a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

the natives. It is significant that it took place among the young people in the
hostel, as happened in Mukti and Dholka. As in many other places, such as
Tirunelveli, the people who experienced the revival faced strong opposition from
the existing church leadership. There were visible manifestations of the Spirit in
this revival, including speaking in tongues, singing in tongues, falling down,
visions and dreams, confession of sins and shaking of body, as occurred in many
Indian revivals. Another important fact is that those who experienced the revival
did not recognize what was happening as it was an entirely new experience for
them. They began to talk about the ‘new words and phrases’ they uttered when
they became ‘out of control’ in prayer. Tajendra Masih, who participated in the
revival, says,
we knew that something spiritual was happening as there were obvious changes
in our behaviour, but could not realize it as the Holy Spirit baptism until when Pr.
Thomas Mathews came from Udaipur to Banaswara, and taught us from the
Scripture. We heard for the first time that it was a Pentecostal revival. However,
by the time he came in 1968, many of those people who experienced this
Pentecostal revival went back due to severe opposition from the Presbyterian
Church. 48
Thomas Mathews and his first convert in Rajasthan, Samson Wilson, stayed in
Banaswara for a while and taught people the Pentecostal message. This produced
a number of indigenous missionaries like Tajendra Masih, Pathras Masih, and
Valu Singh and who were sent to Itarsi Bible College in MP for theological
training. Mathews left his colleague Wilson to work there. These three men later
48 T. Masih, interview, 23 May 2006.
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