his support and prayers. I hope he'll be back again with us. I was planning he would be with us again in the month of November, but due to his schedule, he's not able to, but hopefully he'll be able to come for our pastor's conference maybe next year. We're praying that he'll come and encourage us in the word of the Lord there. We usually have a pastor's conference in the month of November, and we get about 100, 150 of them come. And just to be encouraged from from God's people, men of God who come from the States to preach there and to encourage them. So do pray for many of them. Just want to thank you for your prayer and financial support. Last time I was here we talked about building the a building for the college building that we were, in memory of my father, for the library, dining hall, and fellowship hall for the students. And we were happy that this year, on July 19th, we dedicated the building. It cost us a little bit over one point, yeah, a little bit over one million dollars. And we thank God how the Lord had provided. It took us ten years. to construct the building, and every one of you were part of it. All our supporting churches, prayer partners, and financially helped us. And we thank God for the way the Lord has provided, and now the building is all paid for. We are debt-free, and so that's the good thing. And so we thank God, and I just want to thank the church for your love and support for that work. And do continue to pray for us as we labor there in India. This year we started our academic year with 310 students. Our academic year goes from July to March, and so we started this year to pray for many of these young men and women who come from different parts of India and also Nepal, that they'll come and study and go back. The Lord's been using many of these young people in a very wonderful way. I had the privilege of going and visiting some of them in the month of February in Nepal and Northeast India, just meeting with some of the graduates and how the Lord is using them in different parts of the country, as well as some of them are serving the Lord in China. About six graduates are in China serving the Lord there, working in the hotel industry there, in the tourism and other things, and they said that they're serving the Lord and having Bible studies with the people there. And it's just a joy to see how God is using our men and women, not only in India, but also in Nepal, Bhutan, and Southeast Asia. Some of them have gone into Vietnam area, and Cambodia, and Thailand, and are serving, just having an impact. And I know many of you may not be able to go to these areas, but through your prayer and finances, you've helped the Gospel to get across to the different parts of India. We have one of our graduates working in Nigeria, southern part of Nigeria, Mother Mark Woodham, and started a ministry, a church planning ministry. And we just thank God that we're able to help him a little bit in doing that kind of work. And so you see how God is using and getting the people, getting the gospel out in different regions of the world. And you have a small portion in it. And we thank you for your love and prayers. So do continue to pray as God uses many of these young people in different parts in serving India. And we do face a lot of opposition to the gospel. And now this year we had elections in the month of March, April, and we have a pro-Hindu government, so do pray for us. They're already starting to tighten up a lot of things according to the Christians. We do have the freedom of religion, but the way they say that is that you as Christians can practice your religion, but you don't have to go and evangelize. You don't have to go and share the gospel. You can practice your religion, but there's no necessity for you to do that. And if you do that, then there is consequence. They have been trying to impose a law called the anti-conversion law. that causes us not to go and preach. And if you do convert people, you'll be arrested. And that goes for the Hindus, Muslims, or Christians. You cannot do that. And people have been arrested, many Christians, pastors, and all of them. And so, do pray for us that God will continue to give us the courage that we will continue to evangelize and share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. People are hungry. People are seeking the truth, that they can find peace. And we get quite a few times we meet people that we have come across and know them and sometimes they'll come and just ask us in the conversation, do you have a Bible in our language? We'd like to read. I remember just a man in the month of March, we were having a Bible conference and visited us, a friend of the family. sitting out in the area, sitting in a room area. He was there just sitting, heard the singing, and he said, very strong Hindu man, practices Hinduism very strongly. And then he says, I want a Bible in my language. I want to read about it. And so that gives us opportunities without forcing them, that they ask us, and we're able to give the scriptures to the people, and they're able read the word of God and they come and ask us questions and we're able to share what their concerns are. People of India, Hindus and Muslims and others are educated people. Most