By Alexander Oyler*
INDIA— While we were preparing for our summer job, our translator, a national Christian who taught me a lot about sharing the Gospel, said, “If you’re going to be a Christian in India, you have to be prepared for persecution.” I didn’t know then that my life would be in danger. But I did know that he wasn’t afraid. He was willing to go to any extent to see people come to Christ.
We trekked through the mountains of India, going village to village to learn about the culture. We shared our faith and gave out tracts and Bibles. In one village, we came face-to-face with a conservative Hindu group, angry that we were giving out Bibles.
An angry mob of about 15 men showed up at our guesthouse and ordered us outside. The way that they were yelling at us made us pretty confident that we were going to get beaten. We were nervous and afraid, so we prayed. As we walked outside, the translator looked back at me and said, “If they start throwing punches, don’t fight back.”
My first thought was, God give me the strength to not deny you. Don’t ever let me be so scared that I deny you.
My second thought was about my friend, our translator. I knew that the chances were greatest that he would be beaten and I didn’t know if I could watch that. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I didn’t think I could stand by and watch this man get beaten — this man I had grown to love. So, I just prayed that their hearts would be softened, that they would be gentle.
And then, the last thought that went through my mind was to pray for a Paul-like conversion amongst these men.
They started talking about deporting us. They yelled at us. Then, they opened one of the tracts and made us read parts to them. The front of the tract says, “A word from our God.” The verse on the cover is a verse from John that says, “Jesus is the only way and there are no other gods.”
They asked us, “What does that say?” and “What do you believe?” and “What is your religion?”
We weren’t about to deny Christ, but there are serious consequences for being honest with these people. So, we prayed for strength and said, “We’re Christians.”
God answered a lot of prayers that day. They asked to see all of our media, our pictures and video, which were focused heavily on worship and idols.
We knew that if they found that stuff, we would be in even more trouble. So, my partner gave them his camera that we were using to take silly pictures on. It wasn’t a high-quality camera, but we showed them those pictures and they were satisfied. We know that God protected us because they had already seen my SLR camera and knew we had other cameras.
They asked for our documentation, and we were able to show them our documentation without giving it to them and without letting them see important things to write down.
They asked for all the tracts and Bibles we had with us, but since we had not finished our work, we weren’t willing to give all of them up. So, we pulled out some of the tracts and one of the Bibles and gave them those. We hid the rest deep in our backpacks.
When they started to search us, we prayed that they would not find what we had hidden because we knew that would mean severe punishment. And for whatever reason they decided to stop searching and didn’t find the rest of the materials. If they had found the materials, not only would those be lost, but we would certainly have faced beatings. The worst thing that could have happened would have been to lose all of our materials because we had no way to get others. In that area, we wouldn’t be able to get more.
It is hard to believe how many prayers God answered in those two hours that we were being interrogated. Instead of beating us, they kicked us out of the entire area. No one was harmed. They didn’t find out any more dangerous details. They only took a few tracts and none of our media.
We spent about an hour that night praying for the men, after we knew we had to leave. The next morning, they had called ahead and had people waiting for us. That was when we found out that they had burned the literature. But still, we prayed, “God, we know you’re powerful enough. We’ve seen it in the Bible. we know you’re powerful enough to save them.”
There was a boy who had shown us around the village. He heard us share the Gospel at least twice while we were there, but we were never able to give him any literature. This boy snuck out of his village that night and came to us. He said, “I heard you share the Gospel. I heard about this, and I saw you giving people books about what you were talking about. I want one. I need one.”
So, we gave this boy a Bible. He has a New Testament and a tract about Jesus. It was the saddest thing in the world to have to leave him there without sharing more. There are no Christians in this area, but this boy was thirsty for the Gospel.
Will you pray for this boy in India, who has no one to explain Jesus to him and people fighting him every step of the way? Will you pray for him as he reads his Bible? Pray that the Lord would give him understanding.
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Alexander Oyler is a mechanical engineering student at Texas A&M University and a member of Living Hope Baptist Church, College Station, Tex. He recently spent six weeks in India as an SA101 volunteer. For more information on SA101, visit the website for South Asian peoples, http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/special-interest/sa101/.