***Less than a day after receiving this report, our beloved Samuel Raju passed from this life and into eternity. He was a kind and gentle man, whose company I always enjoyed. I have many fond (and sometimes funny) memories of my friend and brother. He made the most of his 72 years on this earth and Heaven will be fuller for it. He will be missed greatly by all who knew him, especially by his Bear Valley family. Please remember his family in your prayers. [KK}
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Dear Brethren in Christ,
Greetings in Christ name. By the grace of God we are doing good. We thank you so much for your prayers and emails all this year which made us all be protected and able to continue the mission of Christ in India. This year has been a challenging personally and spiritually too. We praise God for all those who lifted up prayers on our behalf during the corona pandemic, except the loss of few preachers and members of the Church, every one else is safe. Death rate has come done, however the government is kept warning the public about the chance of second wave of Covid-19. If it actually happens not doubt that our government will call for a lock down, we pray things would stay normal. Everything is possible with God.
School Update:
School work is going on good, we are in the last week of this quarter. We shall be breaking for Christmas from this Saturday. Classes will be resumed from 4th of Jan 2021. Attached are the pictures showing the work in Visakhapatnam and this part of Andhra Pradesh, also a picture showing my father. We heard about several baptisms, and witnessed too. Recently visited a group of Graduates who are working together and we distributed Bibles and Literature to them also financial help provided to those graduates. Tailoring classes also going on to our students, which we show to the government that we are providing trade education or vocational education. People are being added to the Church daily, even though corona situation is still active, churches are still able to meet every Sunday. Of course we were not able to hold lot of gospel meetings and preacher meetings this time, however gospel is being spread every where despite the difficulties, people are embracing Christ every where as a result of our graduates working in several parts of Andhra Pradesh and Orrissa.
Gratitude:
We thank the brethren at Lake Houston Church of Christ and Strickland Church of Christ for their charity in helping the Bear Valley school in Visakhapatnam. We are indeed blessed to have a wonderful relationship of working together for over 10 years, we pray that your leadership would continue to help the preaching school for producing effective ministers of the gospel. We really pray that some day you would visit us to see the Preaching school and also visit the graduates working in this part of Andhra Pradesh. We must thank Jerry & Paula Bates for their portion of encouragement in running the preaching school, we really miss working with them, it is a big loss, hope some of the brethren from the supporting church visit us to teach short courses. We look forward for the mercy of our Lord to continue working together for the years to come.
In Christ,
John Dean M