[column width=”1/1″ last=”true” title=”” title_type=”single” animation=”none” implicit=”true”]

Imran, or Rony as we call him now, has four brothers and one sister, and his mother and father are kind, honest people who are well respected in the community.

Our family met him eight years ago when he was in seventh grade, and we have spent a lot of time together over the course of those years. He taught us the local language and we taught him English, oftentimes using a Bible with his language on one side and English on the other. This led to many spiritual conversations as Rony grew up and graduated from school.

Over time he noticed and began to comment about how others in his community would do many religious things and act highly religious, but he knew they were bad people.

He started to see the need for his inward self to match his outward life.

Last year during Ramadan, we met with him daily to read Scripture, study, and pray, and we saw God working on his heart. He became increasingly open and curious, and we prayed the Holy Spirit would reveal the spiritual truths he needed to understand who Jesus really is. On the last day of Ramadan, Rony confessed that he believed Jesus is our Savior! Since then, he has been baptized and one of his brothers has accepted Jesus.

Rony and his brother were the first two people to accept Jesus in the community, a community we had engaged for eight years. Many times in those eight years we felt as if things weren’t progressing, as if we weren’t skilled or talented enough to be able to bring the gospel to this community in an effective way, as if our approach was wrong and others could do the work much better than us.

Just when we hit our lowest point, we had a breakthrough and we knew there was progress in the unseen. We saw that our approach was effective and God used us although we doubted.

We now meet weekly with Rony and his brother for worship, prayer, and Bible study. We believe this is the beginning of a church planting movement throughout this area and throughout the Bengali people.

[/column]

[column width=”1/1″ last=”true” title=”undefined” title_type=”undefined” animation=”none” implicit=”true”]

[linkarea background_color=”accent1″ hover_color=”” href=”http://india.livedead.org” target=”_self” icon=”” icon_color=”accent6″ icon_size=”62″ image=””]

For more on Live Dead India, click here.

[/linkarea]

[/column]