April 16, 2008 - On October 1, 1971, 29-year-old P.G. Vargis, a soldier in the Indian Army, serving in the Himalayan Mountains, received Jesus Christ as his Saviour. His life was so dramatically changed that within three months he was sharing the Gospel with people everywhere. In 1977, P.G. and his wife Lilly Vargis founded Indian Evangelical Team (IET), one of the largest and fastest growing indigenous church-planting missions in India.

With a motto: to reach the unreached at any cost, the ministry expanded from its beginning in Kashmir to include the entire Indian subcontinent. Today, IET, headquartered in New Delhi, supports more than 2,100 national pastors, and has planted churches in twenty states of India as well as neighboring Nepal and Bhutan; an amazing record. IET churches have roughly 200,000 members, 93% of whom are first-time converts. In 2004, IET pastors led to the Lord and baptized 20,453 people.

To train pastors, IET has started a Bible College in New Delhi. In order to receive accreditation, the college requires an adaquate library comprised of volumes in English. Ambrose librarian, Sandy Ayer, has now made available up to 1000 books from the Ambrose University College library. These books are duplicates, resulting from the merging of the collections of AUC and NUC into the Ambrose library.

Ron Pearce with Empower Ministries is covering the cost of shipping these books to India.

In March Brian Thom had the privilege of being in India and observing IET ministries which now has over 5000 churches and a goal of 750 new churches this year. As Brian reflects upon the experience, "What a privilege for Ambrose to partner with a ministry in India in this way of library support."

Contact: Brian Thom
Phone: 604.541.8061
Email: Bthom@ambrose.edu