India’s Jesus Festivals: Transformed by the Gospel
Time Stamps
2:08 Charis describes a Jesus Festival
8:20 Ron explains the need to be descreet
9:30 The extreme volume of Jesus Festivals
10:30 Leaving the Jesus Festival
12:05 Story about a church planter
19:30 Story about a persecuted pastor and his ministry
22:14 Massive children’s ministry
JOY: Welcome to God’s church on the move the podcast that takes you to where God is actively at work around the world with me in the studio today are Ron and Charis welcome guys
RON: hi joy
JOY: hi so I’m pretty excited about this podcast because you guys just traveled and yes I said both of you, Charis you went with your dad on this latest trip
CHARIS: yeah we just came back still in jet lag so it was a fun adventure
JOY: which must be harder to recover from the older everybody gets
CHARIS: it does take a little longer I’ll speak just for myself though
RON: please do so you guys were in India we were now we just got back from India and it was an exciting adventure we went to see a Jesus festival now dad’s been to see a Jesus festival
JOY: and he really hypes them up
CHARIS: absolutely so but and now I get it so we went to an area of India that’s really high in persecution and so we they took us in I’m gonna explain to everybody the whole process how we got they’re what we saw dad’s going to jump in obviously
JOY: OK but before you do when you say hi and persecution does that mean for believers or is that what you’re talking about
RON: yeah OK got it what what’s going on is that the church is growing so massively so so quickly through to the northern part of the country that they’re finding resistance both from Hindu government sources when I say that it’s a mixture of the Hindu religion and the the ruling government OK etcetera trying to suppress the move of God in the area trying to discourage people from becoming Christians of foreign religion etcetera etcetera so that means that the pushback is very very strong in most of these areas but we went to one of the one of the strongest one of the strongest pushback areas
JOY: ohh yeah OK
CHARIS: so so we we drove what we flew then we drove for several hours and we had to arrive at night so part of the whole thing taking us to this Jesus festival is it was really dangerous not so much for us but it it there there was a concern for everybody else so they took a lot of precautions to protect everybody that was there we drove in they we got out of the vehicle and they rushed us right into a room and so we were in this room as we’re driving in just a mob of motorcycles and people everywhere that you could just see as you’re walking into this room and loud music out loud music in the area not the room yeah yeah as we’re walking ohh so the music is everywhere ohh the the music is loud it’s coming from OK Jesus festival and so they walked us into this room that was outside of the tent this large tent that the Jesus festival was happening in and we went into this room and we waited there they came in and they had me because I have red hair it kind of stands out a little bit so they had me cover up with a a long scarf to cover my hair and they said we’re going to wait and then we’re going to take you into the Jesus festival so you have to imagine there’s this very large tent
JOY: large large enough to fit 5000 people under is that the idea large enough for us to probably fit 2000 people but they fit 5000 so it was it’s large now have you ever seen anyone put these tents out because
JOY: I wonder how difficult that would be
RON: yeah it’s it’s more it’s not attempt like ours in a way it’s it’s a flat roofed covering yeah with poles everywhere and so yeah they they have professionals that can put those things up
CHARIS: kind of kind of like those tents that you would rent for like a big wedding outside
RON: exactly but larger than that it would be a very large wedding it makes them 50 feet across by 200 feet long
JOY: and we have pictures of them they’re very colorful so they’re just colorful material
CHARIS: yeah so so they come in the room and they tell us OK we’re going to take you to the Jesus Festival and so they’re like we have to walk fast so we we walk I don’t even know at that point in time where dad was I don’t know if he was behind me or in front of me they just told us walk and so we followed and we walked down the side of the outside of the tent and they brought us into the front which to me sounded backwards because if we’re not wanting to be seen but the way it was the stage is at the front and at the side of the stage there are some chairs that are kind of sitting sideways and so people couldn’t really notice us but even if they did they were so busy worshipping the Lord that they weren’t they weren’t paying attention to us then at all and so we walked in and we’re sitting right next to one of the speakers and it was loud it was there was singing and shouting and dancing and dancing on the stage there was a group of men dancing on the stage all dressed in white dancing around in circles on the other side of the stage there were women dancing and they they’re just every color bright colors of the rainbow that they were wearing and this sea of people just so happy so joyful so the front of it we’re all kids tons of kids just dancing and praising the Lord and worshipping it and then I believe on the one side where the women and on the other side where the men it was sort of hard to decide
RON: it was a blur
CHARIS: yeah it was yeah but kids everywhere at the front yeah
RON: let let me explain something just before we go on well what you have there is something that is very cultural OK this wasn’t some rock concert that was brought in from foreign this is the way they have their weddings this is the way they have their parties they are dancing people and they have great music allowed etcetera yes but they had to get to the back of 5000 people which is a long ways away and so they they have something that’s very cultural for them it wasn’t us no not importing a style this was them organically coming up with an indigenous expression of joy and love and laughter and happiness and whatever adjectives you want to put on this thing this was people who had been set free from the suffering that they had been in demonically then religiously and all that sort of thing and they were just back of a better word cut loose and and this was what we were watching in front of our eyes yeah I’ve seen it before but never this intense so we asked them sort of this is more intense than usual I’ve been to these before and they were good and at the same sort of situation the greater the intensity of the persecution the greater the intensity of the release wow and therefore that’s why this was at a whole new level remember this was probably 90% new Christians
