Hyderabad Police close down Church
"The police stormed in and took our pastor to the police station and detained him for the whole day"
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India., Nov. 29 - Police in Hyderabad, India have effectively closed down a church.
Grace Ministries International's Sam Vinton says as of November 10th, the believers are in need of a place for their ministries and worship services.
GMI's missionary writes: "The police stormed in and took our pastor to the police station and detained him for the whole day. One of our neighbors (the one who is very anti-Christian) made a written complaint to the police commissioner that we were a nuisance to them with our ministry. I was away at one of our village church services. Upon my return, I had to go to the police station where I was able to get him out on bail. "
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Vinton says, "The police have given eviction orders to our church. They have not been able to find any place to rent because, again, the owners are Hindu or they ask for exorbitant prices. The Christians are pretty shaken up. This is the first time that they've ever had any kind of thing like this happen to them. They can sense a real persecution against Christians."
Vinton says in spite of the lack of a meeting place, their teams reported that ten Hindus became believers this month. It's reassuring to the church that ministry continues. "The Lord keeps working in spite of this. It's sort of difficult to really sort all this out. All we do know is that the Christians sense very strongly that they are sort of being marked as people to persecute."
