Participants:
Series Code: LM
Program Code: LM000161S
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00:29 [Music]
00:40 On this mission trip, we flew into Chennai, South India. 00:47 [Music] 00:52 In South India, it's not uncommon to see an elephant walking down the road. 00:55 I've always wanted to have my own pet elephant. 00:58 [Music] 01:01 India is home to all types of exotic animals. 01:04 For instance, the Assam is the home to the 01:06 largest population of the greater one-horned rhinoceros. 01:10 But the one creature that for me are the most frightening are snakes. 01:15 India has currently 300 species of snakes and three of those are cobras. 01:20 For ages in India, there have been snake charmers with their flutes and baskets, 01:25 seemingly hypnotizing cobras with their music. 01:27 And we'll talk more about snakes in just a little bit. 01:32 [Music] 01:35 Ministries built a television production studio. 01:38 We chose this site as it was a nice quiet place out in the country. 01:41 Let's meet with Praveen, our studio director, and find out what's happening here. 01:46 This is Praveen and he's our studio director. 01:48 We're going to go inside the studio and talk a little 01:51 bit about some of the things that are happening here. 01:54 So tell me about what you have going on in here. 01:58 Elder, we here produce a lot of programs for YouTube. 02:03 Our normal production is for television. 02:06 Every Saturday morning, 7.30 am, we do all our programs. 02:11 We edit and then we send it to satellite TV. 02:13 They will broadcast it. 02:15 And then apart from that, we make a lot of videos for YouTube, 02:19 like kids' programs, music videos, and then talk shows. 02:24 I saw that you guys were doing like a new cooking program of some sort. 02:29 And one of the cameramen was up on a ladder shooting the food being prepared. 02:32 What kind of food are they making in the cooking program? 02:35 Healthy cooking, like salads, and then with fruits and what we can do, 02:40 I mean, healthy recipes. 02:43 But is it still Indian type food? 02:45 Indian type of food. 02:46 So is this the edit area here? 02:48 This is the editing room, kind of control room. 02:51 In case of any productions, like we'll be having live switching here, live editing. 02:56 And then we do editing process also here. 02:58 And then we have editing B room also. 03:01 There, another editor will be sitting and he'll be doing his work there. 03:04 So do you get much response from the programs, 03:08 like the ones that are aired on television or even YouTube? 03:11 Do you get a lot of views on YouTube? 03:13 In every videos, we will be putting our number, the description box. 03:18 So whoever watches, they will call us and they will text us directly. 03:22 We need to learn something more about this. 03:25 And we, what we'll do is we will get their 03:27 address and then we will send books to them, 03:30 like Steps to Christ, like some easily they can read it and they can... 03:35 And they call the prayer hotline too. 03:37 So people know, we have like retired elderly Bible workers 03:41 that can't work in the field anymore that just 03:43 take care of the phone calls that come in, right? 03:45 So how many programs per week generally are you making? 03:48 We are releasing seven videos per week. 03:51 Seven videos per week? That's pretty good. 03:54 Like one day kids program will get released and then another day Bible women, 04:00 that is specifically we are making for women. 04:03 And then another video, musical video, that is every Friday, 04:07 that musical video will get released, like that we have category. 04:10 One day sermon, talk show, like that, every 04:13 day we will release one one single videos. 04:15 And I see that you do some audio mixing here too, it looks like. 04:18 Yes. This place is for Jagann and he make a 04:22 lot of music videos and he's a music producer 04:25 and he composes music. 04:27 Every week we call some talents and they will 04:29 come and we'll take voices, music, everything, 04:33 we'll mix here and we'll go to outdoors for shooting. 04:36 Or make the music video or something. Do you 04:38 ever just create music for ambient background? 04:41 Like for video or anything like that? 04:42 We have a bluetooth speaker we have. We'll play it in the outdoor. 04:48 So that will pick up the ambient sound. I mean they'll do the lipping voice 04:52 and then in the post-production we'll disable 04:55 that and we'll enable the mixed final audio there. 