Twenty years of Sri Lankan refugee work has suddenly opened a huge door for the Gospel in that island nation, now that the civil war there has finally ended.

In 2009 the civil war in the island nation of Sri Lanka came to an end with the total defeat of the Tamil Tigers, a separatist insurgency. The bloody fight for Tamil independence had lasted for 26 years, and about 100,000 people died from that protracted violence.

Throughout that war, body of Christ Ministries has been rescuing many tens of thousands of Tamils who fled the violence. Week after week, rickety fishing boats secretly unloaded the refugees into the shallow sea, to wade ashore onto the nearby Indian island of Rameswaram, where the Paulose family had been led by God to establish an enduring Gospel work. In a quiet agreement with the local authorities, Body of Christ disciples met and took in whatever refugees arrived on their shore, and cared for them until they could be transported to permanent refugee camps on the mainland. In exchange, BCM was at liberty to introduce the refugees to Jesus. Also, for over twenty years the government has allowed the ministry founded by Moses Paulose to freely plant churches throughout the South Indian network of Sri Lankan refugee camps. The Gospel was more eagerly received among so many who’s lives had been turned upside down, and thousands of them have believed in and followed Jesus over the years.

E-“VAN”-GELISM:  Mobilizing the Gospel into Every Unreached Village

The immutable heart within every facet of Body of Christ Ministry is our singular focus on getting the Gospel into every village of India where the Name of Jesus has not yet been heard….and there are plenty of them.  As near as anyone can figure, there remain about 500,000 villages throughout India where no one knows who Jesus is, nor how He has saved us by His Blood. That constitutes nearly a billion people, the rural 75% of the world’s second largest nation, tucked away within the vast fabric of her obscure villages. Every BCM school, outreach, clinic, conference, crusade, distribution, well, project and program is designed and scrutinized for contributing ultimately and significantly toward that goal. As a visiting American, this author has lost count of the number of villages I have journeyed into with BCM teams, observing people that are hearing the Gospel for the very first time. That spark of faith and hope, quietly arising in a sea of faces cloaked in curious doubt, is . . .

BCM employs every available means to bring the Gospel into unreached villages. Each one, whether van teams, education, medical, relief work, Jesus films, or just plain tracts and bullhorn, each plays an important role. Relief work, such as well drilling, carries the double benefit of rescuing those in grinding poverty, as well as creating a welcome for the Gospel, in villages where news of forgiveness in Jesus might otherwise be rejected.

Year after year, an endless river of Hindu pilgrims flows into Rameswaram from all parts of India, as has been so for countless generations. Under the mandate of ancient Hindu texts, each family comes to seek absolution from their sins, through superstitious rituals, bathing in the balmy sea, and the sprinkling of sacred temple water.

Some of the families who make this unique mecca also employ it as a sinister opportunity to rid themselves of demented, disabled, blind, deaf or disfunctional family members. They bring along sons, daughters, or other relatives who are a burden to care for. After the Hindu rituals, they abandon their unwanted kin alone on the island, and depart back to their distant home villages. Some simply put their derelict family members on a train, whose last stop in the geogaphic funnel of India is our island of Rameswaram, where they disembark to their final doom.