Sydney Anglicans are helping the Indian Gospel League (IGL) reach youth with the Christian message and learning from them too.
A dozen people from Moorebank Anglican Church spent two weeks with IGL in January visiting congregations and running youth outreach events.
Moorebank's associate minister Paul Hodge who led the team says he was challenged by the people and congregations he met.
"These people didn't have much compared with what we have in Sydney; however their excitement and passion as Christians was a real challenge to us," Mr Hodge says.
"From what we saw, they didn't have the rich Bible teaching that we receive week after week and which we so often take for granted. However they knew their Bibles better than we did."
The Moorebank team had the opportunity to use their gifts and engage with the community while visiting IGL churches and youth events.
"We spoke at youth conferences, did testimonies, songs and skits and even got smashed in a cricket match in one village," Mr Hodge laughs.
Youth group leader and university student Tom Habib was one of a handful of young adults from Moorebank who made up the mission team.
The 20-year-old says he had wanted to go on a mission trip for some time and so jumped at the opportunity to work with IGL.
"Seeing God's work in another country was a big motivation. I wanted to look outside the box of Australia and experience something different," he says.
"I was impressed by their great passion and excitement for the gospel that is sometimes lost over here."
The Moorebank team spent much of their time staying next to the Sharon Children’s Home. The home holds over 300 children, many of whom are orphans or whose parents cannot provide for them. Tom says this was a very rewarding experience for him.
"We had the chance to get to know some of the kids in our spare time. I met a 13-year-old boy named Johnny," Tom says.
"One day at the Youth Conference he took my Bible and opened it up to the book of Psalms. He pointed to a verse in Psalm 27 and said, "This is my favourite verse'. It read, "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me'."
"Though it wasn't part of the program, meeting these boys from the children's home was one of the most significant parts of the trip for me and by far the most encouraging," he says.
Mr Hodge says Sydney Anglicans can learn from Indian Christians' holistic approach to ministry.
"Their churches are in the middle of the village and become a centre for everything: child care, literacy classes and so on. It becomes a holistic way of looking at people's lives and a clear base to share gospel from," Mr Hodge says.
"They had a passion to see their families and friends come to know Christ, which puts us to shame. They believed that God worked through prayer and so prayed fervently."
"Although these people didn't have much " compared to what we receive in Sydney - they were putting what they did have into practice," he says.
