboring in that place and are also conducting Christian meeting within the hospital campus as well. This is the best way they could serve the local people with love by medical care and spiritual food supply. 

Later, we had a good while fellowship with a brother who is a doctor and a full time missionary. Both of them have a wonderful testimony of serving the Lord for twenty long years with hardly any visible fruit. But they were not discouraged, rather were full of hope that one day the Lord would bring in revival among the local people who were bound by religious bondages and the fear of backslashes from their orthodox community if they dared to believe into the Lord Jesus Christ. Despite this circumstance, the brothers faithfully met week by week, and though just the two families. And the doctor brother in his profession has prayed over many of the babies he helped to deliver, some thousands by the time we met, that they would one day be freed from all curses and bondages of the enemy to receive the new life in Christ Jesus. Despite all the challenges they have been facing, he was very clear in the burden he received from God and very determined to continue to serve as he has been doing so. It was a service with a strong faith of dare to do or die. Praise the Lord for such living testimony. 

We had fellowship at length especially on the matter of the church, as I felt the burden to share the vision concerning the church as the Body of Christ was their need. They both have been enjoying a wonderful normal Christian life experience, now the need is on the proper experience of the church life as the issue of a Christian life. As I sensed the need for more light on the church I gifted the doctor three books on the church. Furthermore, as he was so keen to know the word, I introduced the Recovery Version Bible which he immediately requested and purchased. After a wonderful experience of fellowship, we sang,  prayed, and worshipped the Lord together. Then, we bade adieu for the time being. 

This visit has left a deep impression on me at least in three matters: faithfully and patiently laboring with hope in a place wherever the Lord has sent and placed us, using every opportunity even in restricted place to serve the Lord in deeds to people if words could not be used, and be open to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Head of the Body and to the believers as the members of the Body. 

After such a meeting and fellowship I have a hope that the Lord would reveal Himself more to His chosen ones and recover His testimony in Anantnag.

Lord, hasten the day You will fully recover Your testimony in this city. Amen.