Hindus have read the scripture, some of them, and they know what the Bible says and so they have questions. Just talking to a man who was an engineer, worked on some of our projects there. He was an electrical engineer and worked on some work at the press area, where we had the press. One day he retired and he said, I went out, all traveling, all the religious sites, sacred religious sites for Hindus around the world, around India. He said, I went, I wanted to find one with God. And so he said, after I retired, he just said, I traveled from Kashmir all the way to Kanyakumari, which is from the north to the south. He said, I visited all the religious sites. He said, but there was one place that really impressed me, and he was telling about this temple. And so he said, I went into this temple, and there was nothing there, but it was a building, and there was light, a lot of light coming in, there was a little, curtain, white curtain in the back of the temple. And so we asked, we saw in many temples you see a lot of idols of gods, different gods and goddesses that they worship. He says, you don't have any temples. So the priest said, yes, there's no idols in this temple. He says, you got to understand, God is a spirit. And he says, you open that curtain, what do you see? Light. He said, God is light. And this is a Hindu priest, he said. And he began to share that with us. And then I said, you know what? That's what the Bible teaches us. Jesus Christ said, I am the light of the world. And so that's how we begin to make our conversation, discuss about religion and things like that because many times they find some things from scripture they will take and then they will try to use that seeking to find the truth. And so this man went all this way and then we're able to just give him, I said, if you have any other questions. He said, I will think about it, and that's about it, and that's how we make a conversation. I was talking to another pastor who does a lot of mission work in northern, in Madhya Pradesh, just sitting with them, having lunch, and he was talking one day about some of the people and how they are trying to reach a group of Hindus with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I said, how are you doing it? He said, you know, there is, group of Hindus, there's a caste called the Lingites. He said the Lingites worship this little black stone. It's very sacred to them. And so he said they don't know where this whole thing came about, about this stone. And they were trying to find out how this originated. And so he began to go back and they would go down to their, you know, their mythology and all these things. He went back, he was telling me that finally he told them this. He said, you know, you're getting it back to the time of Jacob. He said, Jacob went to Bethel and he put a pillar of stone and he put oil on that and he worshipped the Lord and called that place Bethel. And he said, you know, this is where your tradition is coming from. And he said, if we can convert and we can convince many of the religious leaders about this truth where they're getting it, we can change India completely. But it's very difficult because there's a lot of mythology and other things that play a part and he's working hard and he does a wonderful job in Madhya Pradesh, very strong. Hindu states, and just to see how God is using people like that, how they use some of their own teachings of Hinduism to reach the people with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, showing them what they have learned is wrong, that Jesus Christ is the truth, is the way and life, and that no man cometh unto the Father but by Christ. And that's what our challenge is in India. is to show them why Jesus Christ is the true and living God. They will accept Christ as one of the gods, they will say. Well, we accept Jesus Christ as the God, one of the gods. We know He was a good teacher, we know He did something, a lot of good things in this world, and so we worship Him as one of the gods. Talking to a young man, coming to states, he was coming to work here, and began to talk with him. He said, you know what, I grew up in a Hindu home, but I went to a Catholic church. My mom was a very strong religious lady, and she said, he said to me, we have a Bible, we have the Bhagavad Gita, and we also have the Quran. My mother reads all of them. She says, And I know, and he said, I went to this St. Joseph's College in Bangalore. I studied there. He was telling, and he knows a little bit about Christianity. And we began to talk, and he had a lot of questions. And so this is how we do witnessing. We cannot go and distribute tracts. We cannot preach in the open air like we used to do in the late 60s, early 70s, all the way up to the 80s. We were having open air meetings, preaching, distributing tracts, but those things have changed, and now we are not able to do that. Even if you give a tract and your church address is on it, they can come and say you're trying to convert people, and you can be arrested for that. So we don't put our church address, we don't do any of those things. If people ask for literature, we do give. One man called me from, I think it was Varanasi, a religious place where Hinduism is the birthplace, they