TESTIMONIES OF REDEMPTION

One day in October 2003, ER’s founder Willys Braun, only five days away from a trip to India, was busy at his desk composing a letter, as usual, on his yellow legal pad. Later that day, after working in his garden and enjoying some of Thelma’s chocolate chip cookies, he lay down for a nap, never to awaken on earth again. That legal pad and pen remained on his desk as he had left them for some days after his death, crying out to those of us who remained to pick them up and continue the work. Sensing his time was short, Willys had invested time in me, the African missionary, to move into India. For several months he had worked with me to memorize the states of India and the names of our partners there. He was in communication with leaders in many countries where he hoped to expand. He worked right up to the moment he died, doing what he had done all his life – encouraging any who would listen to advance the cause of Christ.

Six years later Thelma Braun, having been given just weeks to live after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, spoke to her hometown crowd in Mansfield, Ohio. It had been three years since that diagnosis, and she had traveled to five countries to lead nine women’s conferences. Now, just days before her promotion to heaven, she told her hometown audience the job wasn’t done; we still had a world to win for Christ. Like Willys, Thelma finished well.

ER is in India thanks to Dr. Gene Davis, a veterinarian from Oregon.

When Dr. Gene first learned of ER’s Portable Bible Schools (PBSes) he and his wife, Vivian, flew to Congo and spent several weeks with Willys and Thelma Braun to evaluate whether PBSes could help evangelize India’s estimated 600,000 unchurched villages. He was convinced they could, and invited Willys and Thelma to India to introduce PBSes to ministry leaders in three regional conferences. Then he fully funded ten of those Indian leaders to study for nine months in ER’s School of Evangelism (SOE) in Nigeria.

In the early 1990s Dr. Gene purchased land and gave funds to several of ER’s partners to build SOE campuses. He spent long months in India, crisscrossing the nation, encouraging mission leaders. He focused especially on one unreached people group, the Banjara.

Thanks to his backing, hundreds of new Banjara lay pastors were trained in Portable Bible Schools and hundreds of new house churches were opened. So many Banjaras have turned to Christ they are no longer considered an unreached people group. Praise God!

Dr. Gene Davis finished well; on June 4, at the age of 90, he crossed his finish line. Evangelism Resources will ever be grateful for this amazing man and for his role in introducing ER to India.

Rev. Dr. Enosh Narzary is a very recent example of one who finished well. Enosh, one of our most effective and well-loved School of Evangelism directors, died June 5 of complications from COVID-19. Enosh worked hard at carrying out God’s call upon his life, taking the gospel message to Assam and beyond. He focused on reaching the unreached—the Miri, the Rajbangshis, the Ravidas, and the Brahmin. He had been preparing for the jubilee celebration of his ministry with ER and was building a library, to be named after Dr. Willys Braun. Enosh finished well by steadfastly continuing to do the Father’s bidding, right up to the end.

I live in India and for most of my life I lived in darkness. I was lost in the worship of man-made gods and goddesses. I had a friend who reached out to me about Jesus Christ. I decided I would follow Jesus. Shortly thereafter, this same friend came to my village and organized a 40-day Portable Bible School.

I enrolled and seriously followed the lessons and began to understand who Jesus really is. My darkness began to dissipate and my faith in Christ grew and grew. I really began to trust Him and to understand that He had a plan for me.

I was baptized during the PBS and I decided that I would live for Him. I also started teaching what I had learned at the PBS and a fellowship grew up around my lessons. There had never been a fellowship of Christ-followers in my village and now we have 60 to 70 believers meeting in the house church that I pastor.

At 12 years of age I came to know Jesus Christ. This happened as my father fell seriously ill and my mother was told he would not live much longer.

Desperation moved my older brothers to take our father to the church for prayers. I went with them. After this my father began to gradually get better. In a month’s time he was totally healed. This prompted me, my brothers, and my parents to place our faith in Jesus Christ.

Then, when I was 19, a Portable Bible School was held in a nearby village. I enrolled and stayed for the full 40 days. During that time, I felt God’s call on my life and began immediately to give my services to God and His kingdom.

I grew in knowledge and experience as I spent time speaking of Christ and working with the pastor. My anointing grew as well. I became convinced of God’s call on my life. God gave me families to pastor and as of this writing I have 32 people in my fellowship.

Besides his Computer Science degree, he had a Diploma in Islamic and Arabic Studies. But while studying the Qur’an and other Islamic texts he saw inconsistencies. “How heartbroken one can be,” he explained, “to be holding on to something all your life only to find out it’s all a lie!”

He hated Christians and could see no reason why anyone would die on a cross for his sins. But through the faithful witness of a friend, he became convicted by the claims of Jesus and of His love for him. “At this point,” he says, “I had no choice but to embrace the Truth.”

