12/21/2020 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – “My outreach work has multiplied many times,” Pastor Srikanth, a 30-year-old church planter, recently told International Christian Concern (ICC). “I used to visit villages on foot before I received a bicycle from ICC.”
“I am so happy that I can converse with more people now,” Pastor Srikanth continued. “I have started new work in some villages that I would not have been able to reach without having this bicycle.”
Pastor Srikanth is one of the latest beneficiaries of ICC’s Bibles and Bikes for India Initiative. Launched in November 2018, ICC set the ambitious goal of providing 1,000 rural evangelists in India with a bicycle and 100 Bibles. Using these simple tools, evangelists are empowered to bring the Gospel to rural and unreached communities across India.
Pastor Srikanth accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior in 1998. Since then, he has had a deep desire to witness Jesus in India’s remote villages. After his conversion, Pastor Srikanth received Biblical training and began reaching out to remote villages in Telangana’s Karimnagar district. Pastor Srikanth currently ministers among the Lambada tribal community that calls the Karimnagar district home.
The communities where Pastor Srikanth is serving are remote and proper roads are hard to come by. He would often walk for hours to reach remote villages and share the Gospel.
“I used to pay 25 rupees a day to rent a bicycle and visit villages to preach,” Pastor Srikanth told ICC. “Sometimes I could borrow a bicycle from my friends and neighbors, but most of the time, I just walked.”
“I was really praying for God to provide a bicycle,” Pastor Srikanth continued. “Receiving this bicycle is an answer to my prayers.”
“I am thrilled that I can carry on preaching to people who have never heard the Gospel,” Srikanth said. “I thank ICC for helping me with this bicycle so that I can take the Gospel into every interior village.”
Thanks to the generous support of ICC’s donors, more unreached people across India are hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time. Pastor Srikanth is only one of over 800 evangelists who have been empowered through the Bibles and Bikes Initiative. Please keep these evangelists and their ministries in your prayers as the Gospel goes out to India’s unreached.
For interviews, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: press@persecution.org
