The Story of Ditt, Outcast from the Outcastes

There once was a man named Ditt who lived in the land of the Punjab in India. The Hindus called him a Dalit (Untouchable, or Outcaste). He was short, dark, and lame. He was a laborer in the village and also bought and sold hides. He was in good standing in the Chuhras caste there.

One day Ditt heard about Jesus Christ, the Savior. He heard of how Jesus Christ, the Sinless Incarnation of God, had gone about doing good, had given men wonderful teaching, and had died on the Cross that men might obtain salvation. Ditt said, "I want that kind of Lord, One who loves sinners and saves them from sin and ignorance and teaches them the truth about God. I want a religion in which there is no caste, where we Chuhras will learn that we are men every bit as good as Brahmans and Thakurs."

Ditt set to work at once, before seeing any padre or preacher, to learn about the Christian religion. He visited a nearby Christian, and from him learned the Ten Commands, the Apostles Creed and the Lord's Prayer. He committed them to memory. Then he walked 25 miles to the Mission House in Sialkot and said to the padre there, "I wish to be baptized."

The padre said to him, "Stay here in Sialkot for a few months. Attend Church. Learn further. Then I will baptize you." But Ditt said, "Sir, I already know all that you require for baptism, I cannot stay. I have my work to do. My family is expecting me to return. Please baptize me now."

Dalit villagers.

The padre examined him again, and finding that Ditt really did know the Commands and the Creed and the Prayer, baptized him. He then said to him, "You are a new Christian. If you go back to your village, people will laugh at you, and persecute you, and put you out of caste. You had better stay here with us. We shall give you a job and you can earn your living here. Bring your wife here and she too will become a Christian."

But Ditt said immediately, "No, Padre Sahib, I must go back to my village. I have not abandoned my people. I still love them. I am not a coward to run away and become a Christian. I did not become a Christian for a job. I have my work. I shall go back and bring all my people to Christ, that they too may be saved."

So the Padre had prayer with him, and asked God to bless Ditt and strengthen him and make him a good Christian, and help him to bring all his people into salvation.

Ditt had five brothers living in Shahbdike with him. They and their families numbered sixty persons. All these people were angry with Ditt when he returned as a Christian. They shouted at him, saying, "You are ruined. You have disgraced us. You are a fool. You cannot eat or drink with us. You cannot sit in our panchayat. You cannot smoke with us." They abused him and ridiculed him. His wife refused to cook for him or to eat with him. The village landlord refused to give him any work. The money lender said, "Since you are a Christian I will not loan you any more money."

But Ditt remained firm in his new faith. To his brothers he replied, "I am not ruined. Instead, I have found a Savior who will benefit me and you as well, when you too obey Him. To his wife he was kindly, and did not abuse her for refusing to cook his food. This surprised his wife very much. To the landlord he was respectful, more respectful than before, and said, "Sir, I will do your work faithfully and well. What difference does it make to you that I have begun to worship Jesus Christ?" After about a month the landlord gave Ditt a bit of work to do. Ditt did it so well that after that the landlord gave him work regularly. At the end of the year, when the money lender refused to give the Christian any money, the landlord gave him a loan. Thus Ditt remained with his people and refused to consider himself an enemy or an outcast. He said, "What I have will benefit all my people."

A few days after his baptism, when his wife was scolding him for becoming a Christian, he said, "Listen to these words of God. Are they not wonderful? Why don't you learn them too?" His wife answered, "I? I cannot learn. I am a woman." Ditt replied, "Christ gives women power to learn. Repeat these words over together with me and you will learn them." They repeated the words of the Lord's Prayer over forty times and Ditt's wife to her surprise found that she too could say the Lord's Prayer. Then she listened with great attention to the stories of the great and wonderful works of the Lord Jesus, and of His death on the Cross for sinners. She decided to give her heart to Jesus Christ. Ditt's daughter too decided to become a Christian and the man and wife living in the next house learned the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commands and the Creed with the wife and daughter. They too were soon ready to become Christians. Three months from the date of Ditt's baptism these four people walked 25 miles to Sialkot and were baptized and then walked back to their village.

