Before we had land for our church, we had a rented space. Then, by the grace of God, we bought some land. We bought all the building material to build our church and began building, iron rebar, wire, cement etc. At the time money was tight, so I was working on it myself with just one builder.
We went to work at 9 AM, and immediately a whole hoard of bikes and cars pulled up, with many government officials dressed in their white outfits, and they all came on to our property asking “who are you, why are you building a church here?”
I was afraid. I was only one person, and they were a group of almost one hundred people – the village president and assistant mayors, all the public officials. They were all shouting, saying they did not want us to build a church here. So I said to them, “what can we do?” And they said, “You can not build a church here.” So I said, “OK, I will not build a church here.” And immediately, they all calmed down and left.
They were angry because they were all hindu, and they were accusing us that the church would be noisy and disturb the neighbors.
So we stopped working on the church. We went home, and my wife asked me “why are you so sad?” And I told her – because we are not able to build the church.
So my wife said, “I am going to start fasting, not stopping until the church is built.”
I had given up because I had seen all the people, but she said, “until your church is built, I am going to fast.”
So she started fasting and praying… one day, two days, three days, six days…
Nothing seemed to happen. The cement we had mixed to start building the church turned hard. All the supplies just sat there.
Then, after 21 days, I went on my bicycle to visit the area and see what was going on. I was at Kathankadai junction, just standing there with my bike on the side of the road. Then a man walked up to me, dressed in the white clothes of a government official.
I was very afraid, but he came up to me and kindly asked me “why are you standing here looking sad?” So I told him, “I wanted to build a church here, but some people stopped me.”
Then he said to me, “Who stopped you? Why did they stop you? Church is very good.” He was a hindu, but he approved of Christian churches. It turned out he was the previous mayor of the village and still had a lot of influence in the area. He told me – I will come and stand with you, and you can build the church.
So he came with about ten people and helped us build a shed out of bamboo. He stood there all day, and no one bothered us. We finished the temporary structure quickly, put up lights, and held an opening ceremony.
We dedicated the church, and no one troubled us.
Like Daniel prayed for 21 days, we fasted and prayed for 21 days, and God answered our prayers.
Now the entire village likes us being there because we partnered with Don and Margie cook and Hands on Houses and built houses for a lot of widows and needy people in the village.”