July 2024 India Intercessor
Dear Friends,
When I first met Mission India’s founder, John DeVries, I was in the process of revisiting my life’s mission statement, trying to figure out how to advance the Kingdom—and it came to life when I partnered with Mission India. I now had a front-row seat to the work of the Holy Spirit in one of the most spiritually depraved nations in the world.
Since then, I’ve become more and more convinced that the way to change India is through the kids. If you want to impact a community for the next 50-100 years, you start with the children, because if you change the kids, the parents follow.
This reminds me of a time I was in India celebrating the conclusion of a Bible Club, and a little girl shared her testimony. It was because she learned to pray in her Children’s Bible Club that her mom was radically healed and her whole family came to salvation. The thing that stuck with me was when our ministry partner leaned over to me and said, “Todd, the Holy Spirit is doing more to reach Christ through children like her than anything else we are doing.”
As I celebrate my 60th birthday this month, I’ve been reflecting on what legacy I want to leave. And I’ve realized that more things are caught than taught. For example, you can teach someone how to pray, but it’s when they witness your passionate prayer life that they catch what intercession can really look like. In India, we see that happen as a child catches the passion of their Bible Club leader, and their parents catch it, too.
So this month, I want to pose the question: What is the lesson Jesus wants the next generation to catch from your life?
Together, for India,
Todd VanEk
President & CEO of Mission India
