It has been a distinct pleasure for my wife and I to have hosted Mathews and Daisy Varghese in our home this weekend, including a trip for supper at the local Japanese restaurant.
Those of you familiar with my blog will perhaps remember that Vickie and I were able to visit India last fall. At that time, Mathews and Daisy hosted us in their home. Now, we have returned the favor.
Mathews is the Director of the Good News Center in Bhopal, India. Along with his wife, Daisy, and their then small son, Ashlin, he founded this ministry back in 1987. Their daughter, Asha, was born there a few years later.
The Varghese family is originally from the state of Kerala in extreme southern India. Kerala is the only predominantly Christian state in all of India. As a young man, Mathews felt called of the Lord to leave his home and go and do missionary work in the northern part of India, which is predominantly Hindu and Muslim.
God has truly blessed his work there. Today, Good News Bhopal has grown into much more than just a local church. It is a full- fledged ministry center that provides a school, an orphanage, a literacy center, a conference and training center for missionaries, a women’s tailoring center (wherein women are empowered to learn a valuable trade and thereby improve their lot in life), and several other relevant ministries.
If you would like to know more about Mathews and Daisy and the difference they are making in the lives of the people of India, you can read more at: http://www.gnccbhopal.org/.
Please pray for them as well as the people to whom they minister. The area where they are situated is one of extreme poverty. Most of the people there are trapped in the sense that they are unable to transcend their circumstances - at least not without the intervention of someone in their lives. Mathews and Daisy are attempting to do just that; and slowly, but surely, they are succeeding.
More importantly, they are helping to share the difference that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can make - both for this world and for the next. For my part, I am both humbled and convicted whenever I am in the presence of Mathews. He may be the single most Christ-like person I have ever known.
By this I mean that he is truly a man who walks by faith; and as he does, he eschews self-interest more than any person I have ever known. And like His Lord, He has chosen to give himself completely on behalf of others, laboring in relative obscurity as he tirelessly seeks to empower the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low.
For me, no doubt, one of the great joys of Heaven will be that of seeing this man and his precious wife receive their eternal reward for all that they have given and sacrificed on behalf of the Kingdom of God here in this present life.
I am reminded of the words of Jesus in His famed “Parable of the Talents”, as recorded in the New Testament in one of the four Gospels written by another man named Matthew (25:14-30), where the Master says to his faithful servant: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will now put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!”
Those of you familiar with my blog will perhaps remember that Vickie and I were able to visit India last fall. At that time, Mathews and Daisy hosted us in their home. Now, we have returned the favor.
Mathews is the Director of the Good News Center in Bhopal, India. Along with his wife, Daisy, and their then small son, Ashlin, he founded this ministry back in 1987. Their daughter, Asha, was born there a few years later.
The Varghese family is originally from the state of Kerala in extreme southern India. Kerala is the only predominantly Christian state in all of India. As a young man, Mathews felt called of the Lord to leave his home and go and do missionary work in the northern part of India, which is predominantly Hindu and Muslim.
God has truly blessed his work there. Today, Good News Bhopal has grown into much more than just a local church. It is a full- fledged ministry center that provides a school, an orphanage, a literacy center, a conference and training center for missionaries, a women’s tailoring center (wherein women are empowered to learn a valuable trade and thereby improve their lot in life), and several other relevant ministries.
If you would like to know more about Mathews and Daisy and the difference they are making in the lives of the people of India, you can read more at: http://www.gnccbhopal.org/.
Please pray for them as well as the people to whom they minister. The area where they are situated is one of extreme poverty. Most of the people there are trapped in the sense that they are unable to transcend their circumstances - at least not without the intervention of someone in their lives. Mathews and Daisy are attempting to do just that; and slowly, but surely, they are succeeding.
More importantly, they are helping to share the difference that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can make - both for this world and for the next. For my part, I am both humbled and convicted whenever I am in the presence of Mathews. He may be the single most Christ-like person I have ever known.
By this I mean that he is truly a man who walks by faith; and as he does, he eschews self-interest more than any person I have ever known. And like His Lord, He has chosen to give himself completely on behalf of others, laboring in relative obscurity as he tirelessly seeks to empower the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low.
For me, no doubt, one of the great joys of Heaven will be that of seeing this man and his precious wife receive their eternal reward for all that they have given and sacrificed on behalf of the Kingdom of God here in this present life.
I am reminded of the words of Jesus in His famed “Parable of the Talents”, as recorded in the New Testament in one of the four Gospels written by another man named Matthew (25:14-30), where the Master says to his faithful servant: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will now put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!”