A church with only 35 members was able to help thousands of Christians in Pakistan amid the congregation's limited resources and manpower.
Plymouth Baptist Church touched thousands of Christians in Pakistan during the COVID 19 pandemic. The congregation of 35 members went out of their comfort zones to focus on the outward and see what God is doing in the other parts of the world, the Christian Post reported.
Doug Dieterly, Executive Pastor for Plymouth Baptist Church in Northern Indiana headed his church to respond to the novel coronavirus challenge differently. With less number of attendees due to the restrictions and limited resources due to the economical struggle, PBC showed the world that the God they serve is unstoppable.
The church touched thousands of Christians in Pakistan by conducting a series of video conferencing classes on "Experiencing God" and sending in materials translated into Urdu for free. "Experiencing God" was written by Christian author Henry Blackaby
The church with only three dozen people showed how God supernaturally turned things around and performed miracles for them to breakthrough and pursue their commitment to the harvest of souls.
Dieterly, tells a story of how the project began. He said he told the church to pray for a connection to coordinate with the move of God in foreign countries. Blackaby's Experiencing God came as an answered prayer.
After several sessions, Adam, a visitor, told them about Paul, a missionary from Pakistan who fled from his country due to the persecution of the Islamic majority on Pakistani Christians. The church members felt God's conviction for them to be part of the move of God in that country where 96 percent of the population are Muslims.
Paul attended the entire 12-week class of "Experiencing God" and ended up with the desire to bring the message as well as the copies back to his country. He asked permission to translate the materials into his own language, Urdu.
Dieterly successfully secured Paul the permit to translate the teaching into Urdu. This was the first Urdu translation for the teaching that has been translated into 60 languages in 30 years and has sold 8 million copies across the United States.
Paul later introduced the Plymouth Baptist Church to Rafiq, a Pakistani pastor, and Sana, his daughter who later received Paul's translated copies from PBC. The pastor and his daughter went through the materials and asked the Dieterly to train them online with the teaching.
Weeks upon completing the class, Rafiq told the PBC executive pastor that 22 Pakistani pastors and church leaders from the six churches she and her father planted also wanted to go through the class.
At the time, PBC almost had nothing in its bank account. It has only one a paid staff member, Senior Pastor Clark Harless. Its other pastors -Dieterly, and his fellow associate pastor, Tom Keb- work there as full-time volunteers. The church had to raise funds for the training materials amounting to $3,500.
The church did a tent sale and completed the funds in two days and sent the materials immediately to Pakistan. The teaching went a long way touching more than 100 Pakistanis.
Another group of leaders in the country requested the training and the materials. The church members didn't have any more ways to raise funds, but God provided for their needs: One night, Harless told Dieterly that someone gave a pair of checks amounting to $3,500 - exactly what they needed to touch the second round of 20 Pakistanis, the Christian Post reported.
As of now, Dieterly said the church is waiting on God to provide more provision for training another round of 22 Pakistani Christians.
