Pastor Suresh Purra: An Update from India

Pictured above: Pastor Suresh Purra in front of his new church’s construction site in Hyderabad, India.

Below is an update from July of 2021 from our dear brother Suresh Purra, who is pastoring in Hyderabad, India. The community in his part of the country has been hit hard recently with COVID infections as well as government-mandated lockdowns which hinder the peoples’ ability to earn a livelihood and survive. We have been able to help with extra finances which have provided much-needed food and medical supplies not only for Suresh’s flock, but with many unbelievers in the community as well, which has been a tremendous Gospel witness. Pastor Suresh’s letter has been slightly edited for readability.

Dear Firm Foundation friends,

Greetings to you all, we hope and pray you all are safe.

By the grace of our God, we are doing well. Thank you all for your continual prayers and support. We are thankful to our living God for each one of you. It is always a blessing to share the ministry updates with you all.

Thank you so much for your financial contribution towards the medical supply for the people here. By the grace of our God we were able to supply medicine to 580 people. It was another great opportunity to get connected with the people [in our community] in the time of their physical need. The medicine helped many people recover from their sickness especially in this virus spreading time. It has also helped others to stay safe. In some places, when we went to their homes, we discovered that they had no food and sometimes only a little portion of food in their homes, but with God’s help we were able to get food for some of the families. It was overwhelming when we saw the expression of their gratitude for medicine and food, and it was another great time of sharing the gospel with them. Their eyes wailed when they saw God’s love. Thank you so much for being a part of this.

It is a blessing to be back in our church as a congregation. We were not able to gather for the church service for about four weeks, but by the grace of our God now we are back to normal as it is a blessing to teach and preach the word of God to our people. Since last November, we have been preaching during Sunday worship from the book of Ephesians. We are now in chapter four and just finished the seventh verse last week, and it has been a great encouragement to me and my people thus far. I am being blessed to read and study the word of God. His word is always new and rich.

It is a great encouragement to see the work of the Holy Spirit in changing our people. They are hungry for the truth and want to meet me during the week to know and study the word of God more, and sometimes it will end up in hours of conversation. Oh what a blessing to see the work of the Spirit! Presently, on Wednesday nights, I am teaching about different Bible characters and characters from church history, and on Saturday nights I am teaching from the book of Acts. This is what I am teaching in one of our congregations. There are two other men who are teaching our two other congregations on Thursdays and Fridays. We praise God for His word.

These days we are recording the sermons from Sunday preaching. Lord willing, we want to put this teaching and preaching material online in the future. People from our congregation have told me on several occasions that these sermons have to go beyond our church walls. I was not very serious about this in the past, but now I am convinced that I need to make our teaching available to people because truth is much needed in our culture. There are celebrity preachers in our culture who preach in our same language (Telugu). Sometimes I grieve over their performance; they are only performing, not preaching. Because they don’t preach the truth, they misinterpret the truth and mislead the people for their personal gain and popularity. Please pray with us as we move on with this new adventure.

Once again, I want to thank you all for your prayers for our new church building, By the grace of our God, we have completed the major part. The work has been stopped for over two months because the needed material supply was stopped due to COVID lockdowns in our state (Andhra Pradesh). We need to start working on walls, windows, etc., so please continually pray for it. We want to see this building completed by the end of year 2021, Lord willing. Please pray with us, as I have shared with you previously that all these facilities will be a great blessing for our ministry, helping us to be able to equip the saints and train the people for the work of ministry, as it says in Ephesians 4:12-13.

Thank you so much for your prayers and concern for our family. We are so thankful for your regular financial support for our family. Prathibha is busy with the children and doing her part in the ministry. She is also learning audio and video editing work by herself, which she is enjoying. Our children are doing their school online. Here schools are still not opened yet for regular schooling. Susan is now in 4th grade and Suhana is in 2nd. Please pray for our children that they may grow in faith.

We want to thank you all for everything that you do for us and for the furtherance of the gospel in this vast land of India. We love you all.

In Christ,

Suresh, Prathibha, Susan, and Suhana

Colossians 1:28-29

“It is a great encouragement to see the work of the Holy Spirit in changing our people. They are hungry for the truth and want to meet me during the week to know and study the word of God more… Oh what a blessing to see the work of the Spirit!”