Hello Friends,

Warm greetings!

I have just returned from yet another wonderful trip to Orissa, witnessing two great works of the Lord.

ONE: our new orphanage in southern Orissa.
Fifty destitute children from a hilly region have been taken in and are being provided with free food, accommodation, education, medical attention, parental care, etc. Most of these children did not have a school system in their native village. It was difficult for the young children to walk several miles on mountainous roads to go to school as they could not afford to stay in a boarding school in a distant town.

When the children are deprived of primary education, the family encourages them early on to try hands at work for the support of the family. They learn to work and grow up as illiterate menial laborers who earn a meager wage after the day’s hard work. Their economy is so brutally crushed that they have no strength to stand on their own and rise to a new height.

Education will surely improve their living condition, transform their community and set them on progress. And this is what we have been aiming at among other things through our child care program. Over a thousand children are being affectionately cared for in our orphanages at various towns.

TWO: the great Orissa Convention.

 

Over 30,000 people gathered for 4 days: 7 – 10 March. The venue was about 80 km from the new orphanage.

I have been a speaker at this convention for the past several years. It was my privilege again this year to minister to thousands of people. Please see my blog for some pictures.

 

 

The convention is a wonder in many ways. I encountered 9 wonders:

1. A small village community became the host of this convention. Most of the villagers are menial laborers.
2. The little local church had also undertaken for a colossal need of fixing a huge tent, PA system, water supply, electricity connection, and other logistics of such a giant event.
3. People who attended the convention were mostly poor. But they travelled from all parts of the region spending their own money and made provision for their 4-day stay in the village. All they needed was an open field.
4. A small stream was the source of water for the village. It gets dry in summer; water is not enough even for one village. Only God knew how the water was enough for the use of thousands of people.
5. People woke up very early, finished their morning chores, cooked their food and went fully determined to sit through the meetings. There was not a break for tea, coffee or water. The meeting commenced each day at 9:00 A.M. and ended at 7:00 P.M. with just a two-hour free time for lunch.
6. There were no chairs to sit. People squatted on the ground the whole time.
7. There were no fans or air-condition. People sat under a huge tent. The weather was warm and humid, 90 degree Fahrenheit. A piece of paper or a hard cover in their hands served as the fan.
8. Nobody felt like eating food or drinking some water during the meetings. It appeared as though nobody needed to go to the bathroom (if fact there were no bathrooms; people had to nurture God’s creation everywhere they found a tree in the open field).
9. There was hunger for God’s word that only God could satisfy.

I was greatly overwhelmed by the warmth of the people and their desire for spiritual things. I wish some of you could go there with me some day to see the amazing movement of the Spirit.

Thank you so much my friends for praying for me. The Lord has heard your prayers and prospered my journey. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

With Greatest Hope,

Joab Lohara.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
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THE RIPPLE EFFECT
MESSAGE FOR FEBRUARY

I recently chanced upon reading Anita Roddick, known for her outstanding work for the disadvantaged children in Asia and Easter Europe. She observed, “If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito around you.”

That, I thought, was powerful, not just humorous.

The reason many people cannot think out of box is because they think they are too small to impact. Many churches do not want to go outside the boundary line because they think they are small.

But the fact is, God can put them on the world map, no matter how small a group or a person is. If the simple act of a pebble dropped into a pool of water results in ever expanding ripples, just imagine the ripple effect when God is in it.

When Calvary Commission began in India in the year 1986, it was small, fledgling. A dear friend reminded me a week ago how we suffered for a few rupees to buy fuel to go on an outreach. I know the existential difficulties of a Christian worker in a country like mine, especially when one has to work in a new place with no friend or a relation. I had left home with a borrowed suitcase. I still remember the words of that friend who gave me his bag: “Joab, God wants to bless you; when He blesses, remember me!”

That friend had the faith to see through my future before I ever knew anything about it. I had to be relocated in a new state; everything was alien and everybody a stranger. But the Lord was with me, the same Lord whom I had met while in my hometown. That made the difference. The ripple effect was far reaching; impact of what God has done with me is felt by at least 100,000 people today in 14 states of India.

If God could do it with a poor, Lohara boy from an obscure mountain village, he could do it with anyone. He could use a brilliant attorney like Finny to be the father of American revivalism; He could also use a poor cobbler like Carey to be the father of modern missions;

I got a mail from a far off country recently. A friend asked, “If I wanted to give a modest ongoing support, what would you suggest it would go for?”

I would say, no giving is modest and no giving is too large for the Kingdom of Christ. He could use a boy’s lunch to satisfy the multitudes or a fortune like that of C. T. Studd to reach the world.

Take heart, my friend! The kingdom waits for you just as you are. Our Lord is not way too much impressed by the riches of a young ruler, nor is He disappointed by a widow’s mite.

As the Book of Job says, “If you are pure and upright, He would awake for you, and prosper your rightful dwelling place. Though your beginning is small, yet your latter end will increase abundantly.”

Never hesitate, my friend, to invest in eternity. As C. S Lewis said, “All that is not eternal is eternally useless.”

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FIRST DREAM OF THE YEAR!
MESSAGE FOR JANUARY  

Hello Friends,

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting our web site.

If you do not know me personally, I want you to know that I do not believe in missions. Upset?

Just a second! When I say I do not believe, what I mean is I do not believe in missions if you are talking about one that is badly crippled or has the looks of an old jalopy stuck in the mud.

I read Charles Spurgeon when I was 18. Ma…n, he beat the restlessness out of me! His words were awesome: “Any fool can say I will do as much as I can. But he that believes in Christ’s power does what he cannot do."

In other words, if we believed faith in Christ has the genius of transforming the barely possible into actuality, our mission would move on to attempt the impossible.

There was a time I brushed aside Carey’s famous words: “Attempt great things for God…” A frail and shy young man that I was, I said, that’s not for me. The only thing I could possibly do was, submit to the heavenly vision.

30 years have passed. We have seen Christ’s power at work. How else could we ever initiate 3 mega missions like Calvary Commission India, Aim Asia and the Immanuel Fellowship Churches?

My wife Suchitra and I have been responsible for training over 500 native workers who now help us take care of thousands of destitute children, widows, leprosy victims and aids patients. Our orphanages and vocational training centers have specialized in raising a new generation of godly, industrious, talented young men and women. Hundreds of literacy schools and praise plants across the sub-continent are like the cherry on the ice.

Our commitment remains as fervent as ever to uplift the poorest of the poor. We invite you, my friend, to partner with us to offer hope to a world in need and watch the communities transform.

Yours because of Calvary,

JOAB LOHARA
President/CEO