JOY: hmm OK
RON: OK so these are new believers all coming to the Lord safety in numbers all coming so care
JOY: really quickly though you said something that I don’t quite understand why did they why do you guys have to be discreet is it to keep the people watching you from seeing you and if so why
RON: well OK several reasons one if if they’re attracting westerners we could get blamed for a foreign religion coming and that’s what I was thinking second of all remember the fact is that we we do not want to be identified there as visiting this to cause them problem after the fact and therefore they could maybe say that we were their coercing or whatever they might be
JOY: OK I get it
RON: alright so there’s there’s a bunch of factors why we had to sort of keep a low profile and just come in not say anything come off to the side just watch even when the preaching was going on we couldn’t be there weren’t that
CHARIS: OK so we were just there for the music to watch etcetera then here also too we didn’t want to be a distraction for people too they were there to experience the Jesus festival you know to got to see a couple westerners come and watch them right you know and and we we were obviously different yeah both in dress and just you know color of our skin and everything of that nature so yeah it was different and as far as the volume goes the thing that I noticed yeah we were sitting next to a speaker and the music was loud but the singing was loud ohh they just the the they were singing at the top of their lungs yeah so there was the volume from the speaker but that you kind of expect it was the volume of the joy in their voices that was overwhelming
RON: so in our churches today they don’t have that anymore they used to be that in the old days that’s my days there you would sing hymns at the top of your lungs etcetera and sometimes today in worship services that is done but it’s more of a quiet singing in our churches in the West now or medium
CHARIS: this was yeah amazing
RON: well I I can’t even I I don’t even know how to put it in words as far as this if this is like this on earth just think what it’s gonna be like in heaven when you get millions and you know what have multiplied millions of people all singing yeah this is gonna be really something so
CHARIS: so we were there for a few minutes got to experience it and then they turned to us and said OK we have to leave now and so we came out the way we came back then walking very fast I had one of the pastors wives grabbed my arm and she walked me into the room neither of us could speak each other’s language we just knew what we had to do and so we walked back into the room and that’s where we interviewed pastors while the rest of the service was going on we found out afterwards that while we were interviewing the pastors the police came to the Jesus festival to check it out to they they evidently they normally come to check but they they didn’t want us to be found there
JOY: wow
CHARIS: so there was a plan we we could have caused them some problems
RON: yes it could it could have been a for us too taking us into questioning as to why we were there etcetera but they but they had a plan they had a plan place and everything was fine the police came checked it out did what they normally do and then they left and so we kept interviewing people and then we had dinner together
RON: I’m gonna tell you a couple of stories now OK simply because when we were in the side room several pastors and their wives came in and told us their stories and therefore I’m gonna just take a couple of stories that from this because I was impressed I was impressed the fact that you’ve got all of these people all coming and you have to go back and interview the pastors as to why are these people here in other words got you got 90% new Christians probably 2 – 3 hundred people at night we’re gonna be accepting the Lord this Jesus festival was going to be going on for three days we found out they would sleep on the ground and I said how are you going to get all these people you know sleeping they just drop where they are off to the sides or at the back they’ll they’ll find the spot right so everybody’s gonna lay down for six hours get some sleep and then they had some feel for the for the washroom I asked about the washroom yes and yeah they said there’s a field one side of it’s for women one side of it’s for men and they’d be people they’re probably guarding and yeah whatever the case may be and therefore this was all going on they had communal food etcetera etcetera etcetera so this was the party but why are they there and therefore we asked the pastors who tell us what’s why are these all people all coming what’s in your life so they started to talk about um this one pastor and his wife they belonged to this local village and it was the land that was given to the people for this Christian festival this one took place every year apparently life stopped all around for this festival in other words it was growing and growing and growing and therefore they would come to this now this this kind of family came from a tribal background they would he said when he was growing up they would offer 40 to 50 goats very very religious worshipped so many deities he says family was always sick everybody and the family was sick they witnessed to the father and and he says why are you still keeping us in this ******* of the witnessing to these worshipping all these gods so he said to his father and there was no answer it was sort of like we know no other way then the mother who also baby was always sick she all of a sudden came to know the Lord then they had six brothers this fellow that accepted the Lord as well they were always concerned about going against the gods
