Dear People,

Greetings In Christ!

The Task:

Pastor Dennis Konkel and I [Pastor Bud Palmer] have had a blast teaching the deaf in Ambur, India. The deaf are really hungry for God’s word. We have been teaching about the “Gospel” Bracelet- the multicolored wrist band that is like a mini-Bible… Black is for sin; Red is for the blood of Jesus that covers your sin; Blue is for faith in the blood that brings eternal life; White is for Jesus washing us and making our sins as white as snow; Green is for growing or learning more of the Bible; Yellow is for heaven when Jesus returns and brings us to our mansion or as I say our “Taj-Mahals.” We have been training the DIT students of IELC [Indian Evangelical Luther Church] to reach out to their fellow deaf countrymen with the bracelet. They have been doing an excellent job! It makes a preacher want to cry! We have visited many schools and “man” can the deaf teach the deaf. It is a beautiful sight to behold. There are over 400 deaf schools in India! Wow! What a harvest field!

We have been teaching the Catechism and its six chief parts and the deaf here don’t complain about memorizing it. The Indian deaf just do it! Their sign language is different from ASL but with a little interpreting help from Pastor David Christudoss we have been just fine. The way the sign the Apostle Creed is really interesting. They sign the “I believe at the end of the sentence and many of the subjects are in reverse order from our signing of the creed…in many ways it makes more sense.

We have been training in Bible Stories too and mostly concentrating on the life of Christ beginning with the Zachariah story and the birth of John the Baptist. We have been doing dramas and showing overhead projections. We even had a light projector to hook up to the computer but India is so hot the projector kept shutting down…so we gave up. We did get to watch the “Passion” movie and it was very nice. Many of the deaf cried. One man really cried in front of Pastor Konkel and I. Wow! It really put goose-pimples up my arms. We have some really big issues coming up with BAPTISM. The deaf have heavy influences from Hindu and Islam. The Hindu’s are everywhere and they have a caste system that really makes it hard to baptize people. If you get baptize you are rejected from your Hindu caste and you can marry on your level. It is really sad the family pushes you away. Christians are forced to marry Christians; which is really biblical anyway…”don’t be unequally yoked (married)!” Believers should marry believers! However, even if you are Christian and try to marry a Christian often the other family members look to your caste level. They will fight over having the right level marry the right level NO MATTER if you are Christian. Pray for us that we might be able to get the importance of baptism across to them. Also we fight the usual problems of “immersion” and “infant” baptism.

The Weather:

The weather has been hotter than blazes. They do the weather in C* not Fahrenheit so I have no clue about the real temperature. It is their dry time in southern India. It is sunny everyday and that sure is a nice change from Wisconsin.

Gotta run! I will write more soon…I hope!

In Christ,

Pastor Bud Palmer