Send Magazine - 2nd Quarter 2009

GFA Stock Photo

Did You Know?

Cost of a lm
and projector
unit: $1,750
Cost of a
generator:
$1,800

When a disruption threatened to prevent Habib Randhawa and his team from showing a film on the life of Jesus, they experienced how God used the event to display His power and love.

Habib and his fellow team members had arrived in the community hours earlier, their shoulder bags full of Gospel tracts. They’d gone from door to door, handing out the literature, explaining the Good News of Jesus and inviting everyone to watch an open-air movie they would show once the sun set.

The villagers had seemed genuinely interested, and by the time the missionaries had pounded two tall poles into the ground, stretched out a white sheet and set up the generator and projector, about 300 people had gathered and seated themselves on the ground in front of the makeshift screen.

But after the film started, a disturbance broke out in the crowd. It was a man named Dilawar. He seemed almost unconscious, completely unaware of his behavior, but everything he did and said was distracting the crowd from the film. Dilawar had been possessed by an evil spirit for more than a year, and no one had found a way to free him.

Habib stopped the film, and he and his team members gathered around Dilawar, praying for his deliverance. The man quieted down, and though the show didn’t go on for a while, eventually the missionaries were able to show the rest of the film.

Once the movie concluded, the team found Dilawar and continued to pray for him. As the villagers looked on, the Lord completely freed him from the control of the evil spirit. When Habib and the team told Dilawar about Jesus’ power to also forgive sin, he readily chose to believe. Having just seen the Good News on film and then watching evidence of it before their eyes, Dilawar’s community has since become much more open to the love of God.

Habib’s team is just one of dozens that crisscross southern Asia each year with Man of Mercy, an Indian-made film on the life of Christ, a digital projector unit and a generator for areas with little or no electricity. In an area of the world where movies are extremely popular, film teams bring the message of God’s love to eager and interested crowds.