India Is Still Receptive

J. C. and Myrtle Bailey were over sixty when they left the comforts of their home in Canada to take the gospel to India. When they first went to India in 1963, there were only three known churches (small) in that nation. But that was the beginning of a great restoration, and today there are over five thousand known congregations of the Lords church in India with almost one million members.

It took a lot of faith for the Baileys to leave home, family, and friends to go to this strange land. They knew living conditions would be difficult. They did not know how things would work out, but they saw the need and committed themselves to the work with the help of many individuals and churches. Soon after their arrival, brother Bailey put an ad in a newspaper for translators. Two young men with college degrees answered. Joshua and Nehemiah Gootam began work with brother Bailey and were among the very first ones to be baptized into Christ.

He soon began a preacher training school known as the Kakinada School of Preaching (KSOP). Hundreds of men have been trained, and KSOP has a present enrollment of sixty five. In January of this year an extension of this school was established in Warangal.

For a number of years Perry B. Cotham has gone to Kakinada preaching to large crowds, and resulting in many baptisms. On his last trip he brought 2,500 Telugu Bibles, 250 Tamil Bibles, 375 Bibles for Nagaland, 3,000 Bible for Orissa state, 1600 Telugu New Testaments.

The church is getting started in Orissa state where 5,000 are enrolled in Bible correspondence courses. Brother Cotham says he does not plan to return to India. "I am glad I have lived long enough to realize the church has now been established in all the states (27), a goal I placed before the brethren in Kakinada several years ago. I had not only joy in my heart but a degree of sadness when the plane lifted off the ground in Madras for homeward journey, realizing that I would never again see India."

On his last trip to India Perry Cotham, who is 85, witnessed 697 baptisms at Guntur, Kakinada, and Warangal, as a result of his teaching.

If the lost are to be saved, they will have to hear and obey the gospel, so we must keep preaching it.

"Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified even as it is with you" (2 Thess.3:1).