call it. And Varanasi is a very religious center for Hinduism. And he was a Muslim man. I don't know how he got our phone number. But he called the college and he just called and I answered the phone that morning. He says, I want somebody to teach me about the New Testament. I have a Urdu New Testament Bible. But there are a lot of questions I have. I don't know many of the answers. But I don't want, when you say I want you to send me more literature, But I don't want you to send your return address on it. I don't want anything about it's a Christian material." He says, because I am an Imam. I teach the Quran. But I now have a New Testament and I want to know more about it. And I said, where do you live? He said, I'm in Varanasi. I said, well, we are in South India. Varanasi to Bangalore is almost about 700 miles. I said, there's no way we can communicate, but I do have somebody in Agra, which is about 300 kilometers from you, and we'll be able to get you in touch with that person." And so we were able to do that, and we have been in contact. And this is how people are searching for the truth, searching for answers, many times. And we get these kinds of calls, or we don't know where they come from, but sometimes they just hear about us, and they just call. and they ask questions, and so God opens the door for us, you know, how the gospel can get out. When the government wants to close the doors, God always opens other ways for us to share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. A year ago, we had a lot of problems. You know, communal problems actually started in the Northeast, in Assam, between the Muslims and another tribal group called the Bodo groups, and they were killing each other. And so that affected many of the people in the Southeast, because there were a lot of Muslim communities, and so there was a fear that they would retaliate for the killing of Muslims and other things. The government came in to bring protection and in our campus we have a lot of students from the northeast. And so the commissioner of police of law and order came in. He said we will protect you and gave us full protection during those two weeks. And many of our students had the opportunity to give the gospel to many of the police officers sitting on campus. Just giving protection so that there won't be any violence. for these young people. And they just asked a lot of questions when they saw the chapel service, the Sunday service, the evening service when the students have. They would ask, what is all this about? And some of our people that knew the local language, the students would be able to share the gospel with them. And they said, sir, this was the best thing that happened for us. We were worried. Many of those young men and women left. the city and went back traveling. We told the students, you'll be much safer off here than traveling on those crowded trains. You may not be able to get stranded in places. You'd be better off here. And so many of our students stayed back. And then they said this was the best thing that happened to them because they saw how God answered prayer, how God used those opportunities to get the gospel out to the people that needed it. And so this is the way we try to share the gospel with people. God opens the doors and we are sharing the gospel. So do pray that God will continue to give us the boldness, the courage, the liberty to I share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many people that are going to a Christless eternity. And one of the things that really encourages me, challenges me from scripture is that like Paul's desire and passion and love for his people was that they all would come to know Christ. And that's what he talks about in Romans. He says, my heart's desire is that all of Israel will come to know Christ. And so that's our desire. I mean, there's 1.2 billion people. We may not be able to reach all of them, but if we can reach one soul at a time, that is the most important thing, because the Bible also teaches us, for every soul that is saved, there's rejoicing in heaven. That's the important thing, and we should never lose sight about every soul. That is important. When I think about, read about hell, The other day I work as a physician here when I'm here during the week and in the clinic I was talking about something and then one of the ladies said, she works and she was joking about it and she said, oh I know I'm going straight to hell. And then I said, lady you don't know what hell is all about. She said, well I can go there and have some fun. I said, you wouldn't be having fun. There'll be other people with me there. I said, you won't see anyone there. You'll only hear about pain, groaning and suffering. You know, people don't understand. They don't have the knowledge or the concept of what hell is like. If only we can just get them to understand what hell is like. There is no, I mean the darkness and the void and the pain and the suffering that people will face in hell is just unimaginable. I can't explain, I mean the Bible tells us, I mean you see the rich man and Lazarus parable and you look at what the rich man wakes up in hell, my friends it tells us a lot of truths there. You know, I don't know. As a medical