28th to 30th June, 2024
Pastor Stephen had arranged meetings for me in Yelahanka, on the outskirts of Bangalore at the Church of Pastor Jonas – an independent pastor ministering mainly among the slum dwellers in Yelahanka.
Pastor Stephen was good friends with the Church’s
Associate Pastor – Pastor James.
I and my wife had been at home recovering from the
flu bug we had picked up in Sri Lanka. (To read our Sri Lanka Mission Report, Click here.) It had drained us out to a great extent,
and I was just getting back on the horse when the call to Bangalore came.
Pastor Stephen suggested I come straight to
Bangalore and then stop by at Coorg to exhort the believers on my way back home
to Coimbatore.
28.6.2024
So I set off on the 28th of June, at
around 8:00 am, with my herbal inhaler in hand, trying to keep warm as I sped
across the highway in the pouring rain.
I picked up Pastor Stephen on the Mysore -Bangalore highway, and we made our
way to Yelahanka with all haste. Driving was smooth up until the Bangalore
border that we reached by 3:00 pm just as rush hour traffic began. It took us
more than two hours bumper –to- bumper to reach our lodge.
Yelahanka is a suburb and Taluk of Bangalore Urban district
in the Indian state of Karnataka. It is the oldest
part of present Municipal Bengaluru (Bangalore) and the northern end of
the city.
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| Yelahanka, Bangalore, KA State |
We freshened up and had a spot of tea before leaving for that evening’s meet.
The meeting had been scheduled for 7:00 pm, and
would end around 9:00 pm.
Pastor Jonas and his wife reside in Yelahanka New Town.
They have two children both married. They live on the 4th
floor of an apartment building, with the Church on the 1st floor.
My message for the congregation that evening was based on Luke 12 - Seek ye first the Kingdom of God - and how if we sought the Lord's Face, the Blessings of His hand would soon follow.
I emphasized on how the current day church messages on 'Jesus For the World' was plain wrong - that Christ had not promised us riches or wealth but only the provision of our daily needs and help in time of trouble, and how the Lord had taught us not worry about our lives as the heathen did but to stay true and faithful to His Word, and all that we required would be provided to us sooner or later.
Pastor Jonas and I had time to discuss the Word at
length over dinner that night before we headed off to our room.
He told me how he had kept trying to minster in different
more affluent parts of Bangalore, but wherever he went, kept coming back to
minister to the less fortunate in those parts. He told me that he had been
stationed in many parts of India, and found himself ultimately gravitating in
some situation or the other to ministering to those in the shanties and slums
of the city’s underbelly.
I shared with him, how I too, had been hesitant to work where I had been planted at first, having had to brave grave difficulties to establish the truth in my area of Senthamil Nagar, in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and how when I had started, it had been a place of such disrepute that even the local authorities had been afraid to set foot in it.
Click here to read about how that all began.
The meet had turned out quite successful, and the
congregation responsive and encouraging. They had received the Word as simply
as babes, and I had felt the Spirit move there as I preached.
The next day, Pastor James came to our lodge to
meet us at Pastor Stephen’s behest. We discussed the Apostolic truths with him,
and I expounded on The True Baptism, The Folly
of Ecumenism, the False Unity of the Beast System, and the Perversion of the
Basic Foundational Christian Truths in Rome.
By the end of our discussion, Pastor James was convinced of the truth. he wanted to accompany us to Coorg. but told me that his son had been suffering from typhoid, that there was no one to tend to him in hospital, and so he would meet us in
Coorg, on my visit there the following month for the service.
That evening, I had prepared to preach on Matthew Chapter 25 focusing on only the first 4 verses.
I shared with the congregation The Concept of Spiritual Virginity, about The Virgin Bride of Christ, and Separation from the World System.
Pastor Stephen bid us adieu that night as he had to
be in Coorg for the next morning’s Sunday service.
The service began at 8:30 am and went on till around 11:30 am.
After the preaching, we had a short Healing and Deliverance Service where, as I usually am led to do, I asked the congregation to come forward and touch my right hand placing their petitions before the Father and believing in faith that they have received them in Jesus' Name.
We were served a hot lunch post service.
Pastor Jonas and his wife appreciated the message, and told me that I was welcome in Yelahanka any time I decided to stop by in Karnataka. Mrs. Jonas expressly told me that with all the huge and grand churches there were in Bangalore, the Lord had sent me to them in their small corner in Yelahanka, for which they were immensely grateful.
I was glad to have had an opportunity to share the
Word there and told him that I had many other things to discuss in the future.
I left Yelahankha by 1:00 pm and made my way to Coorg steadily.
I reached my usual lodgings in Kushalnagar by
around 6:00 pm.
To read our Coorg Mission Report, click here.
Do keep Pastor Jonas and family, his ministry in
Yelahanka, and Pastor James and his family too, in your prayers.
May the Lord open many other doors in the area in
the coming days.
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