Fall is finally here, and with it came a tour through India for one of our bands, The Gap Theory. We get the coolest updates from the bands from the road so we’d like to share some excerpts from them directly. Hopefully you’ll be encouraged and motivated to pray for all God’s up to, as we were.
Gap Theory
India Chennai Update #1
It has been a complete whirlwind since we touched down in Chennai. As you may recall, weather pushed our flights back, so that instead of arriving a day and a half before our first show we arrived in Chennai Friday morning around 10:00am, and headed straight to our first show at 3:00pm. We haven’t had a day off since. The first concert at Hindustan University was a huge success, even though we were in a sleep deprived state while doing it. God was faithful, and 88 people indicated receiving Christ.
We’ve literally played every day… or at least tried to. At an outdoor show at Madras Christian College, we got rained out after doing 2 songs. …The next day, Scott’s guitar rig would not power up, due to either rain, or the extremely janky AC power we’re dealing with. Good news: Found the exact piece of gear in the randomness of Chennai. Bad news: It cost 30,000 Rupees, or about $540 US. (But, what’s a touring guitarist with a dead rig to do?) So, we all rejoiced than a replacement was found, and soldiered on. The next day, at the rescheduled show at Madras Christian College, we played to about 500 people and saw 52 of them indicate receiving Christ. 🙂
India Update #2
The day of our concert was the second day of the 10-day Ganesh festival throughout India. We’ve seen displays all over the cities of the elephant-headed god with food offerings and dancers and other acts of devotion. We’ve even seen some businesses shut down in observation of the festival. So… what I’m saying is that we played a concert at Ganesh University during the height of the Ganesh Festival.
We learned that our concert is the first Christian outreach event in the 30-year history of the school. We played to an audience of about 500 people. The power went out twice during our set (which happens a lot here), but the energetic crowd embraced the outage with screaming and applause that only grew louder when it came back on. … So of course, we did a full-on outreach program, with Seth sharing the gospel explicitly, and then giving an invitation for people to pray and receive Christ. (108 people indicated a decision for Christ at this concert)
India Update #3 – an email the band received from a believer who was at one of the concerts
I am a secret believer. attended your concert at RSAG in chennai today!! It was awesome and all who came were blessed by it! I am from a HINDU background, its a religion where they worship idols. If my parents come to know that m a christian they will thrash me. And also the time is nearing for me to tell it at home that am a secret christian!! But the situation is so hard that m undergoing so much of trouble. Please pray for me, that is should get the strength when i tell it to my family!