A Funeral, an Indian Missionary, and an Indian Restaurant

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Sit back, enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. India has come to me. I've never done my show from India, but I am going to be able to say I've done it from an Indian restaurant, NAWAB or NAWAB. And I am with my friend.

Why would this happen? Colby, our awesome Truth Warrior Intern, host of Truth Through the Youth, what would precipitate, necessitate, cause this divine encounter to happen? Here we are in an Indian restaurant recording Truth Talk. Well, it doesn't happen very often, but we're sitting around the table with a great pastor from India who has been able to grace us with his presence, share a little bit about his ministry, but I'll let him introduce.

I don't want to get too much into too far into it, but I'll let him introduce. Pastor Raju, now look, I'm going to set this up. You come to our country. You come to Wednesday in the Word this morning at Dario. We say, where are we taking you to lunch? He doesn't want to go to the best wing joint. We try to get him to Campbell City Barbecue Factory. We try to get him to all kinds of bar, you know, good Southern barbecue. We try to get him, maybe go back to Dario for that unbelievable hot dog. We try to think, think about all these places and he wants to come here, right? Talk about that.

Yes. Thank you for bringing me over here. And we get an Indian taste. Amen. And who brought you to us today? Talk about this guy right here, Greg. Brother, Greg is a great friend of mine because he's a friend of Bob uncle.

And if he's a friend of Bob uncle and his friend of mine, and instead when he's not here, he is taking care of me. I'm thankful to him and thankful to uncle that he introduced me to him. Wow. That's something.

That's something. And when he says Bob uncle, of course, Greg Wilkins radio network, a fellow Christian broadcaster, we absolutely love what you're doing. You carry a bunch of the truth network programs, including this one will be aired across all your 40 stations. Clarify a little bit and maybe add on to what a brother pastor Raju has just said. Bob Wilkins, my boss who just passed away, he's with the Lord now. He had a vision, a real passion for the gospel going out. He purchased Christian radio stations all across America, anywhere where he could get a good signal at a reasonable price and put the gospel out. He was more than open for local ministers and churches and national and regional churches and ministries to be able to go out on the airways and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. He had a passion for it.

He was, some people would say obsessed, but you can't be obsessed about the Lord. He's our whole life, our whole purpose for being here. And when we lose sight of that, we've lost sight of our mission field, why we're here. We're here to serve the Lord. And that's our only reason for being here.

When we stop serving the Lord, when we let up, there's really no purpose for our being here at all. Wow. And that is actually what brings together an Indian pastor from 24 hours flight away, another continent, a banker, auto finance guy, a Christian activist, pizza delivery guy, entrepreneur of Truth Warrior Intern, who's an entrepreneur, a guy in the Hispanic food leadership space where you take food all over the, you know, the Hispanic wholesaling, right? Phil Calhoun, what's the name of your entity? La Tortilla. Okay.

Yep. You found yourself in the Indian restaurant today. And I love Indian food with buffets probably. In the church you met at, there's a couple stragglers here from that church, this rising star, Liberty University, Landon, you met these guys. You gave him, you walked in and gave this guy a big hug this morning from India. I'm like, how do people know Raju? He's more popular than me.

Raju is family. I've been blessed to grow up in Center Grove Baptist Church and where I've known Jeff Chetwood, who will introduce in a minute. And yeah, so I'm just blessed at this table and getting to spend some really good time in the Word. Amen. And so you love Jesus, you're leading men's groups, love seeing young men of God on fire for Christ.

You're at Liberty University, home of the new 93.7 FM. So we've got a magnet to slap on your car and make you a magnet missionary. Don't actually say maggot missionary because that won't go too well. It's magnet missionary. And this guy next to you is one of the most radical Christians I know, Jeff Chetwood.

Now, Chetwood, you gave Raju a big hug this morning. What is it about you and missions, man? I thought you were going to retire and chase a little white ball. What's going on there? I can't find the little white ball.

It goes into the woods and there are not enough squirrels to kick it out. But I've known Raju for a long time and a lot of the Sunday school classes at Center Grove have supported him for many years. And a lot of people at Center Grove have worked with him and he is a great man of faith. And he's of kindred faith. Quickly tell everyone at International Commission, you're going to places like India, places sharing the gospel over the world, right?

Yes. We are attempting to go into every country every year with the gospel. And my area is Asia. We've got 19 countries and then my compatriot, Steve Ferris, has South Asia. And so I have been to India, all across India, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Guntur, this Hotnapatnam, all the way to Burma. Our first mission trip, my wife and I was to India and we were sharing the gospel. We had 7,710 pray to receive Jesus. And in two weeks, it grew to 17,000. We are working all over India and millions every year come to the Lord by pastors everywhere.

But Raju and his orphanage is an incredible thing happening in which he is raising up young people to know Jesus personally and to go out as missionaries. Wow. And there's another incredible thing happening, like the food arrival. Now, what is this soup? What is this soup and this salad? What is it we ordered?

Explain this, Raju. We're in an Indian restaurant in Winston-Salem. Dal soup. Dal soup? Like lentil? Yeah, lentil soup.

Okay. And then what about the salad right here? It's onions and carrots, cabbage.

