How a Hindu Man Became a Believer and a Missionary in Just One Day
Hello everybody and welcome to this edition of the Unknown Nations Podcast, highlighting what God is doing in the most spiritually dark places in the world. That's what today's episode is all about.
We are talking about one man, the power of one. I love these kinds of stories. The power of one man who was a Hindu, became a Christian, and became a great missionary all in the same day in one of the most hostile environments imaginable.
My name is Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations and we have the honor to serve God by helping the most zero access, barrier ridden, spiritually antagonistic, spoken word reliant people groups on the planet giving birth to the church in impossible places. And today's story, we are going to be talking about this individual and the transformation, not over days, not over weeks, not over months, but literally immediate transformation of an individual in the country of India. This is a story truly of how light prevails in the darkness, because when you're talking about the country of India, what we're talking about is ground zero.
What I mean by that is when I give the list, barrier ridden, zero access, spiritually antagonistic, spoken word reliant, we intentionally use those phrases to describe places that don't have access to the gospel. They're places that when Jesus' name is shared, there's a hostile reaction. Those are places that if I give someone a printed Bible, it's probably not going into their heart because they can't read.
They're what's called oral learner. And an oral learner is someone who prefers to learn in a non-literate way. And so if I just keep on giving them printed scripture, as wonderful as that is, and we are a huge advocate of Bible translations and obviously the Word of God, it's not going into their heart because they prefer to learn in a non-literate way.
And then of course, when we're talking about the barrier ridden, I'm not sure how much more barrier ridden you can get than a place that has literally thousands and thousands of gods that they're worshiping. And it's entrenched into the culture. India is such a fascinating country.
The reason we call it the ground zero location is because there's about 1.3 - 1.4 billion people in it. And it is the most populated Hindu country in the world, over a billion Hindus living there. And at the same time, it's the third most populated Muslim country in the world.
So Indonesia is the most populated and then the country of Pakistan, which is neighboring to India. And India is number three. But get this, within the next few years, it'll probably be in the neighborhood of 25 years approximately, India will become the most populated Muslim country.
So at the same time, the most populated Hindu country and the most populated Muslim country. Now that doesn't mean that everybody's unreached, just the fact that you're Hindu or Muslim does not mean you're unreached, which is I don't have access to the gospel. That's not what that means.
But what it does mean is that's a great barrier. And in those hostile environments, it's hard to see the gospel penetrate because most Hindus and Muslims, they say, well, over 80% will never meet a Christian in their lifetime as it stands right now. And so here we are in this country, and particularly in the Northeast quadrant, there's a state called Bihar.
So Bihar is a state, just like Michigan or Florida is a state in the United States, Bihar is a state in the country of India that borders Nepal, so it's the Northeast. They say that the highest concentration of unreached people groups in the world live in that part of the world. It's a big priority, isn't it? Or it should be anyway.
Bihar is a country of 126 million people. It's about the size, roughly, of Iowa that has maybe six or seven million people. Bihar, same size, 126 million, I mean, it is packed, concentrated with people, 85% Hindu and roughly 15% Muslim, 0.1% Christian.
That is a small minority among 126 million people. And then the neighboring state is called Uttar Pradesh, and that is no different, except it has more people in it than the state of Bihar. So instead of 126 million, there's 267 million people, same percentage of Hindus and Muslims.
So that's almost 400 million people just in two states in the country of India. That's where our story took place. There was a man, and he would walk every single day, and he was a hard worker.
And he was a Hindu guy, and he knew a lot of the communities and kind of walking past these villages. Now, what he didn't realize is that some of our indigenous leaders had done treasure distribution. So, they'd taken our solar-powered audio Bible.
Again, these people require an audio way to learn the Word of God. And so there they are listening. It was really interesting because when I visited this place, I asked them to simulate their listening group.
And so I was in this community, and the person in the middle, he had his audio Bible, his Treasure solar-powered audio Bible, and he was holding it like this. And they got in a very uniform lines in front and behind, and they all sat there, and the guys were over here, and the ladies were over here. And it felt really kind of staged to me.
And I said, "no, no, no, I need you to act like I'm not even here," because I wanted to get a picture of it, because it was so powerful, and I wanted to be praying for this listening group. And I said, "please act like I'm not here." And they were like,"oh, oh, oh."
And so a couple of them got up, and they kind of shuffled around, and they sat back down in the exact same pattern. And I was going, they're not understanding this. So third time I said, "I need you to act like I'm not here."
Finally, the translator's like, Greg, this is how they do their listening group. And so there they are, man in the middle, holding up the treasure like this, playing the Bible in the Hindi language. Now, these villages, I want you to picture a place that maybe you would go camping, a primitive campground, you know, these little trails, and you've got these huts all over the place.
You've got cow paddies that are stacked on top of the walls, because they sun them, and then that becomes their fuel. And when the cows do their thing, I literally will watch ladies like going in with their hands and just packing them like this and sticking it on the wall. I mean, that's regular life.
It's very, from a standpoint of the sanitation, just imagine the sicknesses that are waterborne, that are, I mean, if their hands are, you know, getting so dirty, they've got a lot of challenges in these communities. And yet, there's a lot of joy as well. There's a lot of fulfillment and contentment, if you will.
But they've never heard the gospel. And so, here they are listening to the Word of God, and this guy's walking by and he sees all these people, and he was drawn to that. You know why he was drawn to it? Because it was the Hindi language.
