ZIMBABWEANS ministering in INDIA

P and S’s Ministry Profile

(Names abbreviated to 1^st letters only, for security purposes)

S and I are both Zimbabweans. I have been with a missionary organization for the last 16 years. During the first 8 years I was serving in different roles in my home country. What got me into missions was learning about the unreached and the needs within the 10/40 window. It came as a shock that there existed people who had never heard about Christ. What amazed me was that the church in Zimbabwe didn’t seem to know about this or they were indifferent to what was happening.

In October 2004 we moved to South Varanasi, India where we joined a church planting team which mainly focused on sharing the Good News in culturally relevant ways to High Caste Hindus. We have been doing this through friendship building with the Hindu family we reside with and many others in the community. The first 2 years in South Varanasi were primarily focused on ministry through language learning (Hindi) and cultural acquisition. Now we are both fluent in Hindi and are continuing to do our best to understand the complexities of Hindu and Indian culture.

Besides being church planters, I am also involved in leadership coaching of other church planting leaders and teams in North India. My aim as church planting coach is to help church planters be effective and remain focused on seeing church planting movements. During the past year I have been involved in designing and implementing a coaching system for my mission organization’s church planters in North India. Our goal is to see less needless attrition, discouragement and to help church planters improve their own God-given, field-driven strategies.

S has a passion for Indian women and works closely with a number of women in the community. We have two kids, a 3 year old son (turns 3 on the 15^th of January) and a one month old daughter, both of whom were born here in India.

Our greatest needs right now are for a bigger, more spacious apartment with a yard for our kids to play in and money for transportation to visit and coach out-of-town church planting teams. We need an extra $100 a month for the apartment and about $150 a month for out-of-town church planting ministry.

Our long term vision is to help facilitate church planting movements in North India by planting fellowships that are culturally relevant and coaching indigenous fellowship leaders who will in turn plant more churches among the Unreached. As we work towards the fulfillment of this vision we look forward to continuous partnership with you.

Sincerely,

P and S