04:58 Well let's go show our viewers the studio area that's in the other room. 05:02 I don't know if you know this or not but Johnson saw the studio we have in America 05:06 and he kind of copied the same kind of design we have for building this one. 05:10 It's kind of interesting. 05:14 Oh it's nice and air AC in here. 05:17 So you like did like we did in our studio. Every corner is a different set. 05:20 Yes. 05:23 Yeah. 05:24 So what do you do at this particular set here? 05:27 This set is for talk show. 05:29 Like a roundtable discussion Bible subjects and things. 05:32 Yes. Biblical information. The show title is. 05:35 And I'll be hosting and another guest will be coming. 05:39 And what we used to do is we'll be discussing 05:42 from Bible all about the information about the Bible. 05:45 Like how many Hannah are there in Bible. 05:48 Like what are the characters are there. 05:50 Like kind of shows we will be doing in this particular area. 05:54 What are you doing with this one? This is like for the cooking program? 05:56 Yeah. This is for cooking program. And we make a lot of healthy cooking shows here. 06:01 Oh she's got some of her dishes out here and things. 06:05 Yeah. Cooking programs are really really popular in America. 06:08 I noticed a lot of cooking videos on YouTube. 06:10 So having like Indian variety of it is a unique thing. 06:15 The plan for this cooking show is when we release the cooking show on YouTube 06:19 all general audience they will watch our programs. 06:22 That time YouTube will recommend some of our biblical videos to them. 06:27 So they will get a chance to watch our sermons or talk shows or music videos. 06:33 So that what we thought was this cooking show 06:36 will be the gateway for them to watch our TV channel. 06:39 What are you doing with this set over here. 06:41 The one with the little houses in the background. 06:44 This set is for sermon for religion TV and all. 06:47 We used to record, use this backdrop for sermon recording. 06:52 Very good. Yeah. You guys are doing a really good job here. It's amazing. 06:57 And then we are also recording Telugu program 07:00 also. We have entered into new language for YouTube. 07:03 Already we have a lot of sermons in Telugu. Pastor Shadrach is doing. 07:07 But for social media we call some Telugu people. 07:11 So it's not doing Telugu translation. It's actually Telugu speaking people. 07:16 I was really surprised that people watch Pastor Shadrach's television programs 07:21 because he's speaking in English and it's being translated into Telugu. 07:24 And he's a Tamil speaking person but 07:26 speaking in English being translated into Telugu. 07:28 And we still get a lot of responses from those programs. 07:30 I mean like in America if we had a program 07:32 like that I think a lot of people go click. 07:34 Because the process is so long translating everything. 07:37 But people here watch that. I'm really amazed. 07:41 Good. You guys are doing a good job too. 07:44 We have a lot of Laymen Ministries in India. We just wanted to thank donors. 07:48 Thank you so much for all the ... 07:53 Good. Well I'm happy that the Lord's blessed and that we were able to help do that. 07:57 Laymen Ministries has been in the forefront 07:59 of Adventist television production in India. 08:02 Starting in 2002. That's 22 years ago. 08:05 We're taking God's message of hope right into the privacy of people's homes. 08:09 We are currently on three major global 08:11 satellite networks and six local cable networks. 08:15 We broadcast in four languages. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and in English. 08:26 Another interactive outreach we have is with YouTube. 08:29 We currently have five YouTube channels. 08:31 Laymen Ministries Tamil, Laymen Ministries Gospel, Laymen Ministries Music, 08:35 365 Prayer Live and then Laymen Ministries Telugu. 08:40 We have thousands of views on these channels. 08:43 Our studio team also holds live Bible study lessons on Zoom and YouTube Live. 08:49 This has been a great way to reach a younger audience. 08:52 But our studio is more than a production facility out in the country. 08:55 It's a beacon of light in the local community, even reaching snake handlers. 09:06 I remember when we were looking at this property 09:08 that we were going to buy this to build a studio here. 09:12 And this is Kumar and he's one of the neighbors that lives in the area here. 09:16 Yes. He's actually from this village and he was here. 09:21 And in those days he was a snake hunter. 