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Report on the visit to India of Eileen Vincent April 2nd-20th
Natalie Hardy and Karen Elliott accompanied her.

First of all thank you for praying for us. Your prayers helped to make the visit a most memorable time. It seemed to me that the Lord was taking me on an investigative tour. I felt I was observing what the Lord was doing and seeing the results of the faithful prayers of many. I have returned home with a fund of information and have a far better understanding of the needs of the nation that will be invaluable to us in the prayer center.
It was wonderful to go to India again after eight years. Since the Lord has had me concentrating my time in San Antonio I have had no release to travel and minister abroad, but this year I knew I could respond to invitations and go to see what the Lord is doing in India. It was a joy for me to share this memorable journey and ministry with Natalie and Karen who were a powerful support.

Changes I observed.

The most startling was the openness to the gospel everywhere we went. I was moved to tears many a time to see with my eyes the harvest that is being reaped in northern states where historically the ground was so hard. In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and the Punjab, these northern states where there has never been a move of God, now thousands are hearing the word, thousands of house churches are being established, leaders trained and wonderful miracles are happening. I was so filled with joy to see these things. Indigenous workers are paying a huge price to spear head the new move of God. There is cruel persecution; it does not hit the headlines but precious saints are even dying for the gospel. No one considers himself very important, no one is taking titles or positions, they are just faithful workers who recognize the season and are working hard.
The results of Benny Hinn's visit were being openly talked about. A reported 4.8 million people were on the ground during the days of the Crusade. Miracles happened spontaneously in the crowd. There was huge response to the gospel and even now those going house to house doing follow up and evangelizing told me, that people who were hostile in the past are open to the gospel. Everywhere people were being saved. Prior to the crusade 280,000 people over a period of six months were at the Crusade ground praying. Many kept a vigil in prayer and extensive prayer warfare was done. During the days of Crusade there was not one police incident. This is remarkable as Indian crowds can be very unruly and there are plenty of violent factions in society very opposed to the gospel.

The increased prosperity enjoyed in India is seen on the roads. Traffic, traffic everywhere accompanied by a cacophony of hoots, beeps, and horns all yelling at the congestion. I found the shops very interesting they tell their own story, so much was new. Along side the traditional places that sell cloth and food stuff were new flashy air conditioned shops with every conceivable bit of western gadgetry and equipment; most of it is manufactured in India. With one billion people, India is a powerful new emerging market with fantastic potential for growth. Although the evidence of new wealth was everywhere the poor were also everywhere in their millions. Two million live on the streets in Mumbai, they are a sight you can not miss with beggars or desperate people making a few rupees from gathering and selling other people's junk. We cried to see the harshness of life, men sleeping on a three foot median in the middle of a main road, "homes" that were nothing more that bits of plastic and cardboard put together, of boys black with ingrained dirt as they clean the floor of the train to beg for a few rupees. Of cripples and children selling flowers at midnight, of homeless mothers and the helpless all without hope or provision.

Our travels.

We landed in Mumbai, slept a short night and caught a flight to Varanasi where Catherine the wife of Raju Abraham met us. We had a fascinating drive to Katchwa through the harvest fields as we watched life as it must have been in bible times. Men cut the wheat with curved knives and the whole family was engaged in gathering it together into sheaves and carrying it back to the village on their heads. We saw the threshing floors and lentils being beaten out with sticks, women at wells and the whole gamut of life lived out before us as we traveled the dusty narrow road. It was all so picturesque as if we were seeing a movie but it was real life with undernourished, low caste families including the children gathering the crops of high caste landlords. They were bare foot and worked in the fields till sun down returning to homes that were often nothing more than the shelter offered by a few mud walls.

In Katchwa we toured the old mission hospital that Dr Raju Abraham is trying to refurbish. This brought back many memories for me; I felt I had been there before as I had prayed for the missionaries at the hospital for years when we lived in India. Many of the buildings are being put to a new use for training workers for the extensive church planting vision and overseeing the many new house churches. Alan and myself knew Raju in our Bombay days when he was a young medical student. He went on the UK and became a FRCS. After many years in England he returned to India and to a gospel resistant region to work with Dr Lal in Allahabad. He was the first of the many people I met who we had known years before and who are now on the front lines of the Kingdom of God.

