E-mail from Minthang Suantak - March 2007
Dear brother Garry, greetings from your family and church members here in Imphal.
Dear brother Garry, thanks a lot for your kind and generous help as we received the funds that you had transferred today. My brother, be assured of the wonderful saving of souls through the funds that you have send us. We really appreciate and thankful to you for your kind and generous support. Without your help we will not be able to do the great work we are doing now, it is because of your help we can continue the ministry.
Dear brother, our missionary trip to the mountain top villages are so wonderful and great as we could achieved what we want to for the Kingdom of God. The trip took us about nearly 8 hours walked, at last we got the village at 6 P.M. in the evening. When we got into the village we were warmly greets by the villagers. The villagers were so poor the huts were so small. But we adjust ourselves at any condition. On the way to Phailenjang village we came across one small another hidden village in the jungle the name of the village is Khochung village, in that village we asked for a drinking water and took rest for five minutes, the villagers told us that this morning some of the terrorist/gang came and robbed all their foods and clothing, they the villagers instructed us to pave another way in order to keep away from the gang, therefore we diverted our way to prevent them.
We were so tired and exhausted but when we arrived the village we were so thrilled to meet the new people and exciting to preach the gospel. The moment we arrived the village we were all tired our feet, legs ankle, were all pain some got swelling but we were so happy to have a church service I preached and about 102 people gave their live the first night. Than the next morning (Sunday morning) we had an inauguration service at 7,A.M. it was too cold because of the long distance and the rough climbing high mountain we did not bring enough warm clothing so it was too difficult for every one of us, however we just enjoyed the meeting. After the inauguration I preached again in the morning and about 128 people received Jesus Christ as their Lord. About 9 of our pastor help me for the counseling. After early morning church service we visited another two more isolated villages close to Phailengjang village, we walked about four hour from 9,A.M. to 12, A.M. to covered the two villages the closest village from Phailengjang. These two villages were pretty big villages with big population, however they were not a Christian. But we shared the love of God and they were so thrilled with the gospel of our Lord. About 27 people received Jesus as their Lord from these two villages. They told us to come back very soon as they want the whole village to turn into Christian. They also told us that there are many villages in their surrounding which is about 20 to 25 kilometer from each villages and many thousands of people live in the area with no hope and peace. They need rescue, please go and shared the love of God before they all die said the villagers. They told us the route that leads to all these villages in the mountain. Even though they did not know exactly the population because of their illiteracy, but according to what they told us we think it will be thousands upon thousands of people. According to what they told us, they said the villages were much bigger than their village and the population were more than them, that means in one village it will not be lest than a thousand people, because the villages that we contacted is about 900, people.
Dear brother, if we start today it will take us 30 years to complete only that area, but we still have more bigger area than this in the isolated mountains of Manipur. Therefore we need to speed our works. That is the reason our church VCC always volunteer to go to all these unreached areas where no other mission did not go. We always became a pioneering in this kind of dangers situation.
Since we need to go back very soon to Phailengjang village we could not spent more time in those two villages, we went back to Phailengjang village at 12, O, clock in the noon, as we had another service at Phailengjang village. By the time we were in Phailengjang village many of our workers have arrived and many more from the neighbors villages too arrived. There we started the meeting we had about 700 people in the meeting at the open air because the new church building could no longer accommodated, by God's grace about 203 people accepted the Lord, and another 100 people re-commit themselves to God.
Phailengjang village being on the top mountain it is like the Singat village, they had a big water problem. No one could take bath during our short journey, we only brush our teeth and some even did not wash their face. Because of the high water scarcity in their village. To get water one need to walked two full kilometer, but if we can supply pipe we can get the water in their door step from the stream which is two kilometer away from their village, and this will help them and be a great blessing for them.
Dear brother, soon after our service we started our journey back home since we want to live the village very soon for some reason, we started late in the afternoon which is also better for us to walked which we avoid the hot sun. We arrived back home safe and sound now. We were about 57 people who went to Phailengjang village, it's a big team. But we all had swelling on our legs, feet, ankles, and all our body got severe pain it is painful for me to sit in the computer to write this email, but I felt it is important to report our trip to you.
Dear brother, there are hundreds of hidden villages that seriously need to be reached, therefore let us pray to the Master of the field for more help to finish the task that is set before us.
We love you brother, and we pray for you always.
Looking forward to hearing from you and to seeing you soon.
Your missionary brother
Minthang Suantak.