09:25 I remember he was taking a real big interest 09:27 in what we were going to be doing here and such. 09:31 And you said he was a snake handler. 09:33 What is a snake handler? 09:35 Actually he looks like this but he can suppose if the snake... 09:42 Like a cobra or something like that? 09:44 Yes, very dangerous. He can hold it in the hand and remove the teeth. 09:50 I remember when we were buying the property 09:52 he took a big interest in what we were doing. 09:54 And then when we finally built the studio he was kind of like our security guard. 09:58 Yes, he was not a practicing Christian when he first started. 10:01 Because he was a heathen, then he became a Protestant but he was not happy. 10:08 Then one of our church elders from the city of 10:12 Chennai, every week they come for a branch Sabbath school class. 10:17 In that Mrs Kumar and Mr Kumar gave their place for a Sabbath school and all that. 10:26 In their home? 10:28 Then after that he was able to understand this is a message. 10:34 So he took a baptism and then he came to church. 10:37 I remember I was here one time when we visited the church 10:40 on Sabbath and he was helping lead out in the church here. 10:43 You were right. 10:44 And Mrs Kumar is very active. 10:48 Though she came recently she can be able to 10:51 teach a Sabbath school lesson and machine report. 10:55 She can do everything. 10:56 So what happened with Kumar then? 11:00 He ended up becoming a Seventh-day Adventist then after that? 11:03 Yes, after that, that elder, died because of the Covid. 11:08 There was that other fellow, what was his name? The elder? 11:11 Shehren. 11:12 And he was kind of helping with the property. 11:14 He was a kind of a main instrument that we came to this village. 11:19 I remember when you and I talked about purchasing this property for the studio, 11:22 we were talking not only about having a nice place to build a studio to record, 11:27 but you said this is going to be kind of, you said this was like an unentered area. 11:32 And that you wanted to do something to be 11:34 able to have one of our Bible workers here 11:36 and some of the other Bible workers come here and start working this area. 11:39 And then he started taking an interest more and more. 11:42 So what developed out of all of this over the years? 11:45 That is a blessing elder. 11:48 Because we came to this village actually to build a studio. 11:54 Then I was approaching you, then you told me I asked if we need a church. 11:59 Church, how? 12:00 Then you said, "Johnson, go ahead." 12:02 Then we built a church. 12:04 As a result, Mr. Kumar and Mrs. Kumar, their family, 12:09 now his son Ajay and one more son, his parents, every... 12:14 They all became Adventists? 12:15 All sister, the whole family alone, more than 20 members are there. 12:22 They became Adventists. 12:24 And they became Adventists. 12:26 So not only that, from after this village, because 12:31 in neighboring there were more than 2,700 villages. 12:37 That's as hard to even imagine. 12:39 Imagine all unentered territory. 12:41 And it is very easy. 12:43 That's why Layman Ministry not only 12:46 producing the program, kind of making friendship, 12:52 entering into the village and making disciple. 12:56 That is an example here Ajay, in one of our... 13:00 Is he a pastor now? 13:01 Yes. 13:02 So he became a pastor. 13:03 He became a pastor. 13:08 Adventist, who became a leader in this area. 13:09 I was just curious on Sabbath, the church which we use for a Training Center. 13:14 Is there very many people coming now? 13:15 Yes. 13:18 it, there was just maybe eight or nine people coming. 13:21 So what is it now? 13:22 No, it is not enough place. 13:25 Now, the children, if you count children 13:28 alone, there were more than 40 people were coming. 13:31 Then elders, almost 30. 13:34 So now the church is full and they have to build 13:38 separate for children, then only they have a place like that. 13:43 So the studio is more than just a place where 13:45 we're doing recordings for television programs. 13:48 The studio is actually like a light in the 13:50 community here, reaching out to this whole area. 13:54 And how many Bible workers do we have working here in this area? 13:57 In this area, right now there are... 13:59 Is that her? 14:01 Right now there were six and in this town, they will go to nearby villages. 