It’s our fifth birthday. We’re incredibly grateful to God that we have reached this milestone. It’s been an amazing journey so far. As we celebrate five years, we want to reflect back on some of the many ways God has amazed and surprised us.
MIRACLES
God endlessly amazes us with miracles and answers to prayer. Here are a few of the stories where God answered in ways we never imagined:
One of our programs, Rahham, plants churches in the slums of Delhi. It’s one of the places around the world where desperation makes human trafficking sadly common. As we started a fellowship in one area, a family confessed that they had sold their daughter years ago and regretted it, but now they had no idea how to get her back. Rahham’s leader prayed with the family, but there was nothing else he could do to help. The next morning the family woke up to pounding at their door. They opened it to find their daughter, who had managed to escape and return home.
Another man in the slums was severely electrocuted as he attempted to jerry-rig a connection to the government mains. As he was rushed to the hospital, his neighbor—a widow who was not yet a believer but who attended a Rahham church—began to pray. At the hospital, the man was pronounced dead. Still the widow prayed; she knew too well how difficult life would be for his wife and children if they lost their provider and protector. When the family went to get the body, he started to move! By the next morning he was able to go home, and by that evening he was completely restored.
In their first year in the Truth Centered Transformation (TCT) program, churches draw a map of their community, including all their dreams of what God might do, provide, or change. Many draw schools or bridges. One church included an airport on their map! Because their village was in a remote mountainous region, it took days by bus to get to any city, and the roads were often made impassable by landslides. The church saw that an airport would make travel easier and many necessities more accessible. It seemed wildly implausible—who would put an airport in a rural village on the side of a mountain? But still they prayed. Three years after the map was drawn, the government decided to build an airport in their community that serves the whole area. God answered their audacious prayer!
TRANSFORMATION
God alone brings transformation—that’s a truth He has reminded us of many times in the past five years. Here are a few examples of the hundreds of times we’ve seen God bring healing, reconciliation, and transformation:
TRANSFORMATION
God alone brings transformation—that’s a truth He has reminded us of many times in the past five years. Here are a few examples of the hundreds of times we’ve seen God bring healing, reconciliation, and transformation:
Transformed Lives
In India, it is sadly common for the birth of a boy to be celebrated, but the birth of a girl to be a cause for mourning. Girls are often considered a waste, a bad investment. Ending Gendercide seeks to help change people’s mindset. After attending a seminar organized by Ending Gendercide, one man shared his own transformation. He said, “When my daughter was born, I just left the hospital without visiting my wife and daughter. I was too disappointed. When my daughter came home, I ignored her. I couldn’t bear to even see her. But after attending [this seminar], I realized my daughter has value. Now I love to hug and play with my daughter.”
Three years ago, The Create Commission (TCC) held a seminar for Christ-following art students. One of the attendees, Rishan, shared that for a class assignment he had made a work of art using a cross, but his professor had looked at it and, without a word, simply moved on. Experiences like that had left Rishan struggling to understand how faith and art could be integrated. Through multiple TCC residencies over several years, Rishan explored the nature of art as indirect communication and its power to shape society with beauty and truth. He now holds an MFA in Sculpture and has started a studio in his home village, where he teaches art to young people. Rishan recently shared, “If there was no Create Commission, I would not know I am commissioned.”
At the Wholistic Development Center (WDC), about 24 students from poor, rural backgrounds get the opportunity to study a trade and be discipled for two years. One student (we’ll call him ‘Jack’), came to us with very low self-esteem and a mixed experience of Christianity. His family had fled persecution in the neighboring country, and Jack grew up with many hardships—he didn’t know his host country’s language, he was very poor, and his father often told him that he was useless and would never achieve anything. God used WDC to teach Jack that he is made in the image of God with potential and purpose. He learned to trust and to accept love. And he became strong in his faith. Jack now teaches the new WDC students mechanics while helping them understand their identity in Christ and the blessings of obeying God in all areas of life.
The Good Steward
One man’s life was transformed after learning the truth that everything we have is from God and must be stewarded for His glory.
Transformed Communities
We’ve seen God transform more than 1,000 communities. Here are two of their stories:
One church began studying TCT in 2011. At that time, their community was widely known as the filthiest village, with trash, sewage, and animal waste everywhere. After learning that God cares about health and cleanliness, the church mobilized to ensure that every home in the village had toilets. They also built a fence around the whole village, so livestock can’t wander through the streets. Once a month the women’s groups clean the common areas. Next, the church turned their attention to another problem: people had to travel 35 miles on a bad road to reach the nearest market to buy food. The church organized a work crew to repair the road that connected their village to the main road. Then they had an idea to start their own market, so people could get what they needed without traveling. The church began buying goods from town and transporting them to the village; they use the profit from the sales to help orphans, widows, and those who cannot work. Now the church has a good relationship with the community, everyone has enough to eat, the children get sick less because they live in a clean environment, and the people have dignity. When the church graduated from the TCT program in 2017, the pastor reflected, “Before…church members just thought that the community needed some outsider to come to make us good and developed. Now for sure we know God has made us the ministers of reconciliation.”