Now the whole village was aroused. Five people had become Christians. People asked Ditt, "What did you get for becoming a Christian? Money, legal help, a loan?" Ditt answered them clearly, saying, "Whoever changes his religion for money is a rascal. I work as I did before. I live in my old home. I have received nothing from the Christians but the true religion, a religion in which there is no idol worship, no worship of the Brahmans, and no castes. I now have a Bible which tells us that there are no high caste and no low caste, but all are equal in the sight of God, and all are brothers here on earth. This is the true religion. I have found the true religion, therefore I have become a Christian." This testimony greatly impressed his relatives. Four men started to come and learn Christian truth from Ditt and his family. Six months from the date of Ditt's baptism he took four men to Sialkot for baptism. There were now nine Christians in Shahabdike Village. The padre visited the village now. While the padre was there Ditt was able to convince many others of the truth of the Christian religion. All these Christians continued to live in their village and to do the work they formerly were doing.

Part of Ditt's work was buying and selling hides. He had to travel around to many villages. Wherever he went he said to the Chuhras, "My friends, we Chuhras must find a way out of our sin and ignorance. Our present religion tells us that we are untouchables. It keeps us ignorant. We have no Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ came to save just such people as we are, save them from sin and from ignorance, and to make it possible for them to live a good life and go to heaven. All Chuhras ought to accept the Lord Jesus Christ." Chuhras would object, saying, "If we become Christians, we shall lose our relatives." Ditt would say to them, "Not at all. Look at me. I became a Christian, and while it is true that for a few weeks people were angry with me, first my wife and then my neighbors and relatives have become Christian. Within a few years all of my relatives will be Christians. Because this is the true religion, everyone will become Christian. You become a Christian and others will follow." Hearing this many Chuhras in many villages started to become Christians. Eleven years after the conversion of Ditt, 500 Chuhras were received in the church. By 1900 over half of the Chuhras in Sialkot District had become Christian and by 1915 all except a few hundred of the Chuhras had become Christians.

Thus Ditt's example caused 100,000 people to become Christians. He led them out of darkness into light, out of slavery into freedom.

Hearing of the people who were becoming Christian in Sialkot District, other Chuhras in the Punjab became Christians, so that in the 1930s in the Punjab there were 450,000 Christians and the number is growing rapidly year by year. Recently, all the Chuhras of the Sialkot District have started to raise money to build a great church to the memory of Ditt, the man who was used by God to bring salvation to all the Chuhras. His memory is held sacred.

(This is a story written by Dr. Donald McGavran in 1937 and published in a very scarce book, The Founders of the Indian Church. The story presented here is true and as applicable to our mission strategies today as it was in 1937. -Rick Wood, Editor, Mission Frontiers)

(reposted from Donald McGavran, The Story of a People Movement to Christ Mission Frontiers, March-April 2012, U.S. Center for World Missions)

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Eating the Bible

Mozafar, a Muslim living in Cairo, had been commanded by his mullah, or Islamic leader, to read the Bible so that he could write an argument to expose and defeat the Christians. The mullah had recognized Mozafar's fierce loyalty to Islam; his zeal had led him to attack churches and to persecute and burn the property of Christians. He had even spent time in prison for his radical actions on behalf of Islam.

But when Mozafar opened the pages of the Bible, he was stunned by the mercy and grace offered by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew. He was so drawn to the gospel that he rented a hotel room so he could read the Bible and other Christian books without interruption.

Mozafar's brothers, angered by the changes they saw in him, took him to a mental institution, where he was subjected to shock treatments to rid his brain of radical spiritual ideas like "loving your enemies." But the greater shock in Mozafar's life was God's truth revealed through his Holy Spirit. Once he had been exposed to the gospel, he was desperate to learn more about Jesus. "I would go into the bathroom of our home and lock the door," Mozafar explained. "Then I would take the Scriptures, memorize them, and eat them so that my family could not find them." (Mozafar's story and the testimonies of other Egyptian converts can be found in the VOM book Into the Den of Infidels.)

Unlike Mozafar, many of us don't have to read Scripture behind a locked door and eat the pages. We have this potential feast lying out in the open in our living rooms and bedrooms. The necessary food for our spiritually malnourished world is right in front of us. Please pray for our workers who risk their lives to feed those hungry for the gospel ... then pass the Bread.

"In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." - Ephesians 1:13

(Tom White, Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, January 2012)

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Should Wishful Thinking be part of Science?

As we proceed into the 21st century, secular scientists are still attempting to eke out a purely material explanation for the origin of the universe and life on this planet.