14:09 And evening, when they come from the work, after 14:12 they finish all the work, she and Kumar's mother, 14:19 she's a Kumar's mother also, Bible worker. 14:23 She's helping in the village and she's taking care of one church every Sabbath. 14:28 She's not attending this church. 14:29 She's going to nearby, that junction. 14:33 Tamaray Pakam, she has planted one church. 14:37 So around this area, when we enter, this is a new place. 14:41 But around this area, more than 12 congregations right now. 14:47 In the future, we're looking at trying to do something 14:50 about that, trying to get places to worship for them. 14:52 Laymen Ministries currently sponsors 52 14:55 dedicated Bible workers and several pastors. 14:57 Here's a current picture of 33 of our team after a workers meeting. 15:02 Because of the popularity of our television 15:04 programs, this often opens the doors of the homes they visit. 15:08 This is not an easy work, as they often get doors shut 15:11 in their face and sometimes they even get threatened. 15:13 But many times, as the Bible workers identify with 15:16 being with our television programs, they're invited in. 15:20 They then pray with the homeowners, build 15:22 relationships, and then start holding Bible studies. 15:25 This leads to having group studies as they invite their neighbors to attend. 15:30 As the group grows, the next step is buying property and then building a church. 15:38 The Bible workers visit the home of the poor and the wealthy. 15:42 They attend to the needs of the people they visit, as friends. 15:46 They're always handing out free literature as well. 15:49 While at the studio, Pastor Johnson talked with me about our literature work. 15:54 I know that we've been printing a lot of literature. 15:56 Is a lot of this literature still being shipped out, like, every week from the TV 16:01 programs and stuff and people calling in? 16:03 The same method, only during the COVID time, little we were stopped. 16:08 But otherwise, the same thing what we had. 16:11 Actually, people ordering books slowed down during COVID? 16:14 Yeah, because we hear the postal and everything. 16:17 Oh, see, in America, our bookstore just was booming when COVID hit and people were 16:22 at home bored and they wanted something to do. 16:25 But we're shipping everything from up here. 16:28 And do you have a pretty... What kind of books are we working on right now? 16:31 Right now, Ministry of Healing, then Christ Object Lesson. 16:35 And we print A Desire of Ages, right? 16:37 A Desire of Ages, we printed it in a 16:39 three-volume and a Great Controversy in a two-volume. 16:43 And that's going tremendously. People were ordering, people were asking. 16:49 Wow. So what are all these books here? 16:52 These are all books we recently printed, The Desire of Ages. 16:57 We made it in a three-volume and also Great Controversy made it in two-volume. 17:03 Are you getting quite a few people calling in 17:05 for the television programs, ordering, literature? 17:07 Yes, literature, not only from India, even from 17:12 the neighboring countries, Sri Lanka, and also Nepal. 17:17 People in Nepal responding to the TV programs? 17:20 Yes. They speak Nepali. 17:22 Because we have now a lot of other books also, like examples, the Great Controversy 17:27 in English, we are doing it, and also Desire of Ages we have. 17:32 And there are people who can speak our language, they are there. 17:38 And also from... 17:40 When you say language, you're talking about Tamil? 17:41 Tamil. And also Singapore, then France. 17:45 I know from flying on airplanes and having connecting flights. 17:49 I don't know how many times I've sat next to Tamil speaking, Tamil people that are 17:52 working abroad, either in Saudi Arabia or in Singapore, something like that. 17:57 Who is taking care of shipping all these? 18:02 Shipping Sudhajir. He is in charge for our bookstore. 18:09 And he will pack everything and send it to Kottambakkam. 18:16 Then there, Ravi will pack everything and hand over to the courier or the poster. 18:22 Are people actually ordering now that we have the Desire of Ages and 18:25 Great Controversy books available? People ordering these books? 18:28 Yes. They are very much interested, particularly the Storical Lessons, which we have. 18:35 Amazing Facts Storicals. 18:37 And that one is very nice. 18:39 And so all the books, I think whenever now, particularly November and December. 