India is an amazing tapestry, a global focal point of language, religion and burgeoning populace.

We find, woven into the fabric of the nation of India, that:

• India is small; one third the size of the US; only 2 ½ % of the world’s land surface.
• India has four times the U.S. population; well over one sixth of the world’s people.
• Among all nations, only America has more farmable land than India.
• India has 18 official languages, 58 school languages, 87 newspaper languages.
• Within all those languages are found nearly 2,000 distinct dialects.
• By 2018, India’s population will be about 1.5 billion; larger than that of China.
• While 80% Hindu, India still holds the world’s second largest Muslim population: over 150 million, second only to Indonesia.
• At the current birth rate, India will fully double in population in about 43 years.
• Although three of the world’s biggest cities are in India, 80% of her people dwell in the 750,000 remote villages that endlessly dot the countryside.  About ½ million of those villages have never even heard of the Name of Jesus.

In light of all these facts and facets, India looms large as a challenge and priority for the disciples of Jesus, in our quest to convey the Gospel to all who have not yet heard.

Although India has been effectively closed to conventional foreign missionaries for several generations, there is a growing explosion of village church planting through native evangelists and pastors. It is spreading out from indigenous churches in every state of India, through trained and zealous Gospel workers, who are resolutely enduring the sacrifices incumbent in reaching all of India for Jesus.  Often there is enormous opposition at the village and regional level, as we saw in Orissa in 2008.  Despite the native evangelists’ natural grasp of Indian culture and language, there are still daunting obstacles of caste, dialect, poverty and religious fear and hatred.  Many of the native pastors have been called to venture among the 50 million tribal people of India, who still live beyond any reach of commerce, roads, medicine, electricity or literacy.  In that world, the Gospel workers also face regular peril from the unchecked plethora of wild elephants, bears, tigers and serpents, as they travel alone from village to village. Although these disciples work tirelessly in the obscure shadow of deprivations, they alone are doing what we in the West cannot do ourselves: to get the Gospel of Jesus to those in India who have never heard of Him. It is our strategic privilege to partner with them in this crucial work, in encouragement, in equipping and support.