A team of eight led by Rob White, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Cayce, has opened the 2007 edition of the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s South Asia missions partnership with its Jan. 8-19 project in Ahmedabad, India.
A primary purpose of the trip was to interact with college students such as these.The group of mostly Trinity members did prayerwalking and “interacting with college students and others” in the city of some 4 to 6 million people in the northern portion of the country, said White, who was making his sixth India trip.
The team from Trinity consisted of White and his wife Sandy, along with Paul and Lynette Taylor, Butch Chavis, Kay Broughman and Sharon Walden. Polly Miller, a member of Convent Baptist Church in Lexington Association, accompanied the Trinity group, which, according to White, “drank a lot of tea and talked to a lot of people about Americans and our religion.”
“We wanted to help bridge the culture gap between America and India,” said White, explaining that the South Carolinians “couldn’t do open evangelism” in a country of mostly Buddhists and Hindus.
“The people were not hostile at all,” the Cayce pastor added, “but we did encounter a tremendous amount of spiritual warfare. Satan was not happy with our presence there.”
White, who formerly served on the state Baptist convention staff before accepting the Trinity pastorate, noted that “a lot of doors were opened for us to share. India is a very religious nation – and they openly practice their religion. In that sense, they put us to shame with their commitment.”
“Our call,” White pointed out, “was to prayerwalk, sow seeds of the gospel, knowing that we would sow, but not reap – and that others will reap where we have sown.”
White advises both patience and persistence on the part of all who have participated in the South Asia effort and those whose mission projects are yet to come: “We may not see many – and perhaps no – converts to Christianity, but we’re helping to spread the gospel, and God says that his word will not return void.”
The team from South Carolina witnessed a traditional Indian wedding.He continued, “Every time we go, arrows of light are shot into the darkness, and every arrow that hits leaves some light.”
White’s words about his group’s efforts in India can be applied to each project undertaken by South Carolina Baptists in South Asia. “Only eternity,” he said, “will validate what that trip has done. We want the people there to see Christ within us – to see something that is different about these Americans.”
He concluded, “We were obedient to the call of Christ. We went, shared, planted and watered – knowing that God will one day give the increase.”
South Carolina Baptists launched the South Asia partnership in 2005, the convention’s first with an entire region of the world. After two years, a total of 375 volunteers have taken part in the partnership, which includes the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
The region of South Asia is approximately half the size of the United States, but with five times as many people.
There are 1.45 billion lost people in South Asia, which accounts for 73 percent of the world’s unreached people groups. There is one Southern Baptist worker for every 6 million people.