The Colombo, Sri Lanka, congregation is quite vibrant and expressive. On Friday night, Oct. 5, we had a get together with 30 at one of the member’s homes. On the Sabbath, we had services followed by Beyond Today presentations by David Schreiber and myself.

Then we flew a short distance to India where we conducted three more seminars in the eastern state of Andhra Pradesh. About 170 attended these meetings and expressed a great deal of interest in the United Church of God. We visited one of our former ABC students Ezekiel Polinati in the city of Visakhapatnam. He then traveled with us to the far eastern state of Mizoram nestled between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Here we have been visiting Sabbath-keepers for about ten years. This church, which has three congregations now calls itself the United Church of God. They had prayed for many years to find another church with similar beliefs that they could associate with. With us, they feel a special kinship. They have adopted our Fundamentals of Belief and have translated some of our literature into the Mizo language.

We traveled with them to all three of their congregations and met with their leaders, as well as other Sabbath-keeping groups in the area. This part of India is almost 100% Christian because of British missionaries who visited this area in the 1890’s.

I’d like to share one example of such a planting and germination. In Agra (where a United Church of God congregation is found), more than a decade ago a Hindu person gave George Samuel a copy of a Good News magazine that he had found. The person wasn’t interested in the magazine, but thought that George might be. George found the Good News magazine enlightening and sent for more literature and subsequently a visit. After some time he was baptized, along with his wife, Shobha. Now, they hold weekly church services in their Agra home for about 12-20 people. I had the honor to meet them for the first time and hear their story of faith and stepping out as Christians in this Hindu culture. We are hoping that George can come to Ambassador Bible College for the second semester starting in January. We also visited with other members and heard their stories.

Our final stop in India was in Delhi were members George and Shobha Samuel came to meet us. They live in Agra the location of our congregation in India and the site of the Feast of Tabernacles. George and Shobha host weekly church services in their home.

This visit to Sri Lanka and India was one of the most amazing church visits that I have made. We felt the same spirit of God that we have elsewhere in our brethren all around the world.

I have much more detail and photos about our recent journey on my travel blog.