Katchwa was just a short stopping place, after a rest and lunch we drove to Allahabad. Allahabad is one of the holy cities and it is especially significant to Hindus because of the convergence of the Yamuna and Ganges rivers. At auspicious times hundreds of millions of Hindu pilgrims bathe in these waters during Kumbha Mela.

We had come to see what the Lord is doing! We had the privilege of visiting Yeshu Darbaar - the Court of Jesus in Allahabad. Dr Lal faithfully preaches in a culturally acceptable way to thousands of Hindus every Sunday. Forty thousand have been present on occasions. A multitude of people converges upon the Christian university compound coming from long distances. It is a miraculous happening that began after a period of prayer, which targeted the strongholds of the holy city. Thousands are finding Christ and being healed as wonderful miracles occur. The meetings are not advertised it is all happening by word of mouth as the fame of Jesus spreads because of His works and the changed lives. Workers are traveling to the villages, gathering the converts into house churches where there have never been churches before. A quiet wonder is happening in India!

I was reminded of the concentrated prayer of a few years ago directed at the "10/40 window" the latitude of India. Now we see the results of 30 million people's prayer. God is so faithful. Please continue to keep these precious people in prayer as they work in a very hostile environment to establish the Kingdom of God.

From there we traveled by night train Delhi and on to Ludhiana where we stayed with Drs Alex and Annie Abraham who are doing a pioneer work in the Punjab planting churches and training workers. Dr Alex is a man of great vision and huge faith. In this Sikh stronghold they are successfully seeing hundreds of new house churches planted. We were there to assist in the training of the women leaders for the work. It was a challenging time, we learned a lot about the whole region and the wonderful new opportunities there are for the gospel. They have a vision for a church in every zip code area and to achieve their goal concentrate upon training local leaders in church planting. We were staying in a new building opposite the gates of the Ludhiana Christian Medical Hospital. For many years I prayed for this institution and knew many who worked there. We walked through the hallways and prayed in the chapel. May the Gospel continue to go forth from that work of faith.

We returned to Delhi by train; these journeys were life in perpetual motion! There was never a dull moment with "wallas" selling every thing from omelets, to tea, to juice, to Cadburys chocolate, we could have our shoes cleaned, receive incantations from very suspicious characters, give to beggars with no arms or little children selling flowers or to a one man act singing and juggling!

We left the train and its variegated chaos, had a short car tour around Delhi the capital of India, were greatly impressed by the magnificent buildings some old and some new then joined the somewhat orderly line of airline passengers at Delhi Airport. What different company! Almost all the passengers were men, mainly businessmen who are used to being important. There were a few wealthy families with spoilt, overweight children. We were now leaving the north and flying south to Hyderabad.

The welcome overwhelmed us. One after another came and greeted us and put garlands round our necks. I was weighed down with dozens of fragrant garlands in true Indian fashion. Mohan Babu, Rani, his wife and all the leadership plus many others escorted us back to Sion Fellowship Headquarters. Their hospitality was wonderful - the food was so good that I know we added inches being there!

A Prayer and Intercession conference was planned. The Lord gave great liberty in prophetic flow and the preaching. I was especially focused on 2 Chron 7:14 and preached two messages just on humility. Natalie preached twice and we flowed together like one man. On the Sunday the various local congregations met together in a downtown Center where we saw the power of God and great impartation especially to the young people.
Soon we were on our way again this time to Bangalore where we were met by our dear friends Duncan and Vasanti Watkinson and were taken to have dinner in the home of some people who knew us from our Bombay days. Duncan had arranged a series of strategic meetings for us with different key leaders. First I ministered to the intercessors of Paul Thangiahs church. This is a large Assemblies of God, which has a very strong intercessory ministry. The power of God came down as I ministered to the company after teaching on the Watchman. The following days were filled with a variety of special meetings with Pastors, intercessors and then a One Day Conference for training in intercession.

