SEND! magazine Second Half 2008: Unrelenting Love

Unrelenting Love

GFA Missionary
Name: Shyam Tamang
Location: Sikkim, India

Shyam Tamang didn't listen the first time a missionary told him about Jesus. He didn't listen the second time, either. But the missionary wouldn't stop visiting him, and Shyam couldn't keep ignoring his message.

Shyam's faith in Jesus today is a result of that missionary's persistence. Now a Gospel for Asia native missionary himself, Shyam works with the same determination that eventually led him to Christ. Even after being threatened in one village—that if he ever returned with his message about Jesus, the villagers would kill him—his response embodied the perseverance of his whole ministry.

"The love of God compels me to return again and again to this village and share about Christ's love to them," writes Shyam about the incident. "I strongly believe that these same people will one day come to know Christ as their Lord and be saved."

The Lord has used Shyam's tireless determination to bring many people to salvation. A church has also formed as a result. Every week as he looks out at the believers who gather, he sees the result.

Part of that congregation, Priti and her daughter are Christians even though her husband is a Buddhist monk. Shyam had visited their home several times with the message of salvation, but they were not interested until Priti began suffering from an illness that doctors could not identify. Her husband's prayers (and those of his fellow monks) and medical treatment failed to help Priti. It was not until Shyam prayed that she recovered. Priti and her daughter both received Jesus as their Savior as a result of the healing.

Jubhana didn't want the missionary's prayers the first time she heard about Jesus, either. But she showed up at his church, desperate, when her small son was sick and when she also became ill. The Lord healed both of them, which led her to receive salvation.

As well as persevering in evangelism, Shyam works hard to disciple these young Christians. And as he trains them to help him with his outreach and as they follow his example, each one adds to the legacy of that first unrelenting missionary who led Shyam to Christ.

You can help sponsor a missionary like Shyam and have a part in seeing lives changed for all eternity!