Six seminary students affiliated with an evangelical ministry to Asia were hospitalized after being attacked last weekend in Southern India. The head of that evangelistic organization, which has been helping provide disaster relief services to tsunami survivors, says the Church is encountering increased hostility towards Christianity all over the world.
K.P. Yohannan is founder and president of the Gospel for Asia ministry, which has established 54 Bible colleges in the heart of the "10/40 Window" or Resistant Belt, the area of the world containing the largest population of non-Christians in the world. Named for its global coordinates, the 10/40 Window extends from 10 degrees to 40 degrees north latitude, and stretches from North Africa across to China.
According to Yohannan, the young missionaries who were attacked in Southern India were evangelists in training, seminary students who had been regularly visiting a community of laborers on weekends - praying for the sick, caring for the needy, sharing the love of Christ and offering hope.
A GFA field correspondent reported that, as a result of the missionaries' steady, compassionate outreach, people's hearts were beginning to respond and their continuous visits were "bringing fruitful results."
According to GFA sources, the Bible college students were out evangelizing on Sunday, February 13, when they were surrounded, abducted, and beaten unconscious. In the wake of the vicious attack, five men were arrested in a raid conducted by the deputy superintendent of Police.
The Hindustan Times reports that the arrested suspects had ties to the RSS, an armed Hindu militant group hostile to Christianity and other religious minorities. In the weeks before the attack, RSS men had apparently warned the seminary students to stop witnessing in the area.
