Happy New Year 2012

Dear F.R.I.E.N.D.s,

Thank you for your continuous prayers, love and concern for us. Life in general is becoming very fast and stressful. But friends like you and your prayers and love keep us going. Looking back past one year there are so many things to thank God for what He has done in and through us.

I started the year with a prayer to eat the scroll (Eze 3:1,3; Rev 10:9) i.e. to feed myself with the words of God, especially to grasp eschatology (study of the end times). I confess that God blessed my hunger and opened the store house of heaven and downloaded so much. I can say that the Holy Spirit has anointed the subject of end-time for such a time like this. I was ooohed and wowwwed so many times as I began to see Bible passages in new light illuminating truths that were hidden to me earlier. If God allows me in 2012, I want to gather my thoughts and put into writing some of what God gave to us in a book form for a larger audience.

At the beginning of 2011, I left the ministry with which I was associated for last 12 years due to conflicts with the leadership. But in the process God sanctified me and sharpened my message with the calling to be a forerunner of His return. I was troubled by the leaders who tried to persuade me to return to the ministry, but I could not see them doing so because of their love for me or even more importantly for love for the Lord, rather it was out of desperation to save the organization’s and the leaders’ reputation, motivated by love for the self which was the primary concern for my leaving. I still love and pray for the people there. I am thankful for blog like ubfriends and people who have decided to continue in that ministry but with their renewed mind and spirit. Some of their thoughts and writings in fact edified me in last year and I am thankful to God for such people there.

After discovering my own specific calling of an end-time forerunner, by God’s grace our community was also able to serve two pastors' conferences in Orissa where I was one of the speaker. The first one was attended by 300+ pastors, evangelists and fellowship leaders. It was our first conference outside of my previous ministry association. However God blessed it and blessed the words we preached. It was such a blessing to worship God with spiritually hungry worshippers in Orissa. God provided all the needs for this conference, almost miraculously. The joy of the success of this conference was however soon replaced by conflict with the family of a coworker with whom we had started the community. The conflict was over leadership issue again related to a third person who seemed to have got "marginalized" due to my "dominance" at the Orissa conference. Fact is, some of us could not accept absolute control of the spiritually-gifted third person who lacks basic spiritual fruit and the result was another painful separation with the coworker's family and as well as with that person. As some well wisher said it was a failure on my part to establish a community, I accept the failure and take the responsibility. Sometimes I thank God for the early separation as longer the association, more hurting the separation becomes. I also comforted myself telling that my life goal is not to establish an organization but to prepare the way. Many with whom I identify my forerunner calling actually suffered from loneliness and isolation. But I have been blessed to have wonderful friends and coworkers like Sarah G, the Bhatras (Robert and Happy), the Mullicks (Tapan and Jharana), Ravi, the Changs (Tiger and Rebekah), the Naiks (Firoj and Sama), Satish and many prayer supporters and friends within the country and few around the globe. We entered into a much deeper relationship with S. Robert's parents and with P. Khora of the Prayer Tower ministry. Especially, S. Robert's mummy is such a humble and prayerful person to know closely. She was happy to have Sarah N. as her spiritual daughter and with tears told me how she had misunderstood me earlier on some important issue. God also connected us to friends like Mr Bhatia & P. John, P. Kataria (UP), P. Lee (JNU), P. Micah (Assam) and few others.

God blessed our study of the Seven Churches of Revelation. By the end of this study, while I was preparing to visit Orissa for my niece's wedding, I was invited for another conference by P. Firoj. Due to lack of time we had only one day bible study seminar which was blessed by God. It is quite easy to gather a large crowd, and even serve them, but I insisted to have a small group of only those who are serious to study the Bible. We had a selected group of about 20 with whom we have developed relationship in the past year and the meeting was spiritually blessed and mutually encouraging. Thanks to my friend P. Firoj who has a heart for many young pastors there and keeps praying for opportunities like this seminar to help them.

At my workplace at IILM, Greater Noida, I completed two year and got recognized as a good teacher and a responsible faculty to be entrusted with the post of Head, Admission Cell and also HOD of the Computer Science Department. Sometimes my responsibility as a new HOD is overwhelming and I get exhausted but I am learning to depend on God and He keeps me going.

Thank God for helping S Robert finish his research field work. Apart from a hunger for intimacy with the Spirit, He also is a wonderful messenger and I love the way he articulates his messages. S. Happy experienced God’s help to finish well her present job through faith on God’s guidance for the future. God blessed the Bhatras’ prayers and Liz began her education in a good school. Sarah G rediscovered her life’s calling to be a Jhansi Ki Rani with the message of the gospel on the streets of Delhi. Once she got beaten and her pictures appeared in a national newspaper. But those were the days I saw her most happy. She became stronger in her inner person in the past year. In the face of mistreatments and rejection from loved ones she did not fight back humanly but struggled with God and overcame with patience and love in her soul. She stayed with my family nearly a year now is a miracle for her as well as for my family. But truly she is a blessing and made a deeper bonding with my family as my sister. Ravi has a quiet spirit with a heart to worship God and to serve his friends in JNU. Other than being a good researcher his dholak makes up our worship environment.

By God’s wonderful grace Sarah N and me completed seven happy and blessed years of our marriage. In past two years, Sarah N rediscovered her passion to read spiritual material through books and the Internet. She has been blessed by God with a gift of broken heartedness over many things that God wants her to pray. She loves offering her morning time to study and to pray and has been realizing her mission to pray for the work of God. She also learned faith through her health and our family’s financial needs. Due to my back and forth job switching between academics and ministry, we could not own a car in last seven years of our marriage. But by God’s grace we are going to have a Santro this year end. Isaac will join the senior school from the coming semester. Three years back when we admitted him to St Marys, we just thought about finding a Christian school no matter the standard etc. But we are happy to find this school as one of the best ten among the highly competitive and well established schools in south-west Delhi ranked by an agency. Paul is making significant progress in his speech related issues. I am also thankful for Anju who is the best babysitter we have had so far. I pray for Tapan to establish a gospel-band and be established by God as a trainer and raise up many musicians to change spiritual atmosphere of our cities and villages and to prepare way for our Lord’s return. I thank God when I see a shift in Tapan's focus from money and glamour of a professional musician to offering his music to the Lord with a desire to prepare upcoming musicians. The Lord is also helping him to be song writer and vocalist.

I am very excited about what is in store for us in 2012. One thing is sure, as we get closer to the end of the age, darkness will become darker, but light also will shine brighter (Isa 60:1-2). It is not surprising anymore that the secular world and even hindu religious groups in this country are now talking about the change of the age. I have started seeing more and more hindu groups announcing end of the present age (Kali yug) and beginning of the new age (Satya yug) with a concerted effort in their own way through fliers and posters on public transport like train and rickshaw. What really surprises me is the complete disconnectedness of Christian ministries and Christian leaders. Anyway, this only makes me more resolved to prepare the way of the Lord’s return, beginning with believers who are willing to listen what the Bible has to say and see for themselves the signs of the Lord’s return.

As we seek to announce the Lord's return and prepare His bride, may the Spirit and the Bride cry in unison, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:17). Amen! I wish you and your family a Happy New Year 2012!