doctor, when I think I read that passage of scripture, I feel that they have a body in hell. I think they have some kind of a body. I don't know what kind it is. Maybe Pastor Mike can give me some insight into it. Because this man said, I'm tormented. His feelings. He could remember his days on earth. He remembered his brothers. He remembered exactly how many brothers he had. My five brothers I think he said. He's got a mind. I think he had vision. He says, I can see Abraham. I can see Lazarus sitting in the bosom of Abraham. So he had a vision. He had feelings. He had emotions. He had sense. And he said, I am tormented. And could you please send somebody not to come to this place? Folks, there are a lot of people that we need to be concerned about, aren't we? That really encourages me when I see billions, millions of people sometimes just walk in the city of Bangalore and say, you know, how can we reach these people? How can we reach these young people? You know, there's a lot of affluence in the city of Bangalore because of all the high-tech industry that we have. Software, computer technology, a lot of research, and all those things are being done in the city of Bangalore. And we have a lot of young people, ages 25 to 35, who make a lot of money compared to many other people in India. But we see a highest rate of suicide in India. City of Bangalore, every day I take the papers, read the newspapers, you'll see somebody committed suicide. No peace. No hope. They have everything. Some of these young men in life, they're young married couples, and they commit suicide. They have money. They have wealth. They have all these things, but they just don't have happiness. And so we started at the college a counseling group to help train many young men and women so they can use this in their own communities, in their churches, in their neighborhoods to share and help many of them. And so we want to see a great helping many of these young people to share the gospel and try to get them from not committing suicide. So these are some of the areas we're trying to reach people with the gospel. Say that Christ will give them the peace, give them hope, give them the purpose to live for. And so those are the areas we're working. So do pray for that. God will continue to meet the needs. Just share with you that you could pray. We have finished the building, but there's one little part we have to do is the elevator. We have a four-story building and for the building code we need to put an elevator that's costing us about $30,000. So do pray for that need. We'd like to put that in and then we'll be done with the building. So do pray for that need that the Lord will provide. But as I was talking about evangelism in India, how to do it now that we have been restricted. I'm being a medical doctor. I've seen how It opens the door for evangelism. When people come to us, we did a couple of free clinics, had great response with that. But it costs a lot of money to run a free clinic. And so we had to stop it because of the finances and also with the construction of the building. But now I have a couple of my sisters who are medical doctors. They also have gotten a burden. And so we're going to start to build a small hospital and a clinic which will enable us to reach out to community there. There's a community that has a plan on reaching in India, and we have a church in that area, so we thought through the church and a little piece of property that we have there to buy property in Bangalore is very expensive. It's almost like $800 a square foot. to buy. And so we have a small piece of property and it's about 3,500 square foot. We're trying to build a four-floor hospital and clinic area. It's small, but we may be able to do that so that we can reach. And so that's one of the projects that we're trying, how to evangelize, how to get people to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ. When we did the clinics, we'd have the literature out. would have books about Christ and we would have gospel tracts that people would read and so in different languages we would put it out and people would read it as they wait to be seen. And so we said this is a great opportunity for us to evangelize and to get the gospel out into the city. And so we're planning on doing that. That's a project that costs over $1.2 million. But my sisters and all, they're working and they're able to save up about $60,000. And we have about $85,000 towards that project. to start, and so we'll be starting that, God willing, by the end of this year or early next year once we get the permissions granted, the architect is working on those drawings so we can meet all the codes. So do pray for that. That is an area that we thought would be another avenue for us to do evangelistic work in reaching lost souls for Christ. We used to have a couple of good Christian hospitals that would share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. One is also known as the Baptist Hospice, built by the Southern Baptists when the missionaries were there. It was preaching the gospel now. They don't. They have all the religions in the chapel. They put all the religions in the chapel now, so everybody can go and worship there. And so they're doing these compromising