It was his heart language. Friends, there's something powerful that happens when you listen to the word of God in your heart language. The thousands of languages, and we are so proud that we have over 4,000 languages on the treasure because there's so many different heart languages.
Now, you might understand one language, but your tribal language, your heart language, that's the one you really want to hear. The testimony we've probably heard more than any other over the years is, your God speaks my language. Nothing gives me more joy when I hear that testimony.
And so, here this brother is, he's walking past there, and he stopped, and he listened, and he listened, and he listened, and then he'd keep going on to work. Well, this pattern happened over the course of two weeks every day. And so, he would walk past, and he would stop, and he would listen, and then he would go on his way.
Well, we happened to show up in this particular community. And again, we had asked them to arrange themselves in a listening group, and then the Lord put on our hearts and our team that was there to throw the knot. That is, share the gospel.
Because there was a crowd that had gathered around, and they were so intrigued by our presence there. And so, we shared the good news message of Jesus Christ. And this man who God had been preparing was there, and he received Jesus that day.
So, we said yes to Jesus, and people were really pretty excited, this group of people. They saw family members and friends and community people who had received Jesus that day. And so, we asked the question, and we said, well, tell us your story, and this guy started telling us.
He's like, "I walked past this little area for the last two weeks, and I'd see a group of people gathering, and they had this little thing up there, and I was listening."
And his story was, it brought peace into my heart. So this guy, he has no idea. He's been serving a religion that worships thousands of gods, and he comes in contact with the Holy Spirit because the Bible says, "my word will not return void."
And that's exactly what happened in that encounter. It was a supernatural encounter where the word of God struck this brother's heart, and he was drawn into it. It brought peace to his heart. Isn't that precious? And so, we explained to him who that was. That was the Holy Spirit.
We said, "the Holy Spirit was reaching out to you because God loves you, and he paid the ultimate sacrifice for you for this moment right now, and now you are his child. You are a child of the living God."
And he, I mean, you could tell he was getting excited about this idea. Well, this guy was kind of used to walking around, walking around, and so I really felt that I was going to give him a Treasure. So I thought, man, this guy's motivated. And I kind of put it, reached it, and then I pulled it back, and I said, "hold on."
Somebody, you, maybe a friend of yours, made it possible for a Treasure to go into that community. It wasn't us. We didn't have the resources ahead of time.
Somebody supported Unknown Nations that allowed us to invest this treasure into that village and that time, and it impacted that guy's life. And so, I was getting ready to hand him another one, and I reminded him. I'm like, "hey, somebody is allowing you to have this audio Bible. I'm going to give it to you. So I didn't need to ask you the question. How many people are you going to share it with?"
And this brother looked around, now, if you can picture India, or if you've ever been to India, I just want you to know that in every direction you look, 1.3 billion people, that's a lot of people, there are villages, there are communities in every single direction.
I mean, you could come up to a village and there might be 200,000 people in just, hey, this little village, and you're like, this is like a big city. Well, there's a lot of people here. And so, in every direction, there's thousands of people.
And this guy looked around, he took my question very seriously. He looked around, and he said, "before I see you the next time, I will have shared this with 2,000 people."
So get that picture. I mean, in the morning, this is a guy who is serving thousands of false gods, a Hindu man, good man, but he had no idea of who the Savior of the universe was. He had no idea who Jesus was as the Son of God, and that he gave his life for him. So he learns about Jesus, receives Jesus, decides he wants to become a missionary, and says he's going to reach 2,000 people, all in the course of about four hours.
That is the power of the gospel. And so, this guy went off, and he took his audio Bible, and he began setting up listening groups, and he has already, we have been hearing, he is well on his way. He's way over 1,000 people have heard the gospel because of this one uneducated man, never went to seminary, brand new baby Christian.
Friend, one of the most significant impacts of the Treasure distributions is its mobilization effect. Somebody in the U.S. invested in us, somebody else was praying for that, they put that in this guy's hand, and he immediately got mobilized and became a missionary. I believe that's the message for all of us.
All of us are called to end the ends of the earth with just villages, very much considered ends of the earth, or it was anyway, now there's a bunch of Christians in there. And all of us have a role in it. Whether it's praying, whether it's giving, somebody put the treasure in that guy's hand.
It's not about the person who goes there. It's not about me becoming a missionary. Greg doesn't go to these places.
Very rarely do I get to these places. It's about the indigenous leaders that are there, but you have your role in it. Thank you for praying.
Thank you for joining us in that. I just want to encourage you to ask the Lord of the universe, what's your role in end the ends of the earth? Are you praying? Are you maybe helping us? Are you sharing this podcast? That would be an amazing way. Would you consider going to unknownnations.com and giving us a favorable review on this podcast, sharing this podcast, this story with someone else who needs to be encouraged? And you can say, hey, you know, there's this guy who got saved and 2000 people was his target on day one.
Hey, that can be part of your story too. So we are so grateful for you. We're grateful for you believing in us.
And again, just want to encourage you to, if you get on the website, you can also get to a weekly prayer update. We will send you the name of a people group, a nation from a country like India that you can embrace, that you can be praying to the Lord of the universe to send forth labors into those places. Join us, be a part of this assignment, the greatest assignment in history, which is to make disciples of all nations.
We are blessed by you. My name is Greg Kelley, and you've been listening to the Unknown Nations podcast.