18:45 I was kind of curious because so many people were kind of 18:48 bent over looking at their phones or on tablets and such. 18:51 I was wondering if they were ordering books as much as they used to. 18:54 But you think it slowed down a little bit or people still ordering quite a bit? 18:58 Still our print media is powerful in India. 19:02 So that's why we also... I was talking to you and in our magazine also we have 19:07 published that our upcoming project in publishing is Christ Object Lesson. 19:13 Acts of Apostle and Ministry of Healing. 19:16 Yeah, those would be wonderful books. 19:18 All of these activities work together to introduce people to Christ. 19:23 The Bible workers going door to door, praying 19:25 with the people personally, touching their lives. 19:28 Our diversified television programs and media presence, taking Christ-centered 19:32 messages into the privacy of millions of people's homes. 19:36 Sending Bibles and Bible-based books and booklets around the world. 19:42 All of these lead to hundreds of baptisms every 19:45 year with the establishment of many new churches. 20:01 We're now going to take the train from Chennai all 20:03 the way down to Nazareth where our orphanage is located. 20:12 Taking the trains is not something new to us and 20:15 overnight trips make one pretty tired the next day. 20:25 We've been doing the trains in India for, man, 20, almost 30 years. 20:30 And a lot of the trains really haven't changed that much over the 30 years. 20:34 I think they just kind of repair them and put them back on the tracks. 20:37 But tonight we're heading out to the orphanage here from Hosur, which is a central 20:42 southern part of India, now onto the eastern tip of India. 20:47 [Music] 21:05 The sleeper cars have beds on two levels. I always prefer the upper level. 21:18 As we arrived, we made our way out of the 21:20 train station and headed to the orphanage. 21:26 While we were still at the train station, the daily 21:28 activities were just getting started at our orphanage. 21:32 The boys were getting dressed and trying hard not to be late for breakfast. 21:36 The rooms in the orphanage have been recently 21:38 remodeled and everything is kept clean and organized. 21:43 They all head down to the cafeteria for breakfast. It looks like this morning 21:48 they're having Idlis with vegetable gravy. 21:51 Idlis are made from mung bean flour steamed into patties. 21:58 They gather all their school books and backpacks and head to the bus. 22:03 I just want to mention that it's donors like you that have helped buy the new bus 22:06 and to provide for school clothes and backpacks for these children. 22:11 They say a prayer before they leave to school. Since we shot this video, we have 22:15 finished some of the building projects you see in the background of our campus. 22:19 This trip is a familiar one for them. Every weekday is 22:22 the same routine. They get on the bus, they go to school. 22:25 They get on the bus, they come back home. They would never 22:28 have this opportunity if it were not for the Children's Home. 22:33 After a day at school, the bus heads back to "The Home". 22:38 Young orphan children like this have an opportunity for 22:41 a better life rather than that of living under a bridge. 22:46 [music] 22:52 In 2016, Lehman Ministries acquired this building and this property. 22:57 Back several years before 2016, there was a 23:00 group of people who wanted to do an outreach ministry 23:03 in this particular area of southern eastern Tamil Nadu state. 23:07 And so they basically built this building 23:10 and called it the James White Community Center. 23:12 They bought some sewing machines and they bought some computers. 23:15 The whole idea was they would teach the ladies 23:18 from the villages in this area how to do tailoring, 23:20 maybe have some of the young people come here and 23:22 learn how to use computers and get involved with 23:24 like IT work. But for some reason, the 23:28 project just never really got off the ground. 23:29 So the facility just sat here not being used. 23:32 So in 2016, a committee who had control of this 23:35 property decided, "Why not give it to Laymen Ministries?" 23:37 Laymen Ministries is an organization 23:40 that gets things done. And so we acquired the 23:43 property and immediately Pastor Johnson and I 23:45 were thinking - an orphanage. And because of the 23:48 laws in India and such, we couldn't mix boys and girls 23:50 together. So we started first with what was 23:53 called a boy's home. And this building was remodeled. 