Unity Needed on Independence Day
Greetings from your family and church members here in Imphal.
We always pray to God our loving Father for your physical health.
Today is our country's Independence day, however, we could not enjoy it and celebrate as many different terrorists boycotted our country's Independence Day. No one dares to go out therefore every one is staying indoors.
However, I went out just to visit a bereaved family. I went and prayed for family and also preached a comforting messages from the word of God.
Our state is upside down compared with the other states of our country; it is the terrorists who make our state like hell. But we hope that one day Peace and normalcy will reign in our state, when the majority of our state's population receives Jesus Christ as their Lord. For this cause we work very hard to tell the love story of our Lord to the nation. We have a great story to tell to the nation, a story of love and peace. Dear Papa, together we can surely change our nation with the love of God.
On the 12th August, we had another meeting with Churachandpur District Christian goodwill council for the Crusade. It is very unfortunate to have Christian leaders who have very narrow minds. I think it is because of a lack of understanding of the true scriptures and a lack of spiritual understanding. Many so called Christian leaders oppose us in many ways, from doctrine to many things. They are like Christian leaders without Christ. Many Christian leaders in Churachandpur told me directly that they only work with certain denominational doctrines, not with the Pentecostal movement. The offer of accomodation in the mission Guest room has been withdrawn again as we are from a Pentecostal background. They feel they cannot offer their guest room to us. Therefore, I have no choice left but to look for different accommodation. Out of my frustration, one man told us to rent his room for a price. I will look at his house on this coming 19th August in Churachandpur. Since I have had to frequently visit Churachandpur for the crusade I have invested a huge amount of money now.
We will be having a concrete talk with all the church leaders in Churachandpur again on the 19th August for our Crusade. As I told you, we hosted the leaders for the Crusade on the 12th August, and provided lunch since they came from different areas. After doing that and paying all the wages to our pastors and school teachers, we did not have much money left. We were not able to pay the bible college teachers' wages, and the room rent, but we bought food for the bible college. Therefore, we need another $500 AUD for the bible college teachers' wages and for room rent and for the Crusade organizing expenses. We have had to invest a lot of money to organize the crusade as we have gone to Churachandpur several times and we have also gone to many places in Imphal to visit churches and different leaders. It has cost us a lot of money for fuel and other expenses. Even now we do not have money to go to Churachandpur for another meeting on the 19th August as we are very tight in our finances. We are too limited and things are very hard now. But we trust God to provide all our needs.
Our church is trying to save money as much as we can because August to September every year in Manipur is the most difficult time for the people as there is no food or money. Therefore, our church tries to buy at least one tonne of rice to be distributed to the poor and hungry people. These hundreds of people are the poorest of the poor. They have no food and live with an empty stomach. They just cry for food. This year the situation compelled us to do something again as it is hard to see these poor and hungry people who are crying for food. Therefore, we have started working very hard to get money for rice for the poor people. We are trying to buy rice so that we can distribute it in the first week of September but we still don’t know how many bags of rice we can afford.
Please let us know if we are going to have a seminar in the day time during our Crusade because we need to book some bigger churches which can accommodate the hundreds of people that will come for the seminar. Since construction of the Diplomat Centre is on hold until further funds are available, we cannot have it here as there are no proper toilets for the people and no proper rooms or seating yet.
Regarding the bible printing work, on the 19th August I will be meeting the members again and I will let you know what happens. We continue to emphasise the urgent need for immediately completing the printing. We will pursue the matter with them until they give us the finished bibles.
The choir uniforms for our bible college students have all been bought and the students were very happy.
Everyone is very eager for your arrival and we all cannot wait for your safe arrival here at Imphal airport. We are looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you on the 18th September.
Bless you Papa.
Shalom.
Your missionary brother,
Minthang Suantak.