Libraries

In January's survey trip I met a pastor in northern India that impressed me. He impressed me not because of his charisma, his large church, or anything I saw upon meeting him; but rather after talking to this pastor and the people around his village I saw a humility and a Christ-likeness that I hadn't yet seen in the dozen other pastors I'd met in South Asia. Most pastors I had met wanted to talk about themselves, or preached a watered down gospel, or just said some nice things people wanted to hear. This pastor wanted to talk about Jesus and church planting and discipling other believers.
Out of curiosity to see what this effective man of God was reading, I asked to see his library. It had maybe 10 books, mostly Bibles. Some books were in English, some were in Hindi or Punjabi. This particular pastor speaks and reads English very well and said he wanted some more books. I said that if I ever came back, I would bring him some good books; not knowing at the time that I would actually get to fulfill this promise.

When it worked out for me to return to South Asia, I knew that at some point I would be able to travel back to this village and see this pastor so I made a list of some books I thought would be good: MacArthur commentary, ESV study Bible, Systematic Theology... I told a couple elders at church about my plan to give this pastor some books and asked if they had any other recommendations. The elders ended up adding to my list and buying all of the books for him!
A few weeks ago I was able to travel to this brother's village! In May I left the books in Delhi India with a friend, and when I saw them again I remembered just how many there were and got really excited again! We put them in a huge bag to take to him.
We got there around lunchtime. In my opinion, his wife makes the best Indian food and chai tea in all of India. After lunch and tea I told him I had a gift from my church and myself. I pulled out all these books that I think doubled his library. He didn't really know what to say but I could tell he was excited and grateful. For some reason unbeknownst to me, Indians don't smile in pictures, but in the photo of him and the books, he has a huge grin!
It was great to see him again and hear of all the new people becoming part of the Kingdom, people being baptized, people being discipled, and churches being planted. With all the crazy theology floating around South Asia, its good to know God is using this man to preach the Word. I hope that these new resources help him continue to learn and preach the Bible.