It was 8:40am on July 26th, when David Kumar and his ministry partner, Pastor Walter, arrived in Gadag, India. They had left Bangalore the night before for the first of six monthly training sessions on talking about Jesus with your friends and family of the Muslim faith.
For the past couple weeks it had been raining across the state of Karnataka. Everything was muddy. As they traveled, David wondered if anyone would surmount the travel challenges of the rain and attend the training.
The church where the training would be held was built on agricultural land. To reach it, David and Walter needed to walk for about 100 meters through extremely slippery mud. It was so slippery that David came close to falling three times. “It was so funny,” David wrote.
But David was wrong about the rain preventing trainees from coming. Twenty people did come through the rain…by motorcycle!
When David asked them, “What made you come even in the rain?” he was moved by their answer.
“We came because we need this training so we can share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our Muslim brothers.”
David taught them how to greet a Muslim in their language. “They found it difficult to pronounce the greetings,” David said, “But we had a good time practicing and made it fun.” David also taught two lessons, “Islam,” and “The Life of Mohammed.”
Pastor Walter taught on how to share the Gospel with a Muslim a little bit at a time by grasping whatever opportunities that are offered.
One of the attendees, a believer from the hosting church, works as a cook in a hotel. He had taken time off from work to attend the training. He cooked lunch for all the trainees before the first session began.
He told the group that he encounters many Muslims in his work. David observed that he was very attentive and took copious notes. He later told David that what he learned helped him build good friendship with the Muslims in his life.
“India has a huge Muslim community and there is a vast open door among Muslims but very sadly the church of India has not been doing much to reach this huge community with the Gospel,” David shares, “We believe the local church holds a huge responsibility to be reaching to their neighboring Muslim community.
When we start our training in city or a town, we notice so many wrong ideas among our rural pastors which make them not share gospel with Muslims. So, during our training one of our jobs is to clear their misunderstandings and create desire to share the gospel with Muslims.”
In November 2023, David and Walter traveled to Gadag for the sixth and last installment of the training. On the first day, the believers listened intently as David taught, “Jesus and the Qu’ran” and “The Differences Between Jesus and Mohammed.”
On the second day, they were challenged by the story of Jonah to obey the Lord and faithfully share the Gospel with Muslims and presented with a certificate of completion for the course.
With the Lord’s help, David and Walter’s training has been successful. In August, David ran into Pastor Lokesh, who went through the training five years ago. He told David that as a result of the training, he was able to lead a few Muslims to Christ!
Another trainee, Pastor Ebenezer, said, “I have many Muslim friends, but I never thought of the necessity of the Gospel for them, now I know it is not difficult to share Jesus with them. … I have already started witnessing to a Muslim shepherd community not far from my place. Some of them have even started coming on Sundays for prayer.”
