Another Missionary Facing Death Threats

Gospel for Asia missionary Daruka Abhi is the latest target of anti-Christian extremists in India. Daruka, who is the pastor of a 150-member GFA-affiliated church in Maharashtra, began receiving what has become a series of disturbing threats in April. The people making the threats say that they will kill Daruka, his wife and their child if he refuses to renounce Christianity and turn back to his former religion.

The person making the threats does so anonymously. However, he claims to be from a well-known anti-Christian extremist group. In an attempt to escalate the panic, the threats have become very personal, with the names of Daruka's family members being mentioned frequently.

Daruka is trusting God in the situation, and has no plans to meet the demands of the individuals making the threats.

Daruka's leaders in Maharashtra are asking for prayer for him and his family. This is not the first time they have faced persecution during his 13 years of ministry. His path to Christ was long and full of torment, and he has no desire to return to his former life.

Daruka was born into a high-caste Hindu family in Mumbai (Bombay), India. Although he lived a life of relative luxury, when Daruka was still a young man, his mother suffered a brain hemorrhage. Because of the family's wealth, they were able to obtain the best medical treatment for her. But civil unrest in the Mumbai area caused the banks to close, and Daruka's family was unable to continue paying for her treatments. Without access to their money, this family began pleading with the traditional gods and goddesses they worshipped, asking them to have mercy on this ailing woman.

When she died, Daruka felt as if his world had fallen apart.

"This incident broke me very badly from inside. I was not able to bear the great loss of my mother, as she was everything for me," Daruka said.

He was tormented by dreams in which he would see his mother screaming in pain. He sought solace in illegal drugs.

"I had no peace, and the future seemed to be dark and miserable. I had lost all hope in my life. So, out of my frustration, I decided to end my life," Daruka recalls.

As he contemplated suicide, his older sister came to his mind. He knew that someone would need to help arrange her marriage. So Daruka decided he would live for the sake of his sister. He also made another decision—coming to the conclusion that there was no God.

A few months after his mother died, Daruka went to Maharashtra to visit his aunt Divya, who was a Christian. Daruka had very little respect for Christians, but Divya refused to give up on her nephew. She shared the Gospel with him and invited him to a church operated by Christian missionaries.

"I realized that whenever my aunt and the missionaries shared the Gospel with me, I would experience a unique peace in my heart," Daruka recalls.

An amazing thing happened one day as his aunt and the missionaries were praying for him.

"I saw a vision, and the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me personally and said, 'My child, do not fear, till the end of the ages, I am with you. In My name, you are going to have eternal life. Henceforth, you are not an orphan, you are My child. I set you free from all kinds of bondages and addiction.' This was a very unique experience and encounter with the Lord Jesus and His people, and it transformed my life completely. I acknowledged and confessed my sin and received the Lord Jesus as my Savior on the same day," Daruka said.

He returned to Mumbai and immediately became involved in a local church. Soon he felt called to ministry, but when he shared this with his immediate family, they became angry.

"The result of my decision to follow Jesus yielded me nothing but a total boycott from the family and expulsion from the ancestral property, which I gladly accepted for the sake of following Christ," Daruka said.

Daruka returned to his aunt Divya's village, where he had decided to serve the Lord for the rest of his life. In doing so, he walked away from his well-to-do lifestyle and began trusting God for everything.

After serving on the mission field for a few years, he married a fellow believer, Vani, and they had a son, Zamkit. One day as his family was sharing the Gospel at an open-air meeting, a group of 12 anti-Christian extremists broke up the meeting and attacked them. They busted up their equipment, tore apart their Gospel literature and physically assaulted the young family. It took three months for them to recover from their injuries.

Just four months after the attack, Daruka saw Waliur, one of the men who had attacked him, taking his own child to a hospital near Daruka's home. This missionary, who had just recovered from the wounds inflicted by Waliur, immediately went to the hospital and began to pray for the child. The doctors told Waliur there was nothing else they could do for the child, but Daruka continued to pray, and the child was healed that same night.

When Waliur saw this, he repented of his sins, chose to receive Jesus as his Savior and offered his home as a place to meet for worship. As a result, his entire family chose to become Christians. Many people in the village were astounded by the change in Waliur's family and eventually chose to follow Christ, too.

In spite of being targeted by the anti-Christian extremists, Daruka is not losing his vision to reach this area of Maharashtra. He is praying that God will allow him to reach dozens of surrounding villages and plant at least three more churches in the area.

Leaders in Maharashtra ask that you pray for God's grace and protection upon Daruka and his family. They also ask that you would pray that the men who are threatening Daruka would come to know the love of the Lord. Pray also for the children in the Bridge of Hope center in Daruka's village.