..... church planting through opening schools

Graduates of NTC do church work in remote areas. One is leading a new church up in the mountains – in one of the 5 Hindu holy cities, the tributaries that feed the Ganges River. These 5 river sources become special holy cities. There are another 7 holy cities throughout India, fed by the tears of a special Hindu god. This pastor has a vision to eventually network 5 christian churches in these 5 holy mountain cities. A church is started by offering excellent education to the children. From a quality school the church emerges naturally. It comes from within the community. One does not just walk into a village or city and 'start a church'. But a new school is quite welcome. Hindus want their children to learn well. And they will tolerate, actually affirm, these schools. Generally, public school teachers are perceived to be lazy and uninterested. I obviously cannot comment intelligently on that generalization, but this is what I am told. This year NTC started a Christian academy for 3 lower grades, and George thinks it would have been good to start this school about 10 years ago. But they had to wait until excellent leadership was available. Students come from the NTC campus faculty as well as many children in the community.

There are plans to build a school building in an open field on the NTC campus. Currently the academy uses the lower floor of a boys' residence. Money gifts are needed to fund the finishing work to a second campus gate and road as well as the new school building. There is a demand from the community for additional schools. Enrollment will not be a problem.

Our group from North America will get to visit two of the schools in the NTC family – one on Saturday October 31 and one on Monday November 02.