During the Christmas Vacation, I was able to spend 1/10th of my vacation time at the Mission fields of Sitteri hills. I have been a part of Blessing Youth Mission for around 3 years. Soon after I got a job, God led me to this missionary organisation. They have 250 missionaries alround India, especially at all sensitive and tribal areas. This sitteri hills was the starting place of this organisation.
Sitteri Hills is located 300 miles south of Madras, in the state of Tamil Nadu. Its part of the eastern ghats and a place untouched with commercial activities. There are no proper access roads to get to the top of the hills, but there are few buses that ply to this place on bad roads. But in any standards, its not a easy ride to the top.
I reached this village on Friday 15th of Dec. The missionary incharge was SundarMoorthy Annan (annan means brother and thats how i addressed him), he is from a devout Hindu background from Tanjavoor who is now proclaiming the Good news of Jesus.
I was given a room where I could stay for the rest of the 3 days. I expected I would get a shanty little room, but thank God it was a wonderful room that was well furnished. But few years back, missionaries lived in huts and I would like to tell a few things about their sacrifice in the latter part.
We were supposed to go to another village 30 kms along with the villagers of sitteri for a christmas program. The believers from this village were taking a trip to the next village to give the christmas news. I was priveleged to be part of them. The means of commute was a Tractor with a trailer. All villagers who came for the program sat on the trailer. Since I was the person from USA :-) I was given the best seat in the tractor. Ofcourse I never wanted it, but they insisted. It was my first experience in this kind of tractor rides, but I was nowhere able to cope up with the strain. The road being so nasty with hard rock stones, the tractor wobbled all the way. The duration of travel was 2 hours(16 miles travel in 2 hours).
face turned red, since I was nowhere near handling the strain. My hip and back constantly hit on the seat that was made of metal. I had to to cling on to the ceiling of the tractor that was flat and sharp, my hand was red too. To add to all this I had to bend down to prevent my head from hitting on the roof of the tractor. I thanked God for the best seat that was given to me. I could understand how painful it would have been for others who travelled with me.
So finally another missionary annan, seeing my plight, said we can walk the remaining 30 mins by walk through the Jungle. I readily accepted, since I thought walking was better than sitting in the Tractor. So we went walking inside the Jungle following a trail. The missionary annan, on the way talked of how life was here many years back. He said, if any bison showed up, be ready to run :-). This was the first time, I ever walked inside a forest that was totally wild.
Finally we reached the village and there our group from sitteri performed carol rounds by walking around the village singing Christmas carol songs. There was a square in the village where skits and dances were done. I got a chance to tell the gospel message of Christmas to them. I prayed that God would give me strength to give the message. I did give the message in typical madras tamil, where I mixed tamil with little bit of english. I realized I was saying words like "so" in my message. :-). But I guess, they got what I wanted to say. Well I thanked God for this marvellous oppurtunity. Sundarmoorthy annan backed my message later.
After the program was over, we had food at a believer's house, and his name was Daniel annan. We walked in the fields at night with lamps and torches to his house. I looked up and saw the marvelous sky we had. The whole sky was lit up with bright stars. I cherish those moments now. We all sat down in his house and they served us Rice and Sambar. It was the first time I ate in a farmer's house. I could feel the warmth in their hearts and I thanked God for the wonderful food I got. Food was good since it was blessed. I will also like to challenge those who say, that people coming from the States should be careful with food. I drank the water and had their food, but nothing happened to me. I remember the portion in the bible that talks of Jesus sending 72 disciples for a short mission trip and promises them protection from everything(snakes, poison etc). It was the first time, I saw people eating in large quantities :-) LOL. Praise God.
After food, we had to drive back to our base Sitteri village. I thought within myself, "oh..tractor trip :-(". This time, we have to take the tractor trip, since walking in forest at night was highly dangerous. So got on to sit on my seat and I prayed let the journey be quick. I happened to sleep on the way since I was totally exhausted. I never knew how i fell asleep, since, I was sitting in a position grabbing on the roof and another leg in a place that kept me from falling down from the seat. All though I didnt show all the feeling, but i knew those people, were taking much punishment than me. Why do they do this ? They take this trip to Preach the Gospel. Just think of our own Carol rounds that we do each year. And we need to definitely to learn from all these people.
Saturday morning, I got up and prayed and had my quiet time, then thought I need to take my bath. I touched the water it was freezing cold. I was thinking, what I should do. I was reminded again, how missionaries lead their life without geysers. Just then, I heard the knock on the door, another missionary brother, brought me tea and said, my hot water was getting ready. Praise the Lord. I felt like chicken, since I felt, I was still not ready to give up on my life's pleasures.