Ibrahim’s wife and daughter were taken from him because of his faith in Jesus.

He enrolled in the Nigeria School of Evangelism and in his early weeks on campus requested prayer for his chronic severe insomnia. The students and staff prayed for him and he slept soundly that night for the first time in years, and has continued sleeping peacefully since then.

Our Mobile School of Evangelism teams visited Hemer’s village weekly for three months, going from house to house, meeting with people, sharing the gospel and praying for the sick.

Hemer, a farmer, was strongly opposed to the gospel and would insult and threaten the team members when he saw them. But Hemer had a painful tumor in his neck that only got worse in spite of doctors’ treatments. The MSOE team members courageously visited his home, talked with him and prayed for divine healing for him. The Lord Jesus heard the prayers and healed him completely.

God opened his heart; he accepted Christ as his Lord and personal Savior and received baptism. Our Haryana-area partner writes, “Now Hemer is the ‘man of peace’ and a strong believer in his village. A church was born there. Praise God!”

“If this isn’t a miracle I don’t know what to call it,” says Félicité about the change in her husband. She had been a Christian for years but he, as she put it, “lived like a pagan, faithful neither to God nor to me.” But she loved God and enrolled last year in the School of Evangelism in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

“Gradually through the year,” she reports, “a change came in me and that had repercussions in my husband. He noticed that my language and attitude toward him softened and that I was becoming more loving, and that moved him.

“I was especially impacted by the Discipleship course. I learned that a disciple is like an apprentice who continually strived to resemble their master, as it says in Galatians 5:22-26.

“Since then, the Holy Spirit took hold of our home and began working in my husband. This man who had been a rascal for years received baptism in December and has agreed to formalize our marriage, in complete obedience to the Word of God. We pray and worship together in our home, something that never would have been possible before. For all this I say glory, glory, glory to God!”

Sister Santhosh was helped with humanitarian aid by our Rajasthan partners during India’s lockdown. She and her family began attending Sunday services on Zoom and other Bible study meetings. She eventually removed all her idols from her home and regularly reads the Bible and prays to the living God. Her family was completely transformed by the love of God and the help from His people in the time of their need.

Though I wanted to know the living God so I could worship Him and give Him glory, my family worshipped idols. I did not know any better. Bad things would happen to my family.

One day a pastor from the School of Evangelism came to my village and I heard the gospel for the first time. I accepted Jesus as my Savior that day. Soon this same pastor returned to hold a Portable Bible School, in which I enrolled. I had a hunger to learn of Christ’s teachings.

I was richly blessed and my love for the Lord grew. The PBS textbook, Called to Shepherd God’s People, taught me many things which I had not known. I dedicated my life to live according to the Great Commission.

After the 40 days of PBS I began to visit families and tell them about everlasting life in Jesus Christ. Many came to faith through these visits. Presently the Lord has blessed my ministry in two separate villages where I have started house churches. In one, 70 to 80 gather for worship and in the other, 100 to 120 are meeting. Both continue to grow.

she was only six when she lost both her parents. In her teenage years she was repeatedly abused and, according to our Sikkim ministry leader, “was possessed by her mother’s dead spirit.” Hopeless and alone, she tried to end her life. Somehow our partner learned of her and gave her a place to live in the dormitory of their School of Evangelism. They prayed with her every day until finally one night she was completely delivered. Praise the Lord! She accepted Jesus as her Savior, was baptized, and completed training in the School of Evangelism. Please remember Pavitra in your prayers.

Priyanka and Tuntun had been married seven years but had no child. Priyanka was taunted by her in-laws and neighbors for not having a child of her own. She longed for children and cried incessantly. She prayed to her 'gods' but there was no response.

One day she met Pastor Rajeev and his team and heard about Jesus Christ and what He had done for His people. She started praying to Him and devoted herself fully to Him. Her husband followed her footsteps. One year after becoming a believer, she gave birth to a son. Tuntun concluded their story with the following, "We are experiencing immeasurable happiness after coming to the Lord. We are blessed beyond imagination." .

Parvati, a village woman, had suffered for four months with severe stomach pain. She was treated with all kinds of local medicines but she found no relief. Finally she came for prayer and God healed her. She is doing well now.

I was profoundly lost before I met Jesus, living a life of sin and proud of it. I heard the gospel by a group of Portable Bible School students in 2015. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Since that day my life has been transformed.

My studies in a Portable Bible School and the School of Evangelism have equipped me to become a preacher of the gospel and a planter of small Bible groups. I lead three Bible study groups in a community north of the Capital. My goal is to train more leaders who will continue to plant more groups both locally and in the whole country. Please pray for me and for the spiritual growth of the people in my small groups.