Indian trip - Jim and Derek Holl

India, home to 1.2 billion people and one of the most densely populated countries in the world, was the recent destination for my dad, Jim Holl, and myself from Jubilee Church Bromley. Jim has been working in India for almost 25 years and over the last 3-4 years I have also had the privilege of travelling with him. Jubilee has long term relationships with two sets of people, both based in the city of Chennai, located in the state of Tamil Nadu in the SE of India. Shelton Johnson is an itinerant preacher who relates to churches across southern India and Jochen & Joshey Tewes lead IID, an organisation working to empower the poor through community education and micro financing.

The first half of our trip was with Shelton and he had arranged for us to travel with him on an overnight train to the rural town of Rajapalayam where we were to work with a small church. During the time we were with Gibson and his team we had the opportunity to share food, laughter and the local sights and smells as well as being able to provide the church with teaching from the story of Joseph. It was however incredibly humbling to see how committed these Christians were to the gospel and I felt they should be teaching us rather than the other way round. For example Gibson and his family literally slept on the floor of their church building because they had been evicted from their rented accommodation and yet I never sensed any resentment, just a desire to serve Jesus. We returned to Chennai and spent a couple of days visiting a number of community colleges with Jochen, where we again had the opportunity to share some stories about Jesus to students who came from a variety of religious backgrounds.

Overall this was a real opportunity to develop both new and existing relationships and I am confident that, overall, the trip has enabled the life of God to be shared across the nations.