|
Doulos Activities
All Doulos activities are directed toward two goals: sharing the message of Jesus and providing Christian services worldwide. These two purposes result in many kinds of activities. Below are some of the major programs Doulos is developing.
Doulos Children's Homes
Doulos provides food, lodging, clothing and supervision for about 120 orphan children divided into four groups in different places in Medak District in south central India.
Bible Distribution
Doulos has distributed several thousand bibles in Telugu, Oriya, and English languages. We are looking to expand our distribution program to included many more languages and countries.
Christian Studies Courses
These courses are one night per week times 6 weeks courses. We have two of these that have been presented before but are upgrading them. The titles are "History of the Bible," and "Theological Concepts of the Bible." Several other courses will follow.
Additionally we are looking at the possibility of producing correspondance or Internet courses in biblical studies.
Preacher's Seminars
Doulos has sponsored numerous preacher seminars through the years. These are very valuable, stimulating the local preachers and giving them teaching materials they otherwise would not have.
Ladies Seminars
Often we conduct a ladies bible classes in conjunction with the preacher seminars. Men often bring their wives and quite a few local women participate as well. We especially do this when we have a lady travelling with us who can teach such classes.
Youth Seminars
Several times we have had university students travel with us and conduct youth meetings. These are very popular and a great opportunity for young Christians to influence each other and glorify God.
Doulos Bible College
At present, Doulos College operates with about 25 students involved in biblical studies and preparing for lives in preaching and other ministries. In the future we plan to expand Doulos College to include pre-university training (the 11th and 12th years of the Indian system), and vocational training in such areas as teacher training and nursing.
Evangelism
Each year, Doulos College students participate in evangelism efforts in their home villages, passing out tracts and conducting preaching services for those communities.
Church Development
We work especially during visits of foreigners to strengthen the local churches. A visit to a rural Indian church is much more important and better remembered than a similar visit to an American church. The people remember what you say, what clothes you wear, and every detail of the day of celebration when a visitor visits. When there are no foreign visitors, Doulos associates work to complete church construction, supply bibles for outreach, solve leadership problems in the churches, and conduct baptismal services. Also there is the occasional child dedication, wedding, funeral, and birthday celebration.
Our goal is to help local churches have good leadership and be independent, supporting their own pastor and conducting their own evangelism work in the villages.
Mission Trips
Each mission trip is different because it is composed of different people with different talents. We generally try to go in October, but have made trips in most of the months of the year. If you are interested, get in touch. We'd be honored to have you.
Services to Churches
Now that Doulos is getting organized in the US, we hope to provide a number of services to local churches with a big emphasis on mission education and active mission involvement. This work is germinal at the moment so we don't know how it will develop. We have talked about conducting seminars in local churches about mission programs and principles. Also several churches help Doulos by conducting clothing drives, garage sales, and getting children involved in class projects such as bibles or bicycles.
Publications
Doulos now has published the first of a series of evangelistic brochures. This first one is entitled "Choosing God" and a sample copy is free upon request. Bulk pricing very near our cost is available to churches wishing to use the brochure in their outreach.
Disaster Relief
Doulos played an active role in Tsunami Relief along the east coast of India, distributing blankets, fishing nets, and refurbishing a small school with dishes for the kids lunches.
Mission Education
This area of interest is germinal, but we hope it develops into mission education projects for children's bible classes, for churches planning to getting involved in missions, and for individuals preparing to enter missions as a career. Our Doulos sponsored mission trips might be included here, since mission education is a big part of such travel.
|
