Thanksgiving under COVID – Bangalore diary update

Vinay Samuel reflects on expressions of thanksgiving under COVID and focuses on relations with those of other faiths

Two female doctors working with the Bangalore  Municipal Corporation medical team in our area have worked closely with our medical team for the past 7 months as they served together caring for  thousands of families. One is a muslim and the other a hindu. The muslim lady doctor came with gifts of kind (75 kg of sugar, 75 litres of cooking oil and sevral kg’s of vegetables) worth nearly £200 to the church last saturday as her harvest thanksgiving.  She asked for prayer and our pastor prayed with her. She has been deeply moved with the dedication and sacrificial service of our medical team as also the hindu lady doctor.They visit our children regularly and care for them. The muslim doctor got sick with the corona virus in August and we prayed with her. She has recovered fully. The head of the  corporation medical team, a male medical doctor contracted the virus and is still in hospital after 6 weeks. We go and pray with him regularly.

 Our medical and food distribution teams have worked with a number of professionals belonging to other faiths in the past 7 months. It is encouraging to see that some of them have begun to connect with the reality of Christ through this  joint work.

In the current situation any overt gesture of giving a book or inviting a person to a christian meeting would be misunderstood as attempts to convert and can invite severe reaction from religious and state authorities. We avoid any such activity as our work is more visible publicly than others. But we know that such people like this muslim doctor need to continue to relate to Christ without necessarily converting to the christian religion. We can only pray that contacts with our team and the work of the Holy spirit will lead her and people like her to sources of spiritual sustenance they can feed on and grow in their knowledge of Christ.Please pray for our teams for wisdom to be careful and yet aware of the hunger of people for knowing God.

Our church community of mostly poor and low income families and young adults gave £800 in cash and £700 in kind as harvest thanksgiving. I was going through the list and was moved to see that families struggling to survive on £75 a month also gave between £2 and £5 as thanksgiving. They continue to face much uncertainty in the coming months.Their relationship to Christ is stronger in the middle of all these challenges.