23:57 We had the government come in and inspect 23:58 things and we set up an orphanage basically for boys. 24:03 And from that, everything just kind of started to expand. 24:06 Hey Moses. This is Moses Daniel and he's the 24:11 director for orphanages. And I haven't been here 24:13 for three and a half years now because of COVID 24:15 and everything. But I see there's been a lot of 24:17 changes since I was here, like a new wall and 24:19 new building. Yes sir. I'll tell you about this new 24:22 building. This is the building which has been 24:24 built, completed in March. And we wanted this year. 24:29 Yeah, March of this year. We wanted to start a 24:32 home for girls. We had been running for boys only. 24:37 So we wanted to start a home for girls. 24:39 So in order to start a home, we need some space 24:43 to accommodate a kitchen, to accommodate 24:46 an office, to accommodate this healing room, 24:49 sick room and sick room for girls and to have 24:52 the director's house. Because in the old building, 24:55 we had two spaces for dormitories. So we 25:00 used that old building for girls' dormitories. 25:04 And we have pulled out the kitchen and the 25:09 director's house and we have accommodated here. 25:12 Doesn't the government have really strict rules 25:14 about not mingling the boys and girls together? 25:16 So we had to keep everything completely separate, 25:19 right? Yeah, we have to. That's why we have built 25:22 this long compound wall and we have separated 25:26 the girls' dormitory and their area separate 25:29 by building a separate compound. Yeah. And then 25:32 your accommodations? Yeah, this is my accommodation. 25:35 Then this is the office and that is the sick room 25:38 for boys. And where's, do you have a sick room for 25:40 girls? Okay, it is inside that compound. Oh, 25:44 that's why the entrances from that side, because that's 25:46 a girl's side over there. And I remember you 25:48 telling me with a problem here that sometimes 25:53 before we built these toilets that were 25:55 more secure, that you had problems with snakes 25:57 sometimes coming in the old toilets. But now 25:59 that's kind of been taken care of because we have a, 26:02 can you imagine like during rainy season or 26:04 something, they'd have cobras coming into the 26:07 toilets, but now we have them built up in a more 26:10 secure area so the kids don't have to worry about 26:12 that. When we were there shooting this video, 26:16 our new cafeteria and multipurpose room were under 26:18 construction, but they're now finished. The 26:21 facility has kept clean providing a healthy environment for 26:24 the children, as well as teaching them to take 26:27 pride in what they have. This building is a new 26:29 multipurpose room and study hall. This gives the 26:32 children a place to study and to have recreational 26:35 time when the monsoon rains come. The main thing 26:38 is we now have room for orphan girls. Some of the 26:41 stories about where these orphan girls come 26:44 from are heart-wrenching. The room on the far 26:47 side of this building is for community services 26:48 for the people in the nearby villages. We provide 26:52 classes about health, tailoring, and computer 26:54 technologies. Here are our current orphan children 26:57 who now have hope for the future. I'd like to 27:01 tell you about this boy. His name is MARISWARAN. 27:05 He's a bright and helpful young man. He always 27:07 dreamed about riding a bike but never thought he 27:10 could do it. You see, his father died when he 27:12 was an infant. Without a father and being extremely 27:15 poor and a mother who could not take care of him, 27:19 his hopes for riding a bike seemed out of his grasp. 27:23 Moses, our orphanage director, brought his bicycle 27:25 to the children's home so that MARISWARAN could 27:27 learn to ride it. To MARISWARAN's astonishment, 27:30 he learned how to ride the bike in just one day. 27:33 He thanks God for this wonderful opportunity. 27:35 He also wants to share with you, dear viewer, 27:38 that he has learned a lot about Jesus and 27:40 his love while staying at our home. He told us, 27:43 "I surrendered my life to him. I would 27:45 like to follow him and inherit eternal life." 27:50 Something as simple as riding a bike brings joy to these orphans. 27:54 It's our goal to have this children's home be a 27:57 real home, a safe place to be loved, encouraged, 28:00 educated, and taught good values. Throughout India, we're 28:17 [Music] |
Revised 2023-12-29