Thursday, July 20, 2006

Urgent: Prayer requested for the people of Mumbai
K.P. Yohannan calls for urgent prayer for the people of Mumbai (Bombay), after bomb blasts on seven trains killed nearly 180 people

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

MUMBAI, INDIA (ANS) -- K.P. Yohannan, the founder of Gospel for Asia, has called for urgentprayer for the people of Mumbai and also his homeland of India, after aseries of bomb blasts on seven trains killed nearly 180 people onTuesday, July 11.

In a phone interview he also called for prayer for the terrorists who carried out this vicious attack on innocent people in India’s largest city.
“After hearing about this terrible event, my prayer and hope is that we will no longer be listeners and just people who watch these things unfold before our eyes,” he said, “but rather our hearts will be burdened in the light of the fact that God is terribly concerned about this.

“It is my prayer that we will become people who represent Christ through our prayers and fasting and concern.

“This is also a time when we really need to pray specifically for the terrorists who are creating these worldwide crises. We, as God’s people, have the responsibility to really intercede, fast, pray and stand against these forces so the Kingdom of God can be established through preaching the Gospel and doing God’s work.

“Please pray for the people of Mumbai, but also for all of India, because God is working there so powerfully and we don’t need more crises like this, especially as the Dalits are opening their hearts to the Lord.”

K.P. then explained how he first heard about the bomb blasts.

“It was just before eight o'clock in the morning of Tuesday in Dallas, where I am staying, when I got a call from our leader in Mumbai (Bombay) telling me of this horrific situation,” he said. “That’s when I first learned about it and then the news began to filter in about the various bombings or explosions in the train.

“The city has about 17 million people living there and it is an extremely crowded place. The train system literally moves the whole of Mumbai. Because of the time of the day, I thought that at least 10,000 people must have died. Of course, later, I heard what everybody else was hearing that that it was in the first class compartments where most of the people died.

GFA Workers in City Spared

“One of my big concerns was that have 250 Gospel for Asia workers in Mumbai, and I didn’t know if any of them were killed. By the grace of God, none of them were in those trains, and their lives were spared.

“In the normal case I must tell you that all our people are out and about and are traveling back and forth in these particular trains. The Lord was gracious in that.

“This is the fourth time this happened in Mumbai. In 2003, they had explosions like this, and in 2002 and 1999 many were also killed.

“This is nothing more than spiritual warfare; a satanic plot to destabilize a nation and hurt people. It is also a hindrance the preaching of the Gospel in some ways. We have to pray much for this nation as it is a critical time for God to work there.”

K.P. added that GFA missionaries are now visiting the victims and their families in the hospitals of Mumbai, sharing God’s love and hope with them on a daily basis.

For more information on the work of Gospel for Asia, go to www.gfa.org