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Related Titles: Plymouth Brethren Missionary Story; Christian Brethren Salvation Story; Brethren Assembly Missionary And Evangelist In Bihar, India; India Conversion Story
Last Updated: 2008 June 08. Testimony On: 2008 June 08
The father publicly disrupts an open air meeting and drives the evangelist away only to have a sleepless night and be saved after inviting the evangelist home. He then gets baptized by jumping into the river to the evangelist while his mother followed him to stop him. The wife later hits the evangelist with a dirty broom, only to be herself saved along with her three children. One of the children grows to become an evangelist and works with the other evangelist whom his mother had hit with the broom.
This is a personal testimony of Evg. P J Tomy, missionary to Bihar, India, on how he and his family were saved from a staunch Roman Catholic background.
Photo: The typical Indian baptistery. This is nothing more than the bank of a river filled with mud.
Our family are immigrants to Malabar from the Kottayam district of Kerala. We lived in a village in Malabar where Catholics are the only Christians to be found. Gospel was unheard of in that village.
The village Catholic Church has a special Mass on Christmas night. It was on one of those nights that the village heard the gospel for the first time. Evg. P M Mathew from Calicut came there and preached the gospel. The village has limited transportation facilities. Therefore, catholic believers would walk from distant places to the Church for the 3 AM Mass on Christmas day
Evg. P M Mathew attached a loudspeaker to a tree and started preaching the gospel to those flowing in to the Church for the mass. Thought intended them to hear and understand it rightly, hardly anyone did. Among them was my father.
The house of my and his three bothers was in a row in a field. All of them shared one Bible which was kept at the ancestral home. Even though nobody else would read it, my father would bring that Bible from the ancestral home everyday and read it to us, and return it. My father was extra religious. He had an understanding of the Catholic teaching of Saints, Woman Saints, and Intercessory Prayer. It was strange for him that someone preached this new gospel in that village.
Evg. P M Mathew arranged open air meetings at the nearby junction on the
subsequent days. My father decided to drive Evg. P M Mathew away at any cost and
gathered a few able people to this end. They reached the site of the open air
meeting.
When Evg. P M Mathew started preaching, my father stood right opposite to him
and started asking questions. These were not intended at getting answers, but to
somehow create a problem situation and drive the evangelist away. The strategy
worked. Evg. P M Mathew stopped preaching and returned to his rented room nearby
and closed the door. My father followed Evg. P M Mathew and continued the
questions standing outside the door. After sometime, my father returned home.
My father did not have sleep in the night. The answers he got to the questions
he asked bothered him. He went back to Evg. P M Mathew in the night, telling him
that he had come not to trouble him. My father and invited Evg. P M Mathew him
to his house, studied the gospel for about six months, and was saved.
My father decided to get baptized. He was the favourite son of his mother and
was sure that she would not allow this to happen at any cost. His mother was
very religious, she would go to Catholic Church every day at 5 AM and come back
home only after all services were over. The only solution was to arrange the
baptism on a Palm Sunday, when his mother would be religiously attending the
Church Service.
My father went around and told the entire village that he is getting baptized. Being the first of its kind, everybody was interested to know what it was. Around 300 people gathered at my house on that Sunday morning to witness the baptism planned in the nearby river.
While Evg. P M Mathew prayed at the house with my father to start for
baptism, his mother rushed back home from the Palm Sunday service at Church to
stop her son from changing the religion. She did not wait to collect the sacred
coconut palm leaf, as she got a hint of what was going to happen at home. She
put her arm gently around my father during prayer. The grip tightened after the
prayer was over. As expected, she would not let my father go for baptism at any
cost.
Finally, my father ordered his younger brother to forcefully take his mother
away. Evg. P M Mathew and my father proceeded to the riverside with 300 people
following them in a procession. Evg. P M Mathew started sharing to the large
gathering of people at the riverside about the meaning of believers baptism. In
the meantime, my grandmother convinced my father's brother that she will not
create further trouble, escaped from him, and reached the place. She again
caught hold of my father and will not let him go into the river for baptism.
Finally my father told Evg. P M Mathew to go into the waters and promised to
jump into it to get baptized. But when my father jumped, his mother also jumped
along with him. She again gripped my father and will not let him be immersed.
Finally my father managed to sternly stop her and get baptized. My mother abused
Evg. P M Mathew and angrily poured water over his head before leaving for home
since everything was over anyway.
Back home, my grandmother arranged my mother to use whatever means she can to
bring my father back to the Catholic faith and to abuse anyone coming to the
house to talk about this faith. Evg. P M Mathew continued to come to our house
for Bible study. All the time, my mother would abuse him. One day when Evg. P M
Mathew came, my mother greeted him with a dirty broom and hit him on his head
with it. Evg. Mathew stood and wept, prayed, and left for that day, but did not
stop his coming.
After about six months, it so happened that my mother and two sisters sat for one of the Bible studies and were saved. My grandmother had arranged my mother to bring my father back to Catholic faith. Instead of that, now the entire family was lost.
Our family at that time in 1981 was sustained by my mother doing manual labour for Indian Rupees 6 a day. The Catholic Church excommunicated our family and ordered that no one should have any contact with us. In a village of Catholics, people stopped employing my mother. We were in a great crisis. Evg. Mathew would share the story of our family in other places from where believers used to send us some help through him. Our family was sustained for tow long years in this manner.
Our village is filled with mountains. We used to go to the mountain tops and share the gospel. One night as we were returning back, I wanted to be born-again but did not do that due to some inhibitions. I shared this with my father. We returned to Evg. P M Mathew in that night and invited him to our house. I accepted the Lord that day.
I committed myself to the service of the Lord in 1990. First five years I served in Kerala along with Evg. P M Mathew whom my mother had hit with the broom. For the remaining twelve years, I serve the Lord in Bihar.
When I left for Bihar, I had nothing as an asset except for my trust in the Lord. It was terribly hot when we reached there. My daughters also developed blisters on their heads due to the extreme temperature. We were working with an orphanage. My wife, two daughters, and the six children in that orphanage went down with severe diarrhea.
Soon I also went down with yellow fever in a place where there are no medical facilities. By the time we realized it was yellow fever, it had reached a serious condition. Some of the sisters who worked in government hospitals far away brought few medicines home to do the very little possible help to us.
Word was passed around the brethren all around for some herbal medicine that
is traditionally used for yellow fever. Brothers searched all fields everywhere,
but it was nowhere to be found. There we no green leaf found anywhere in that
extreme hot climate. However, one day when we moved out team vehicle, we found
some sprouts of the very same herb that I needed, in the shade provided by the
vehicle parking.
Twelve years later, I am still alive as a living testimony that Jesus Christ
lives and still changes lives in miraculous ways. My elder daughter studies in
eighth standard and younger one on LKG. We are here on connection with their
annual vacation.
There are thousands of villages in Bihar that have never heard the gospel. We go to these villages and share the gospel. God used us to plant churches in four villages. In Bihar we are all alone for strength and encouragement. It is refreshing to see other fellow believers after a long time.
Will the God of Evg. P M Mathew be your God? Will you live with the same perseverance and power of the Holy Spirit like him to change lives? Will you commit your life to serve Jesus Christ in one of those villages in Bihar that has never heard the gospel?
Evg. P J Tomy, 5A/31, North SK Puri, Pattiputra, 800 013, Patna, Bihar, India.
Bihar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
India - CIA, The World Factbook