When we left Nepal, we met up with the brother of our friend Santosh Kumar, who we met in West Michigan a few years ago. Lalit Kumar traveled with us into the Orissa Region, to his family's home-town village of Chelligada. Along the way he pointed out several areas where churches had been burned and villages had been ransacked in the 2009 uprising against Christianity.
The Kumar family is no small presence for Christianity in
the vilage of Chelligada. The patriarch is pastor of the largest church in the
area, and his sons lead a ministry that seeks to train pastors and expand
orphanages. We were housed in a home
built by Aksaya, one of their cousins who also a leads a Christian school in
northern India. He was a very capable
translator as well as a generous host.
Our time in his home was blessed and we shared from early morning to
late night about the amazing love of our wonderful Lord Jesus. They were very kind and watchfully protective
of us during our time there. What a loving family!