Marko comments: It seems that they can only succeed by employing that great tool of evolutionary science, wishful thinking! Here are some recent examples from scientific literature:

“Perhaps the big bang was just nothingness doing what comes naturally.”¹

“Life must have begun with a simple molecule that could reproduce itself.”²

“There must have been something like a cell right from the start, to contain the replicator and keep its component parts together.“²

“One day soon, someone will fill a container with a mix of primordial chemicals, keep it under the right conditions, and watch life emerge. That experiment will be done.”³

(from Frank Sherwin, Basic Questions Remain for the Secular Scientist, Acts & Facts, January 2012, Institute for Creation Research)

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References (selected)

1. Gefter, A. 2011. Existence special: Cosmic mysteries, human questions—Existence: Why is there a universe? New Scientist. 2822:29.

2. Marshall, M. 2011. First life: The search for the first replicator. New Scientist. 2825:33, 35.

3. John Sutherland, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, quoted in Marshall, p.35.

Last will and testament in North Korea

In 1998, James Kim managed to cross the border into North Korea to deliver food and clothing to destitute orphanages. He was arrested as an American spy and imprisoned, he was convicted and sentenced to death. He made out his last will and testament, in which he donated his organs for medical research. What happened next shows how God moves in mysterious ways...

(Excerpts from Larry Vardiman, ICR Research Impacts North Korea, Acts & Facts, March 2012, Institute for Creation Research)

Larry Vardiman writes: North Korea is a secretive country that threatens to attack its neighbors with missiles if provoked. It spends most of its limited resources on weapons and military personnel, which results in starvation for many of its citizens. The country has rejected all attempts to reconcile with South Korea or to end its nuclear ambitions.

James Kim (Kim Chin-kyung), was a Christian citizen of South Korea and the United States and honorary citizen of China. Kim founded the Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of northeastern China in 1992. Kim crossed the border between China and North Korea for several years ferrying donations of food and clothing to North Korean orphanages. During one such trip in 1998, he was arrested as an American spy and imprisoned. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

In his last will and testament, Kim donated his organs for medical research in Pyong-yang, the capital of the countries. Leaders in North Korea were so impressed that six weeks later he was released and given permission to freely enter and leave the country as he wished. He was made an honorary citizen of North Korea!

And then another incredible event occurred in 2001,when North Korea gave approval for Kim to build a technical university in North Korea similar to YUST. The new university, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), was dedicated on September 16, 2009, and began offering classes in October 2010. Kim was appointed president of the new university.¹ The first group of 160 undergraduate and master’s students was chosen by the North Korean government, selected from the top North Korean colleges, and chosen from political and military sponsors. The university currently has about 275 students and eventually plans to have a student body of about 2,500 and a faculty of 250, with classes in public health, architecture, agriculture and life sciences, electrical and computer engineering, and construction engineering.

Almost the entire faculty of 25 are Christian. However, no Christian proselyting or even explicit religious discussions are permitted at the school. There is no campus chapel at the university, and there are no plans for one in the future. But neither are there any official portraits of the North Korean leaders, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, or Kim Jong-un, which hang in every other school and public building in North Korea. The primary influence on the students comes through personal relationships developed with the faculty. Exposure to Western technology and thought will affect the entire country in the future because the students will eventually become the top economic, political, and military leaders of North Korea.

It is amazing to see God at work in the godless country of North Korea. Please pray that He would open door for more courageous Christians to go where no one else will go.

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References (selected)

1. Stone, R. 2009. The Force Behind North Korea’s New Science University. Science. 325 (5948): 1610-1611.

The concept "Natural Selection" is Magical!

Apologetics Professor James Johnson observes: Bait and switch is a tactic often used by evolutionists, but it was used by the Creator’s detractors long before Darwin and Huxley. The serpent baited Eve, in Eden, with the promise that eating the forbidden fruit would make Adam and Eve “as gods” (Genesis 3:5). This was the first and worst case of false advertising.

But Darwin’s sophistic marketing phrase “natural selection” likely holds the record as the slickest bait and switch ploy of evolution’s marketing team. By using the word “selection,” Darwin necessarily implies a “selector,” a decision-maker capable of making an information-based choice.¹ Yet, by using the adjective “natural,” Darwin appears to remove the supernatural—i.e., God the Creator. An inanimate “pond” of mythical “soup” has no intelligence for selecting anyone or anything, so the phrase “natural selection” is itself a semantic bait and switch—implying intelligent decisions, then switching to a physical environment of nonliving “stuff” incapable of intelligent selection.

This is a fatal flaw in the attempted logic of evolutionary theory, because the magical phrase “natural selection” is absolutely needed to provide a theoretical mechanism to allow the possibility of past and present diversity of life (in their breedable kinds) on earth, apart from a Creator just like the God of the Bible.

