Urgent Prayer Requested
UTTAR PRADESH, India, Nov. 17, 2006—Five first-year students from a Gospel for Asia home Bible school in Uttar Pradesh state were brutally attacked this morning by a mob of Hindu militants. The incident occurred while the students were engaged in an outreach ministry at a month-long regional festival.
The students reported that as they were en route to their ministry site, a group of 10 men followed them on their bicycles. At one point, the radicals stopped the students and started whipping them with heavy leather belts. The students were badly injured, and one collapsed.
Burning all the Gospel literature, the militants threatened the students, saying that if they continued telling people about Jesus, they would be burned alive.
Simon John, a GFA regional director, said that similar incidents are happening throughout the region.
“We have 14 teams engaged in outreach ministry,” he explained. “Three days ago this same group attacked another team near a railway station and burned all their literature.”
“Due to the close proximity of this region to Ayodhya [a city with many religious sites], it is a hard soil for the Gospel and for the missionaries,” John added. “There is much opposition and persecution in these areas, but God is doing great things there.”
GFA missionaries have planted a church in the city, John reported, and just last month 20 new Christians made public professions of faith.
John asks for prayer for the entire region, as well as for the students who are engaged in their outreach ministries.