but they decided to stand firm as a family because they had pressure from the rest of the people in the village and the family etcetera so they went and they want this one brother he said I went for training and he says I got in trouble a lot of times for witnessing in the area and they said so how did how did you start witnessing and he says well we started in our first church and he said we would sit in front of the hospital and we were praying for people and we were giving them water and food we were showing love and compassion and he says the people would come and they would want to talk to us and he says we would go to the schools and he says the students were there and we made friends of the students the husband and wife together and they gave them basic toiletries these were trees these were some sort of trade schools I think or something like that and once said they became friends with them they got to share the gospel and they all of a sudden he says we have this new burden that came upon us after we started churches in those areas and he said the Lord laid on my heart to go to another village but I had to get there by train and there was no church in the entire area so his wife used to give him food every single day to go and he would sleep in the train station and she would give him food for the rest of the day he says he got a bicycle and he took the bicycle once after a while and he didn’t do the training he would bike 50 kilometers today
JOY: wow
RON: so he will go 2025 kilometres One Direction and then he would preach then he would ride back home be home for a day or so or whatever like that 25 more kilometers going another direction so that was his way of going one time and this is the part that Car I remember she was sitting OK the wife was all in her room and she was a frail little thing not not sick but just small yeah and stature she they had two children someone came knocking on their door one time and I didn’t catch whether it was more than one person but there was this knocking but somebody didn’t know the husband was gone
So what she did she says I was scared and I was crying and she says I pretended that there were more people inside the house and she went around talking and moving furniture and making noises and everything like that and she says we came through this but that was my job and she says I pray for my husband all the time I stayed home that was my ministry to take care of the family and the children etcetera when he went out traveling the mob came one time and they came into the house and they took them both and they put them in jail afterwards they were in jail for six days the husband and wife the believers took care of the children the next day they were publicized in the newspaper and other children in the area when they were publicized with their pictures they came and they showed their the pastor’s children here’s your mom and dad they’re in prison so they were in prison for all this time and he says now we’ve got an area there where somebody gave us a big house we hold church 4 to 500 people in the house having church with other pastors serving with him he’s now 42 years of age and this is one of the pastors who has LED four he says I I baptized about four to 500 people and he says here I am in there and this was an example of what a pastor would be like and why those people were in that Jesus festival right it was like work like this that they were doing all the time sacrifice they make yeah it’s amazing care what did you think about when when they were talking about this pastors wife talking about you know what she was going through she was scared and looked down and she was crying she was yeah she she came across as timid her personality just sitting there kind of meek but then when she talked about about her part in the ministry it was amazing because she wasn’t proud of it of the fact that how she did you know talking to people pretending to talk to people and stuff but it was fact it was just she was just this is this is life this is how we do it together and I was like the she to to to just look at her you would think that there’s this just this shy little girl and yet she was a powerhouse in her own right exactly praying praying for him while he’s out bike riding for 50 kilometers a day I I mean that’s just the bike riding on top of you know spending the day preaching and sharing the gospel that’s exhausting in and of itself so it’s such a sacrifice for both of them ohh yeah yeah another quick story and then we’re finished this in this segment up there’s another pastor interviewed and he had serious stomach issues when he was 20 he was he was working and he said a pastor came up to me from this group that we work with there prayed for his stomach and he was healed and he says he went then and he kept listening to the message of the gospel he got stronger and stronger in the Lord he went to Bible school started slow in ministry and then the anti Christian forces came and said you cannot conduct services in this town where he had been planted and he says the person who came to attack him was the head of the village and he says after a few months he became a Christian and he says he gave us a piece of land to the church therefore the things all turned around his wifey says was a constant help in ministry grew ministry by going door to door with evangelism his wife would take the ladies off and talk to them he took the men off one lady had a stomach problem she was healed family came to the Lord and was the beginning of the work in the village then we just added on to he’s been threatened many times with death in villages women are the stronger amid wrote this note down the women are the stronger they’ve experienced healing and deliverance and will stand to tell it the anti Christian forces that they have not been in induced or converted I picked this story for this reason that’s coming up right now so the women’s swarm to protect the pastors and the families they fight the for the pastors they’ll fight with police and the media came this one time and they did an interview and they asked these women So what money were you given by these Christians you must have received something to become Christians were you in due or or right bribed to accept the Lord and become