With an Indian dressing, like an Indian ranch dressing. Look at that. Wow. Oh, wait.

They're taking. Oh, he's got, okay. No problem. All right. All right.

I think it's just my, I had a soup, I think, didn't I? Yeah, he's getting coming. That's for you. Yeah. Yeah. So we're here.

And another big thing is they're coordinating the thing. This morning, Raju was in our Wednesday in the Word Bible study. We had a great time. And Jamal, what was your impression here in this guy? And then afterward you had a prayer for him. My impression of him was this guy is facing, I'm sorry, this pastor is facing a lot of opposition. And yet he still has afforded to the dedication to keep going. And also through his efforts and efforts like the people like him, his church is growing. So that gives me inspiration that no matter what we're facing over here, no matter what kind of adversity we have over here, if Raju can have his church grow with the challenges he has, our church can grow over here with the challenges we have over here. Wow.

That's tremendous. And what about you, Colby, Truth Warrior intern? Did you have any idea when you jumped into this internship, all this stuff would be going on? What's your impression? What's your takeaway?

No. And one of my favorite parts about this internship is being able to meet people exactly like Raju. And I didn't know I was going to have the opportunity to meet him this morning, but just hearing his story and hearing how on fire he is for Christ is just an encouragement to each and every one of us as we go out through our days to live on mission. And a lot of people have the mindset of living on mission means going somewhere.

The living on mission means whoever you're interacting with day to day, being on fire for Christ to the point that they can see where your heart is at and the way that Christ is leading you is just as important. So Pastor Raju has done an incredible job of encouraging us today. And I don't know how someone could leave not encouraged hearing what he's doing in India, the way that his ministry has grown from one or two kids to 125 kids, only possible through the grace and mercy of Christ. And it just shows how incredible the Lord that we serve is.

So we're in an Indian restaurant, India. Do people have any idea how big this country is? How many citizens of India Raju total and how many don't know the Lord yet? 1.3 billion people, and only 2.5% of them are Christians. 2.5% of 1.3 billion people are born again Christians and you are even between bites of lentil soup and this delicious cabbage salad. You are excited about reaching these people for the gospel, right? That's why you do what you do in the different areas real quick.

Tell everyone real quick and then we'll let you finish your soup. The different areas of you ministering. We have been raising the orphans. We also have the day school for the kids that we bring from the slums and we educate them because they don't get the education there. We also have the work with the tribes who are very, very downtrodden in the woods. In the beginning days when we went there like 17 years back, they do not even know how to wear full clothes, but we could go there and teach them the good things, civilize them, and now we are educating them and we bring some of them from there and educate them. So they go and educate all the people over there and also we have a leper ministry that we help the lepers with the medicine and the nutritious food. We are also helping the children with HIV affected and we give them the nutritious food along with the medicine too. And we have a church ministry. We have bible school. We educate them, train them with the bible and then they go and serve the lord and start the church in the villages.

This is what they have been doing. Just a bicycle can help a pastor go plant more churches other than going by foot, right? We train them for two years and send them with the bicycle where they can go and reach the villages, also the bible, also the drum. When they play the drum, people would know that there is a prayer service and the lord heals the sick and that's how people get to know by beating the drum. So giving the drum, bicycle, bible, send them to the mission field.

They go and reach the unreached souls. Well what a blessing. In honor of Bob Wilkins, Chip Wilkins, my good friend, a great mentor, a great man of God who's in heaven now.

We were just at his funeral service yesterday. We're directing all giving to this ministry to the Wilkins Radio Group in Spartanburg. Wilkins Radio Group in Spartanburg. Just look up Wilkins Radio, right Greg?

That's the website. Senior gift to help this. He's like Bob got it going years ago and now he's been giving and he put it in his funeral program. He wants all money in his honor to go to this man of God, to this ministry really. It's going to the lord, not to you, but it's going to go to reach orphans where they're taking these children. They're putting them in prostitution. They're poking their eyes out making them beg and he's redeeming them and bringing them to Christ and putting them in a home.

So thank you for what you're doing tonight my dear brother. Well we raise them for the good purpose and we the beggars have become engineers. The beggars children, the lepers children are becoming doctors, are becoming pastors, are becoming nurses and useful citizens for the country and with a few dollars that can help them build their lives from the scratch into the blessing.

So many thought leprosy was just you know in the bible times. It's in India today and he's doing something about it and give me your email. This is the coolest email I think I've ever heard.

lifegivers at gmail.com l-i-f-e-g-i-v-e-r-s l-i-f-e-g-i-v-e-r-s lifegivers at gmail.com Awesome lifegivers gmail.com. Now they're starting to bring this food out where this Indian restaurant in Winston-Salem never done a show from India much less an Indian restaurant. So we're killing two stones with one bird.

These guys are huge NBA fans because all they're talking about is curry. I don't know what in the world that's all about but what do you say getting out here Colby your final challenge? I give everybody a challenge to you know wherever you're at go live on mission let this pastor Raju be an encouragement to you and we love pastor Raju and we thank him for coming and spending some time with us today so we're very grateful for him. This is the Truth Network.