But, there is no natural “selector” to substitute for God. So, because evolutionary theory cannot explain the arrival of earth’s living creatures, there are no logical candidates to be the “survivors” who are “fittest.”

(from James J. S. Johnson, Bait and Switch: A Trick Used by Both Anglerfish and Evolutionists, Acts & Facts, January 2012, Institute for Creation Research)

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References (selected)

1. Johnson, J. J. S. 2011. Slow Death for a Tarantula: A Lesson in Arachnid Apologetics. Acts & Facts. 40 (10): 10-11.

Muslims on the Far Side of China turning to Jesus

The following testimony is from a Uyghur brother in far northwestern China who grew up as a conservative Muslim:

"After I married, I was crippled in an accident. I couldn't move and my legs were in constant pain. A friend gave me a Bible, and I began reading it. When I reached the place where Jesus healed the paralytic I began crying and asking God to heal me. I fell asleep with the Bible on my chest and dreamed that a radiantly white man approached me. He reached out His hand and said 'Get up and walk.' When I woke, my legs were healed! That encounter with Jesus has transformed my life. Now I live for Him alone."

Thank the Lord for His marvelous grace. Pray that many other Uyghur Turks will have supernatural encounters with Christ and become his disciples. We are told there have been several recent baptisms.

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Ask for God's blessing on Christian radio broadcasts and other media reaching China's Xinjiang province. Pray that many Muslim Uighur Turks in this predominantly Turkish district will tum to Christ as a result of these programs.

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Also, please continue to pray for Alimjan, a Uighur brother in Xinjiang sentenced to 15 years in prison because of his faithful witness. He faces harsh conditions daily. Please also uphold his wife Gulnur and their two children, who are constantly monitored by the state.

(from a Christian prayer letter, January 2012)

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That's a FACT - Creation Truth in Weekly Video Shorts

A new weekly show called That’s a Fact (www.icr.org/thats-a-fact) is designed to give one creation truth in two minutes or less. The goal of these fun video shorts is to capture the attention of those in the 21st century who depend more on digital devices and the Internet for their information. Professionally produced in Institute of Creation Research’s studio, That’s a Fact airs each week to an audience in over 100 countries. The new show had nearly 100,000 hits on its show site in the first three months of its launch. And this is just one of the many new shows that ICR will be using to teach biblical creation apologetics to up and coming generations

Nearly 5 million people from all over the world visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona every year. Many believe that this 277-mile long gorge had formed over millions of years, but another famous North American landmark shows that the Grand Canyon could have been created much faster and not long ago. Click here to watch this video explaining how.

(from Lawrence E. Ford, Celebrating 50 Years, Acts & Facts, January 2012, Institute for Creation Research)

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A Truckload of Blessings, for the Tuvan people of Siberia

The complete Bible in the Tuvan language has finally been printed. Seven thousand Bibles were delivered to Vzaimodeistvie (InterAct Russia) in Kyzyl, Tuva. Of that number, 3,000 were immediately distributed including some 300 Bibles placed in the public libraries of Tuva. The remaining Bibles will be distributed by the churches of Tuva.

For the first time the complete Word of God is in the hands of the believers among whom sharing the gospel is a high priority.

We praise God for meeting this need and for leading in the hearts of many individuals and foundations to donate to this worthy project. Nearly $100,000 was donated by the generous ministry partners of InterAct Ministries partners.

A heartfelt thank you to those who gave to this project!

Testimony of Saylik

Saylik and her family
with Tuvan Bible.

"Tuvan Christians have long been waiting the Tuvan Bible. It is an opportunity to know what God is saying to us Tuvans. In our outlying regions, people only speak Tuvan and this Bible is very valuable for us. In the cities the Tuvan language is losing (to Russian), but this translation will help us to remember and use our language. Our language is very dear to us and within us. This translation is necessary for me like air is and I cannot go about living without it.

"Christians in Tuva have been long waiting this Bible because it is difficult to understand God's Word in Russian. Some people have waited 20 years; we have waited 12 years.

"The New Testament in Tuvan helped me to better know the love of God, how to live, and use some forgotten words of my native tongue. We are very thankful for this large labor and this new Bible. We believe that this is the beginning of a new era for our history and culture.

"In our hearts we are rejoicing giving praise to God and really value this translation. We hope that our sleeping people, in darkness, will see the Light and turn to their Savior."

(reproduced from Interaction, January 2012, Interact Ministries newsletter)

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