GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan – A visit to India in 1971 led John DeVries to pray, “God, I will serve you anywhere you want. Just, please, don’t send me back here again.”
At the time, DeVries did not realize that what he was seeing was the Lord’s way of opening John’s eyes and heart to the need for the transformation of individuals and communities. Gradually, DeVries became burdened for the people of India. In 1978, he founded Mission India.
The organization has a three-pronged approach to their work in India. Their first area of ministry was the establishment of Bible-oriented Adult Literacy classes, which were begun in 1984. Students are able to read and write at a fifth-grade level after one year of lessons.
In 1985, the ministry began a Church Planter Training program to help local believers reach their communities with the Good News of Jesus Christ. The year-long program includes classroom and supervised fieldwork designed to prepare individuals for a life-long ministry.
The group began establishing Children’s Bible Clubs in 1990. Mission India produces new lessons annually in more than 20 different Indian languages. Two types of Bible Clubs are offered. One type meets for two hours per day throughout the entire year. The other meets all day for two weeks in the summer.
This emphasis for this 40th year of operations is “Immeasurably more,” based on Ephesians 3:20-21 that describes our Lord as able to do immeasurably more than all we are able to ask or think according to His power that is at work in us.
100 percent of Mission India’s ministry partners in India are Indian nationals.
Mission India was honored as a Top-Rated nonprofit by Greatnonprofits.org in 2013
Sources:
Mission Network News, Mission India celebrates 40 years, prays for God to do “immeasurably more.”
Photo Source:
McKay Savage (Flickr: HiH – Literacy Programme – 01 – 08-02-04) [CC BY 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons