WHY THE PROJECT: While countries like the USA receive plenty of cross-cultural leaders in regions that are already reached, India has by far the most need for workers in its unreached areas, but still receives far less than other nations. Our churches (Emmanuel Fellowship Churches) alone minister to more than a hundred castes in nine North Indian states. Many castes, subcastes and tribes are newly reached every year in remote villages and towns. Every Indian caste has a separate way of life. Even people of two different castes or tribes rarely enter wedlock and it is even prohibited by the caste system. For members of a caste, a non-native church planter is like an alien who preaches about a foreign God. This is one of the main challenges that a church planter of another caste faces. Because each of these castes and communities is distinctive, each of them will require separate ways of mission strategies, disciple-making process and church planting. Even after coming to the faith they rarely marry outside their caste. To reach them, a church planter must have a thorough knowledge of the caste or subcaste he is about to reach. In reality, a native church planter of the same village and community is best suited for this job! And Emmanuel TheoTech College and 16 of its branches are set up for this specific purpose.
THE SOLUTION: Project Emmanuel TheoTech College is our answer to specifically train and raise native leaders within castes, subcastes, tribes and subtribes. God enabled Rev. Dr. Abraham and Hope India Mission to establish a Central College (TheoTech) in Patna City that offers residential leadership training. Because this was limited to a few students, we expanded the project by adding 16 branches to it. This has created a decentralized leadership training facility across the far unreached rural communities of our mission.
Secondly, it is helping to raise and equip more native leaders to take up the task of reaching their-own communities and repeat that cycle.
THE FRUIT: The above picture was taken during the graduation ceremony of one of such centers in a remote village in Chhattisgarh state. More than 400 leaders are now being trained through this project in six North Indian states.