Then later in the morning I took a trip to the village sitteri to meet other believers and get to know their experiences. I met the first believer in the village, who was farming while I met him. He gave told me his experiences and all the persecutions that he got from his village. He was quoting an array of bible verses that made me stand dumbfounded. If I were asked to tell few verses, I would be really stuck. Here is an old farmer quoting the verse in authority. Praise God.
I happened to meet the main villain in the village too :-). He is the head of the village who resents the gospel. But after visiting another home, a believer there said, that this person(Villain :-)) was reading and praying bible secretly. Praise be to God.
Just after I had lunch, a team from Tiruchi came in a van. These are young guys like me who here to tell the Gospel as a team. So on saturday evening, I joined this team to a village called thekalpatti. Some guys after reaching there, got all the small kids together and taught them Tamil action songs. They put up a story telling session too. Man I loved these guys who did small but awesome things for His Kingdom. Most of them are in colleges, and some working, but nowonder where they are from, they were doing great things in His ministry.
The team put up skits, songs and dance for the villagers there. It is said the whole village back slided few years back, and missionaries were trying to minister to them again.
On sunday morning, it was a christmas festival sunday, and all believer from all the adjoining hills and mountains walked into this main church. You can see people coming to the church from all directions and such a nice thing to see. The service was a good worship service and we all had lunch in the church after the service. I could feel how the Spirit was working in this part of the world. I also took part in their baptism service for new believers
I was stuned to see a huge gathering. There are 200 believers who come to this church. If no missionaries went to this place, the place would have been empty. Here is the fruits of around 20 years of work.
Praise Be to God
The church organised a memory verse competition. Here is the young winner of the competition. She recited 76 verse with scripture references.
Sundarmoorthy annan is standing next to the girl and there is one elder of the church giving away the prize.
And there ended my short mission trip and I pack my bags to leave back to madras. But I did feel so happy and encouraged seeing these people. Bye Bye Sitteri.
These are tribal people who worship nature for many centuries and they never wore dress till 1975.
Two young medical missionary women from Norway came here at 1960s and setup hospitals and preached the gospel. But their efforts didnt produce fruits. So they left the place. In few years Bro Stanley annan was directed by few people that there were tribes in these mountains, so he took his Yezdi Bike and drove his way upto the villages on the hills. Now BYM few small buildings and houses for missionaries. These missionaries cover 50 villages in that area. Travelling to some villages takes around a day on foot.
I heard that there was a missionary with his baby, at this place, and at those days, none drank milk. So he fed his baby with Kanji (porridge ). The missionaries stayed in huts and houses made of mud for around 20 years. Ofcourse words cant express their sacrifices in entirety.
"Christian who is not mission minded is not a Christian".
"If some missionary didnt preach the Gospel, you wouldnt be sitting here in this church."
Stanley Annan, came to Sacramento last year for a mission conference. And when I knew he was coming, I was so happy,
and I wanted to take him and show all these places. I wanted to take him to Lake Tahoe or just any place, and I wanted him to
be happy here during his stay. So when I spoke to him, I asked him, " what help can I do for you ? I like to take you to some interesting
places around here, and if you interested I can take you.".
He replied " I want study materials, books and bibles for the missionaries back in india, can you get some for me ?"
It was like I got a big slap on my face for asking one stupid question to one great man of God. That made me realize how worldly I was.
There are people around the world, where they just dont think of tithing to mission work, but when they eat out in restaurant, they set apart money, assuming that a missionary sat with them. And that money is saved and given to mission work.
There is a school in Tirunelveli in tamil nadu where all kids of the missionaries are housed and they study and grow up there. The organisations like FMPB, IEM and BYM have their missionaries' children there. These kids come home each summer vacation to stay with their parents who work in mission fields. Imagine how the parents would feel being away from kids ? Would you do that ? Even Sundaramoorthy annan's two girls study there.
Most generally people say money. Well more importantly missionaries need prayers. God doesnt need to stand before you asking for money, well he has His own people who can feel what God wants. Coming back to prayer, pray each day for those missionaries who have left all their family, and sacrificed their entire lives to preach the Gospel. Pray that God satisfies their physical needs and spiritual neeeds. Most mission work yields fruits only after many years. Many missionaries get discouraged by that time of wait. They dont have powerful speakers or corporate worship where they can feel exhorted and encouraged. PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM.
BYM is now headed by Bro Stanley who passed out M.Tech from IIT madras and its based in Vellore. Bro Stanley became a full-time missionary after leaving his work and he was at Sitteri Hills during 1972. I have great joy of getting to know this organisation, and as far as I am concerned, I rate BYM as number 1 mission organisation. Praise Be to God ! As with God's work, there is so much detail and so much of things that are miracles. I cant write all I know of BYM, if you are interested to know about BYM, you can talk to me, I will explain in detail how they work. You can mail them at [email protected] You can get their monthly magazines that has news of all their mission fields in india.
Praise be to God.