Indira, Vasanti's sister was with us. That was an amazing blessing to me and to her. She was part of the church in Bombay in the early days. It was a special joy to see her being deeply blest and revived through the word and our fellowship.

God has blest the city of Bangalore with the ministry of Yeshuant Kumar. This pastor has a clear anionting to gather pastors and leaders to pray for city transformation. He has organized groups of pastors in different regions from a variety of denominations across this huge city for the purpose of prayer. Day training sesions were held where both Natalie and I taught. Then I was invited to preach at three evenings meetings arranged in different locations where the pastors brought their congregations together to storm the heavens concerning the coming general election and for a visitation of God. I am sure every demon felt the power of the prayers. This was nothing polite, this was not just a good prayer time, this was the most desperate impassioned pouring out of hearts for God to move, deliver His people and save the lost. With the atmosphere charged - I then had the privilege to preach the word.

In January Benny Hinn is planning a crusade in Bangalore and this city is ripe for harvest. They are already preparing the ground. It is truly India's harvest time.

Our next stop was Goa a beautiful area on India's west coast. It was under Portuguese rule for hundreds of years and the evidence is still there in the culture and the strength of the Catholic Church. We were with Mathew Kurien and man from the south with a missionary vision. He has planted churches and has a thriving compassion work with children's homes for street children, a school and hands on help to slum dwellers.
My brief was to preach in Panjim the capital of Goa where they are planning to plant a church and to teach a one-Day Conference on Spiritual Warfare. The meetings were in a public hall. After these weeks of intense ministry in a huge variety of places we were taken by surprise by the spiritual opposition arrayed against us. Panjim was tough territory we were up against a different type of stronghold, this one was Catholic mixed with a psuedo compromised gospel that held people captive to lukewarm commitment and limited understanding. For me it was my toughest assignment. I could hardly preach the first evening but later that night after we broke through in prayer we saw the victory.

Even in Goa I met people who knew me from our Bombay days. A woman recognized me as I stood on the balcony of the hotel! She and her whole family were saved during the outpouring of the Spirit in Bombay. They were happy to come to church with us on the Sunday.
After getting our feet wet in the Arabian ocean and drinking lots of "limbu pani" on the beach and preaching in Mapsa on Sunday morning we were ready to hit Mumbai for our last hectic day.

Lots of memories.

Betty D'Souza who used to be our secretary came to see us in the hotel. We laughed, cried and prayed together. It was wonderful to see her again and to see her strength in the Lord. Her husband Nap, a valued co-worker had died but Betty still filled with zeal continues to serve God leading people to Christ and into the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. She said, "hearts are so open since the Benny Hinn Crusade."

We had dinner with Kamlaka and Grace. Kamlaka was saved under Alan's ministry, baptized by him and received the Holy Spirit in our home! We prayed for them and enjoyed the Lord together. Late at night Kamlaka drove us back to our hotel. Lumbering along the main road was an elephant! Now we had seen everything- cows, pigs and buffalo suddenly seemed tame, an elephant was a fitting sight for our last night.

We were up early the next day to tour the city and for me to revisit some places of personal significance. My history and the precious years with our growing children were all lived out in India. I found myself remembering different cameos with big and small events involving our children's lives. Many things long forgotten were relived as we went to the Hanging Gardens where I used to take the children for a treat, we visited Satnam Palace the first home we had in India, it was far smaller than I remembered and so squalid. We shopped on Hill Road, went to the Gate Way of India and I even stood on the spot where the Spirit fell upon me in the manse of the Bombay Baptist church in 1965 which heralded the first move of God in Bombay. What memories!

I loved my Indian kharna (and it tastes better when you eat with your hands,) I was at home with Indian clothes, bucket baths, squat toilets and cockroaches! I was home. India has an indelible place in my heart, I love India, it's people and the wonderful kaleidoscope of life.

Today India has taken center stage. It is in God's spotlight, it is time for India's millions to find their Savior. You too can be a coworker with the Lord of the harvest. Join the battle in prayer stand with the Indian church and the fearless workers who are advancing the kingdom of God.

N.B. Bombay in now named Mumbai.

Eileen Vincent
April 2004