India Christian Ministries reaching cities and tribes successfully

For more than 55 years, indigenous missionaries with India Christian Ministries have been reaching out successfully to both the cities and the isolated tribes of India with the Gospel. Today, ICM has more than 290 missionaries scattered throughout the nine districts of the Tamil-speaking area of southern India. 

ICM’s work has spread to northern India as well, and now includes a total of 338 churches, with more than 27,000 members. Job and Ruth Gnanaprakasam started ICM in 1957, and worked together for decades until Ruth’s passing in 2005. Her husband, Job, passed away in, 2015. Now their three sons, Peter, Andrew and David Prakasam lead the ministry.

This dynamic mission has been very successful in winning souls to Christ in the cities, villages and tribal areas in the state of Tamil Nadu and beyond. ICM’s city churches are very active for the Lord, reports the ministry. The young people especially are very enthusiastic, witnessing on the streets and going door to door handing out tracts. ICM missionaries conduct crusades, preach in the open air, visit jails, and pray for the sick in hospitals. 

“During the pandemic, I have received much heart-wrenching and sad news from families across the globe,” reported ICM’s Andrew Prakasam in a February 2022 Intercede Field Report. “However, let me tell you the good things that happened this past year. We took an additional 20 pastors and more than 100 widows to support. We also built nine new churches and dedicated them. More than 500 people were baptized through our mission – even during this pandemic. The churches have learned to cope with the pandemic by conducting multiple services, and using Zoom and Youtube. The ministry never stopped. Prayers never stopped. Worship never stopped. Jesus never stopped working.” 

ICM has helped many people who have suffered because of the pandemic. “We have been sending relief to many pastors and poor people to help with pandemic relief,” reports Prakasam. “It was a great help to many poor families who had also lost family members and did not have income or jobs to meet their financial needs. They were very grateful for the support. We organized a team of volunteers to take a survey and helped more than 100 families that are in desperate situations. We have been providing some groceries and essentials with a three-wheeler to individual houses as they cannot come to our central location.” 

One grateful recipient of help from ICM is Chhabi Nayak. He drives a car for a living and manages his family. After the government declared a lockdown, his employer said that he cannot pay his salary as he is not working, and so he did not receive any salary for two months. His family is Christian but the whole family was in hunger. He did not have any savings. Whatever food they had was gone and they had just enough for one more day. During that time ICM distributed groceries to him. He was very much excited and he expressed his thanks to God and also to supporters of ICM. 

Believers connected with ICM also reach out to children, mostly Hindus, with stories about Jesus. Children’s work, a great door-opener to reaching parents for Christ, has resulted in numerous Sunday Schools in the cities as well as in branch churches. ICM’s children’s outreaches often draw parents as well as children to Christ. The city churches are self-supporting, but their resources are still too limited to support pioneer missionary work to remote tribal areas. 

Most of India’s more than 1.4 billion people live in its 600,000 villages. Many of them have never heard the Gospel preached even once. Showing a Gospel film in a village attracts a crowd. After the film, workers preach the Gospel, and many villagers receive the Lord. ICM’s film ministry is very active among the hill tribes.

For ICM missionaries, the most challenging people to reach with the Gospel are the hill tribes. They live in remote sections of the wilderness, and fear or distrust outsiders. Yet ICM’s missionaries are successfully communicating Christ’s love to them by giving them food, used clothing and other help. ICM missionaries have now taken the Gospel to more than 64 hill tribe areas. Among the hill tribes, ICM also runs a children’s home and a tailoring school. This ministry was pioneered by Ruth Gnanaprakasam and is now led by Mrs. Joy Prakasam.

Tsunami relief, children’s homes

In December 2004, a devastating tsunami slammed into the east coast of India, killing many people. ICM missionaries quickly moved in to help tsunami survivors to rebuild their lives. To assist tsunami orphans and other children affected by the disaster, ICM built the Sirkali Children’s Home. 

Intercede President James Eagles visited the Sirkali Children’s Home in 2009. It was a highlight for him, he reported, “not because of the tragedy, but because of the many miracles that happened later, as millions of people around the globe responded to the crisis. In Canada our Intercede constituency also helped, in a two-year period, donating more than $100,000 to the need – which was sent 100 percent in its entirety to Christian projects in India, Indonesia and Thailand. It was in India that $50,000 of these tsunami funds were provided to build and support the orphan children of the Sirkali Children’s Home. I had the immense honour of dedicating the building and the ministry to the Lord while I was there and the joy of seeing and meeting the children whose lives have been saved and transformed.” 

Loving the lepers

ICM also operates a home for widows and a leprosy rehabilitation centre. Whether born high caste or low, lepers in India are considered outcasts. But ICM’s workers show them Christ’s compassion, and many come to the Lord. After much prayer and sacrifice, ICM purchased land for a community centre and worship hall for these stricken people. Formerly only beggars, the lepers now weave cloth. ICM gives them rice, soap, clothing, and teaches them the ways of God. 

Training missionaries

ICM operates three Bible institutes that prepare labourers for the harvest fields. To date, the Bible colleges have sent forth more than 300 trained Gospel workers who minister in the Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam and English languages. Busy evangelizing during their schooling, they graduate fully ready to pioneer Gospel work wherever they will go. Practical evangelism and mission work are part of the curriculum. 

Praise God for the work He is doing through the missionaries of India Christian Ministries. 

• Intercede International