Christians and they they stood up in that little knob of them said absolutely and they said well what were you bribed with well she says absolutely we we received something we have now peace in our heart my husband doesn’t drink anymore i used to be beaten all the time we’ve incredible joy that’s what we were given and we received these things wow by accepting the Lord and they said well we can’t print that that and he said just go away go away and they would look around for somebody to try and find dirt on them but these women were just coming and saying yes we both received something it’s not money silver and gold have I none but such as I have give I to you and that’s what it is that they’ve received a whole new life now here it is the thing they started a ministry with children it is grown now to 70,000 children a week in their Group A week and this is a bunch of children’s ministers all working together and so they come these children come after school 3:00 PM each week or couple of times a week or whatever it is they have some games in a public area not in private or in building the national story and the fact about living their nation people and then they tell them a Bible story and maybe give them a chocolate or some pencils for prizes for games and races and they have two events every day 150 to 200 children come to each of these this is in the public water park he says and we don’t advertise it as being Christian and he says we are just there to teach these children give them a good time give them good values and morals and he says we pray for the children when they come and ask for it they’re reaching out to schools five to six years old to 16 years of age very successful kids come and ask workers to come and pray for their families and their bad situations so once these children trust and they’re starting to sense the power of God and they will come and they will say can you come and pray for my family for healing like Jesus was healed people can you help us family so then they would they be children will take the the minister’s home they do evangelism there and they just lead these people to the Lord through the children’s ministry 70,000 children a week wow in this one area headed up by this young fella and his wife that I talked to you about and they what they do is they will say OK in this village we’ll be here at 3:00 PM on Monday and then they’ll plan in this village we’ll be here at 2:00 on Tuesday at 3:00 PM so the kids can plan on it and they look forward to it exactly and he was also saying that they give prizes out for the kids who remember stuff from the Bible story from the week before so it encourages them to think about the Bible stories and and what kid doesn’t like a prize this is sort of like vacation Bible school with legs yeah because all of a sudden you’re getting a whole movement going and it’s not being shut down by anybody because they are not inducing or coercing the children should do anything they’re just reading a Bible story they’re praying for them telling them to be good citizens and you know trying to build that sort of and the people love it yeah and then the parents think probably this is great we like this they’re they’re not only being babysat but they’re being taught and they’re coming home they’re good children now and all these sorts of things so why not invite the people in to say why are these changes happening within our children yeah what a great model that is fantastic so this is the created creativity that comes out of a revival OK my last question how often would a Jesus festival in an area like do they do it regularly or is it just as they move around OK they move around because people don’t move around that much they they they come a little bit but because they’re for new new believers or unbeliever yeah ohh yeah yeah it’s it’s mostly for believers that go and then they invite their friends to come along and therefore they wanna see why they’re their friends are so changed now yeah why why why are you happy why are you got peace in your heart why don’t you drink anymore why don’t you beat your wife anymore why don’t you and all of these questions are in their minds then these these Christians are now transformed they’re bright shining lights they drag their friends and say just come just come we’re having a party where it’s going to be dancing there’s going to be food and all of these things so the people go and say why are you different well that’s going to see it’s incredible and do you think that they travel like if you’ve been to 1 and you find out there’s a Jesus festival happening in another village which you traveled I’m sure but they usually don’t they they have a a a circle of influence OK and the people in India and the villages they don’t go a long long way these are poor villages yeah very poor like you you might maybe you in your entire life you wouldn’t go any further than 20 miles from your house like these are villages where there’s one well for the whole village so we’re not talking no money to travel from to follow the business faster but they have no money as such not great amount of it there’s all sorts of problems but these are the happiest people on earth yeah as you could spot ohh when they start to worship yeah yeah and it it the the area where the area where the Jesus festival takes place it’s known and as it goes on by the people around it because remember when we left there were people who had come along the the road to start selling stuff yeah yeah so it it it’s known in the area as it progresses I mean you can’t hide it 5000 people singing at the top of their lungs it’s going to be noticed yeah yeah that’s so this was this was an event right but these events are spreading now as I tell people all over and this event cost us $350.00 to put it on wow and it lasted a couple days yeah three days and probably 2 to 300 people would accept the Lord at this yeah alright so that’s a good investment
JOY: thank you for painting that’s a great picture in my head i may never get to see Jesus festival in person and our listeners but we just had a glimpse and that’s amazing and you know for $350.00 that’s a pretty gigantic investment into the kingdom of god and there is more information on our website at romepearce.org if is interested
