LET MY PEOPLE FREE

LET MY PEOPLE FREE

In my early days as part of the ministry team of distributing Gospel literature on the streets in Chennai, we handed over several hundred tracts to people unknown. I do not know how, but one such tract reached the hands of a guilty murderer undergoing his punishment in one of the state prisons in Tamil Nadu. He wrote a beautiful letter responding to the message of God’s peace and seeking to follow Jesus. As a young adult, my joy knew no bounds as I started to write back to him assuring him of God’s love and forgiveness. Some years later, he did write to me that he was now released from prison and back in his village. More than me, I knew that the angels in heaven will be rejoicing over this one sinner who repented.

Often mission work has been narrowly defined as serving in a tribal area, rural village and preaching to the downtrodden. Today, mission needs have emerged in the bustling cities and our own neighbourhoods. Enabling a liberated life for children, women and people on the margins to give them an opportunity for fullness of life is our wholistic calling. Jesus ministry spanned an entire range of people with all backgrounds and context. He refused to judge people on their economic or ethnic backgrounds and met the needs of everyone he met. They were rich people, rulers, the blind beggars, the lame, the demon-possessed, the sick, the adulteress and even the thief on the cross. Jesus came into the world to offer fullness of life for every person.

How often we neglect ministry opportunities around us as we see people in human-made prisons living without any freedom. Children, women and people in the margins often have no freedom of choice over what they eat, what they wear, where they live and their future. It is God’s call to us to proclaim freedom in Christ to them and to set them free with the power of God.

We live in a broken and oppressed world, abused by human beings, in bondage because of evil systems and barriers. Pushed to the margins, without a voice, or power to get up and get going. Millions of people live without hope, broken families and warring communities. The Gospel is about freedom, oneness, bridges, hope, shalom. Interserve Partners seek to be involved in creating space for such communities so that they may have abundant life, where women are free, have an identity, can lift their heads high and walk. Children are safe and happy. The marginalized are brought into the center and are free to be.

Interserve Partners serve the needs of people from all diverse backgrounds and settings using their professional skills that each individual and community may have the opportunity to be transformed through an encounter with Jesus. Are you ready to join hands with us to serve those who are yearning for freedom and fullness of life?  John Amalraj

2017 Issue II InFocus

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