At the beginning of 2017, the Rahham church in one slum community began meeting everyday to pray. One issue they prayed about was hygiene—their community had access to only a trickle of clean water from midnight to 3 a.m., there were no toilets, and no sewer system. As the church prayed, the government unexpectedly turned up and built a block of 12 beautiful tile toilets with wash basins! Later, surveyors arrived to map out a sewer system for the community. The church saw this as a gift from God that they needed to steward, so they trained the community on why to use the toilets and how to keep them clean. Then they suffered a setback: the trickle of water they had been getting suddenly stopped. After a week with no water flowing, the community was desperate. Again, the church prayed, and the water came on so strongly that the water pipe burst! God is transforming this community’s health and hygiene, but, beyond that, He is teaching them that He cares for every aspect of life and that He hears and answers their prayers.
Transformed Churches
This is the story of one of the many churches whose relationship with their non-Christian neighbors has been healed as they’ve learned to show God’s love to their community.
OPEN DOORS
In 2013 we dreamed that by the end of 2019 we would be working in 8 countries. We certainly had no idea the plans God had for us! We are now discipling churches in 20 countries—15 in Africa alone.
- Ivory Coast
- Burkina Faso
- Togo
- Benin
- Republic of Congo
- DR Congo
- Kenya
- Liberia
- South Sudan
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- South Africa
- Sierra Leone
In His Image
In the past five years God has opened the doors for In His Image to have more and more opportunities to teach others. In the current political climate, where things are getting increasingly difficult for Christian NGOs, they are actually finding more opportunities to teach openly about the truth of how God sees people with disabilities and how that should shape programs and interventions.
Celebrating Daughters
Our Ending Gendercide team wanted to stand against the deeply rooted belief that the birth of a son is a blessing but the birth of a daughter is a tragedy. So they began going to hospitals to congratulate and give gifts to parents of baby girls on International Day of the Girl Child. The impact on families was incredible—in-laws opening up, fathers weeping, parents promising to tell their daughters about their special birth day. We wanted to expand the program to more hospitals, but we weren’t sure how to raise the funds. Yet God had a different way: the Delhi government was so impressed that they took it on as their own initiative. Now on that day, all over the city, births of girls are celebrated with gifts and banners.
HARDSHIPS
Not every day was a celebration. God also used difficulties and tragedies to demonstrate His faithfulness over the past five years.
Persecution
At the Wholistic Development Center, many students come from families—or even people groups—who don’t know the true God. When they return home to visit, they face persecution for their faith. Some cannot go home at all because it would mean their family home being burned. Some have seen their parents martyred for their faith. Yet God uses them to witness to their families and communities. One young woman shocked her family by refusing to participate in ancestor worship. But in the end, her father asked her to let him read her Bible. Another young man faced harassment from local authorities, but his godly life was such a powerful testimony that the church in his area grew five-fold.
2015 Earthquake
In April 2015, a devastating earthquake struck Nepal. Many churches there, though suffering themselves, came together to provide food, blankets, and building supplies to villages that were so remote that no other aid was getting to them. Because of the love and help given by the churches, the elders in one village publicly apologized to the church for the way they had persecuted Christians in the past.
PROVISION
We don’t actually have a fundraising department. In fact we have one person who works approximately 20 hours a month on raising the funds we need. And yet God keeps us funded. It’s an incredible blessing.
Unexpected Growth
Over the years, we’ve seen our work grow much more quickly than our budget. Part of the reason is that God has put it on the hearts of local people, churches, and organizations to fund much of their own programs. In Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, the denominations cover about 75% of program expenses.
Churches
Budget
In His Image has one of the most incredible testimonies of God’s provision. When we first began partnering, they hadn’t paid salaries in four months and were incredibly in debt. Some people advised us that we were being irresponsible not to step in and close it down immediately. And yet we believed that God hadn’t called us to do that. So we asked their board to give us six months to see what God would do. In less than six months, In His Image was up to date with salaries. In less than a year, they were out of all debt. When people ask us what happened, we can’t really identify one particular thing. We prayed, and God opened the floodgates. To this day, In His Image is consistently blessed with full funding.
It has been an incredible five years and we are so grateful to God for all that He has done, the lives we have seen transformed, and the many lessons He has taught us. We’re excited to see what He has in store for the next five years. I have a feeling He will continue to surprise us.