because after the missionaries left, some other people came in and just took the hospital in a different direction. We're praying that would not happen to us, but we'd like to see some of these new Christian hospitals. We have a lot of Christian hospitals, but most of them are Roman Catholics, so they're a little bit different than us. So there were three, two good Protestant churches, hospitals, but now they're not serving the purpose. And so we felt that this is an area that God can enable us. So do pray that we could reach many people with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So these are areas that you can really pray for us. God will enable us as we train young men and women to take the gospel, to be preachers, teachers, evangelists, missionaries. That's our goal. That's the vision of the Bible College. We've been there for 58 years now, and the Lord's been using many of the wonderful in different parts of the world, different parts of India also, and so we thank the Lord for all his blessings. I got five minutes. Anybody have any questions? I just got five minutes. I'm trying to keep time, you know. Doctors don't keep time, so we're always running late. Anybody have any questions? Yes, sir? We can do that, but it costs a lot of money. I think for one week, 15 or half an hour, they charge us about $1,000. You know, if you want to do once a month or once a week, so that would be quite, I mean, $12,000 just once a month is quite a bit of money for us that we can use in different areas with more local pastors and things like that. That's what we were thinking. It's, I rather, I mean the media is great, but the one-on-one experience for us is much more effective than just blasting them with the media. And then they have questions nobody can answer. By the time they communicate, it will be difficult. But if we have a person in that area, then we'll be able to do it much effectively. That's what we feel. Yes, sir? They do it very carefully. They do embrace all the religions. They say, you know, we're all, you know, the Hindus don't see any difference between Catholics and them. They say, why you worship Mary, the statue of Mary, or some say, we worship this, so what is the difference? That's what they ask. Sometimes they even, we don't even have a cross on our church. We don't put anything because they say, well, the cross also looks like an idol. It's a figure. You may be worshiping the cross. So my father said, no, we won't have anything on the thing. I mean, we just put the church, people know what church is. So they don't differentiate between Protestants and Catholics. They think they're all Christians. They call everybody a father. You're a father, he's a father, pastor, there's no difference. And so that's the difficulty in differentiating. They incorporate. What the Catholics are very careful, if you want to have any discounts or anything in their hospital schools, they'll say you've become a Catholic. And that's what they do. Yeah, you can be Hindu and Catholic. There's no problem with that. How many of you, before Dr. Celi steps out, this is your first time hearing, if you can remember your first time hearing Dr. Celi. There are a few of you. Would you just give them an update on your family? All right. I have three daughters. My wife, Sarah, I met her when I was in medical college. She was a dietician and I was in medical training. I met her there. She was a Catholic, but she came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. My father led her to the Lord. We got married in 1996, and then my father got ill, so he asked us to come. to help him in the ministry and so my wife and I went back to help my father in the year 2001, so I have three daughters, Chloe, Leah, and Julia, 17, 13, and 11. The three daughters, they're back. My wife and children are back in India. My wife takes care of the girls. Sarah takes care of the girls and also the Sunday school and the junior church activities there and teaches English with my brother's wife, Mira. I have a brother also who's working with me, my younger brother, Johanan. And so he's there as the vice president, so they all work together. I think there's another question over here. If we do get their support, then there's a lot of requirements. And then they will say, well, you cannot share the gospel and all those things. So rather being independent would be much better than having the government to step in. Then they'll say, you have to accept everybody that we tell you to do. And so they will restrict us quite a bit. There's a lot of red tape with all that. Yes, sir. Most of them are funded from the churches. They do pay some. The $100 just covers a little bit of it. We make them pay at least 50%. Some do pay full fees, but there are a lot who come from Hinduism, from Buddhism, from Islam, and other religions, and they don't have, because once you trust Christ in some of these families, they just disown you. They just send you out of home, the home, and there's no relationship. They will tell you, the children, you're like a dead son or a dead daughter to us. We have nothing to do with you, and that's how it is, and so many of them come with nothing, but we see how God uses them in the ministry. And that very