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Newsletter - December, 2005


The Least of These My Brethren

December, 2005

Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." Matt. 25:40

Published by the Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210



Farm Project in India


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Dr. David
Six years ago, while I was pondering the vision of helping Christians in Honduras by enabling them start small businesses, another Christian brother—also named David—was contemplating a similar vision. However, this other David lives on the other side of the globe in India.

David Nagar was born into a nominally Christian family in the south India state of Tamilnadu—not far from the city of Madras. His family belongs to the Church of South India, a church that is fairly similar to the Eastern Orthodox churches. However, David never had a real personal relationship with Christ in his youth.

When he was in his twenties, David heard a street preacher one day, and he obtained some tracts from him. Through this encounter, David surrendered his life to Christ. He was in medical school at the time, and he went on to complete his medical education. David also began preaching the gospel to others, bringing many people to Christ. Eventually, he planted a church in the town where he was living at the time.

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Dr. Violet
Later, David moved to a different town, and he opened a medical clinic there with his wife, Violet, who is also a doctor and a strong Christian. Being doctors, David and Violet could have come to the United States and have become quite wealthy. Instead, they chose to stay in India in order to minister to the Indian people’s physical and spiritual needs. To this day, David and Violet charge only 25¢ for an office visit—and often they still end up accepting eggs or vegetables in lieu of the 25¢. So, even though they are doctors, they live in poverty themselves.

David and Violet have used their clinic not only to help people with their medical problems, but also to witness to their patients. As a result, a new church grew up around their clinic. Once this happened, their Hindu landlord evicted them. However, through help from American Christians, David and Violet were able to buy four acres of land and build a clinic on it, which also serves as the congregation’s meeting place.

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The Clinic/Church
From this church at the clinic, the gospel began to spread to nearby villages, and David began to train men to pastor these churches. Presently, there are seven churches that have been established from this initial work. However, the pastors of these churches struggle to be able to provide for their families.

So David came up with the idea of establishing farms where these pastors can live and work, providing for their families’ needs, while leaving them sufficient time to pastor their churches. Since David and Violet are quite poor themselves, neither they nor their church had sufficient funds to purchase additional land for these farms. So David came to the United States this past summer and fall to share his vision with various churches here, to see if perhaps some of them would be willing to help their church purchase the land for these farms, dig wells, and bring in electricity to the farms.

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Plat of the Proposed Farms
While he was here in the United States, David was staying at the house of a family in southern Pennsylvania who receive Scroll Publishing’s catalog. Our new catalog had just arrived, and it was sitting there in the family’s living room. David was glancing through it, and he noticed the Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. He told the family that he would be very interested in obtaining that work to take back to India with him. The family told him that I live only 30 miles away and perhaps Deborah and I could come over for dinner and bring the book with us. We accepted the invitation, looking forward to meeting this brother from India.

In the course of the evening, I told David about the Society’s work in Honduras. He then told me about his similar vision for India. I expressed to him that the Society of the Good Shepherd would like to become a partner with him in helping to buy and equip these small farms. I told him that I felt quite certain that God would bless his vision and that a number of our readers would want to help see his vision materialize. DB

100% of all donations go to our work in Honduras. All overhead and travel expenses are paid through other means.



The most effective way to learn Spanish is the immersion method. Using this method, a person lives for a brief time in a Spanish-speaking country, preferably with a Spanish-speaking family, while studying several hours a day at a Spanish language school. The school we recommend is located in Siguatepeque, Honduras, run by a Christian family with whom we are intimately acquainted. Please visit their site at www.learn-spanish-Honduras.org.