Grace Bible Church working with Pastor

The picture shows the children in the orphanage assisted by the Spoudazo Ministry in India. (Photo taken from the church’s website)

As part of their mission work, the Grace Bible Church had the privilege of coming alongside Pastor Sudarshan as he helps diligently for the Gospel in India.

The church’s mission section revealed that Spoudazo is a Greek term for being diligent and making every effort. They added that it is the ministry of Pastor Sudarshan that covers the rural central coast of India.

They also noted that they serve in the local church by training the pastors and planting churches.

They also do evangelism to the unreached villages. They care for the orphans and widows. The church is also involved in helping with disaster relief.

Goals, Needs

The church website also posted both their short and long-term goals. First, they would buy logistics support items such as rechargeable speaker boxes, microphones, and LED lights. These items would be used in Gospel meetings and church planting, as posted on the webpage.

More importantly, they said they would buy local property to conduct both pieces of training of pastors and ministry to orphans or widows.

The development of ministerial material is part of their long-term goals, as mentioned on their website.

They wanted a fully functional ministerial school for a longer-term mission. They aim to have twenty confessional churches built and thriving.

Life in India

The church also revealed that over one billion people are living in India. They are comprised of thousands of language groups and religious sectors. They noted that 81% are Hindu, 16% are Muslims, and 2.3% are Christians.

Besides, they added that hundreds of countryside villages are on India's central-eastern coast. They said people experience so much poverty, and many are uneducated.

Impact of Environmental Factors

In line with this, a recent report from the Mongabay News website on Feb 11, 2022, revealed that houses along the eastern Indian coast had been affected by the exposure to continuous sea erosion and cyclones. They also had other environmental factors.

The website noted that some living in these affected areas close to the Bay of Bengal willingly transferred as the tidal waves hit their homes. Others, however, were resettled by the authorities.

The report revealed that this inter-state migration from such coastal disaster areas is also seen in Odisha, Andhra, Pradesh, and other states. They said that experts claim that not having concrete resettlement regulations for such internally displaced demographics is making things worse for these communities.

Rabindra Nath Pradhan, a resident of resettled Chhenua village, told Mongabay- India that it was their agricultural land once purchased by their ancestors.

These lands helped them relocate to the area as they did not get any land-related assistance from the government.

Pradhan also said in his interview that when they came to that village, they were nearly 40 households in 2000. All the homes got destroyed in 1999 because of the severe cyclonic storm.

He added that all of them transferred into the land. All of them survived as the cyclone arrived during the day; otherwise, they might not have come out safely, he stated.