South Asian Forum of the Evangelical Allaince Newsletter
Issue 9: December 2012
S outh As i a n F orum of the
Evangelical Alliance
connecting, uniting, representing
The South Asian Forum (SAF) is a grouping within the Evangelical Alliance, set up to provide a place for South Asian Christians in the UK to encourage, support and equip each other for mission, and to represent their concerns to government, media and the wider Church. With the support of both individual members and church members totalling more than 20,000 people, SAF is steadily growing. Visit www.eauk.org/saf to get involved in supporting this wonderful
ministry by becoming a member of SAF. Once you become a member, you will receive idea, the Alliance’s bi-monthly magazine, as well as regular newsletters from SAF detailing our progress. If you are already a member of the Evangelical Alliance you can add SAF to your Alliance membership at no extra cost. In this instance please send an email to saf@eauk.org
Exploring prayer with friends of other faiths
Connecting the Dots - the South Asian Diaspora in Europe
A few years ago I was struck by a story of a Hindu whose child was very sick, and on his own he had prayed to Jesus. The child recovered, and soon after that the father became a follower of Jesus.
Europe has become a highway of people from different nations. Some travel through in search for better opportunities, others want to stay. There are large numbers of people fleeing violence or persecution, ethnic conflicts, natural catastrophes, civil wars or anguish in refugee camps, while others are enticed by the appeal of a better future.
Till then I’d never suggested to a Hindu to pray to Jesus, assuming that Jesus wouldn’t respond since they didn’t have a relationship with him.
The South Asian Diaspora is just one of the many groups that have come in the last 60 to 80 years to Europe. As I travel through cities and countries on the continent of Europe, I see and experience the growth of the South Asian Diaspora. We all know that the South Asian community in the UK is well established in areas such as Southall or Bradford.
But now I encourage people to experiment with praying to Jesus. It has led to some interesting results. In an Alpha course we prayed round our group, telling Jesus what was on our heart. One guest, who wasn’t a Christian, returned a couple of weeks later to share how God had worked very dramatically in his life. A “Big Issue” salesman was willing to pray to Jesus about his situation, and when I met him again he told me how he was beginning to see things differently. On an flight I had been chatting to the person in the neighbouring seat about spiritual issues. The conversation moved on, but later he told me some things in his life he was grateful for. So when we reached Heathrow, after allowing him time to sort out some administration, we stood together and he thanked Jesus for those aspects of his life. Usually people are not used to praying and are unsure of what to do, so some gentle coaching is helpful to get them started - I encourage them to tell him what they’ve said to me, and how they felt about it. When I came to faith, I didn’t have a full understanding of the gospel, in fact I didn’t even know if Jesus was God. It didn’t seem to stop him coming into my life in a very powerful way. At the time I did recognise that if he was God I had a duty to treat him with respect and reverence, i.e. follow him. So while I tell people not to worry if they don’t understand or even believe everything we’ve been talking about, I do encourage them to recognise that they should follow Jesus unconditionally if he is God. Now I’m not suggesting that their relationship with Christ has been definitely established by doing this – that’s in God’s hands. But it does provide an opportunity for it to start, and gives them some confidence to pray on their own. When Christians ask me to pray for them, I get them to pray first, and usually their prayer moves into their real concerns, which gives me a better understanding of what to pray. I remember praying with a Christian friend about an issue he was facing. After we finished, I could see from his face that he’d heard from the Master himself. So the process had strengthened his relationship with Jesus, rather than what it often does – build a dependency on us. Suneel Shivdasani works with Christian Vision for Men, helping churches reach out to South Asian men.
But what about places like northern Italy where there are 60-70,000 Sikhs living in the countryside, working on farms producing Parma ham and Parmesan cheese? It is estimated that there are about 23 Gurdwaras in Italy of which most are in northern Italy. The Sikhs in Italy are the second largest community in Europe, after the UK. There is no witness to them and no known Punjabi believer in that region. There are other places in Europe such as Athens with its massive growth of South Asian refugees and irregular immigrants stranded on the streets. In fact there are now more than 1.3 Million South Asians living on the continent of Europe mostly unnoticed by the general public. Most of these people still follow the religion of their ancestors back home. “So why are you interested in the South Asian Diaspora in Europe?” is a question that I am asked quite often. To cut a long story short it was during a mission trip to Africa when God showed us the South Asian community living in Nairobi. He later called my family and I to live and work for nine years in Nairobi. During that time I was already connected to South Asian Concern (SAC) in the UK and after our return to Germany it was quite natural to strengthen the contact with SAC as I was certain that God wanted me to mobilise the churches and mission organisations in Europe to reach out to these ‘hidden’ and mostly unreached South Asian immigrants on the continent of Europe. Over the last six years, a small network has developed in partnership with SAC on the continent. It aims to strengthen the workers, research opportunities and connect resources and needs. I have come to realise that nothing happens without prayer and networking. For that reason it will be beneficial for both sides to link the work on the continent to the much broader work of the South Asian Forum in the UK. It is my vision and prayer that through networking and partnerships, the Kingdom of God will grow among the South Asian Diaspora in Europe. For more information please use the following e-mail: southasianeurope@web.de Thomas Hieber, Berlin.