thing happened when I was with you in 2010 at a graduation. One of the young men who was graduating told me his story. And he came to faith. He's a man from Nepal. And he said to me, Pastor Mike, please pray for me. I'm going back to my family. None of my family knows the Lord. They, to use a word that we would use, they have disowned me. I'm really not a part of the family at all. And that's what he said to you in theory is reality. You know, I met that young man in that particular situation. What else? Yes, sir. Personally or family-wise, what is the greatest burden that you're carrying? It's mostly ministry works. It's just getting the gospel, we're getting the ministry to do, you know, how to evangelize, how to be more effective. That's our burden now is to see how we can be more productive in reaching the lost souls. That's where really our burden is and my burden is there, you know, Really, how can I reach? We have a highest rate. I mean, I was reading in one of the news reporters saying that we have the highest rate of suicide in the world, in India. And how to reach these people, you know, that's our burden, that's our challenge. You know, we don't have all the resources. Now one of our pastors is working in the jail ministry and he teaches there. He says sometimes some of these men have come, you know, they wanted to commit suicide and they get saved, but after that what are we going to do? You know, how do we help them out? How do we find jobs for them when they need some help? We have a lot of domestic violence and we have a lot of that where women try to commit suicide. We have a lot of child abuse and things like that, but we don't have the resources that we can work with. There are a lot of other organizations. One of the things is human trafficking is a very big thing. I think number one and number two in human trafficking. We see a lot of that and we have a lot of requests, you know, can you help? But we just don't have the resources. I have a young, I have church members who work, they call them action aid, but it's a very liberal organization. But she just tells me, you know, the situation, how they try to rescue many of these women and young girls where they are brought in from villages and small areas, promising jobs, and then they're used in human trafficking. And so we face a lot of those challenges, and those are our burdens that we have as more ministerial burdens that we do. Yes, sir? Prison term. Yeah. It depends how it is done. I was charged with threatening to kill and converting. So that's a non-bailable offense. They said it would give me six to ten years. But somehow God worked it out through our lawyer. She was a Hindu convert. She trusted in the Lord. She heard about it and when we contacted her, she said, I'll help you. She was able to get me through it and it took me six months before they could drop the charges. She said, you know, this is not easy. It's going to take some time and she said, If they arrest you, the case can go on for a long time and then whatever the judge gives you, that's what you'll get. But she said, we'll work something out. You pray and we'll pray. And it took us six months for the charges to be dropped. Then two years later, the government, which was falling, dropped all the cases against Christians, two years later. But now we've got a pro-Hindu, so we have to be careful again. Oh, they can do anything. They can even seize your property if they want to. And there's no recourse on that. They can say, well, you didn't do this or this. You violated this thing or that thing, and it can be, and so it's, I mean, there are the legal issues. We have the court system. We have the lawyers, but it's a big, I mean, they have the powers to do that, just like your IRS can do it. They have the power. Thank you, Dr. Chelley. Dr. Chelley will be at his table in the lobby between the Education Hour and the worship service. I hope that you will stop by and visit and introduce yourself to him and continue to pray for the ministry in Indiana. I'm just so thrilled that our church has such a huge impact in what is going on. in the country of India through the four Indian nationals and the ministries that we support. And I appreciate the burden that you have for the country of India. I appreciate the giving that you do on a regular basis to support the work in India. It is a joy to interact with these individuals when we have the privilege to do that. What Dr. Shelley does, you know, he's very modest. When he is here, when he's here in the United States, you heard him say in passing that he's working at a clinic. The reason he's working at a clinic is because he uses a significant amount of that income to support the ministry. in Bangalore. He's not here on vacation. On the weekends he's trying to be in churches that support or raise additional support for the work that's going on. He's working in the skills that God has given to him as a medical doctor doing his thing. He's been away from his wife and daughters for about two months or so, maybe a little longer, and he'll be back there in October. I know that'll be a sweet reunion for all of them when they return. Thanks for being here in the Education Hour. I look forward to worshipping together shortly.