In Himachal, even more so than in the rest of India, there is a shrine nearly every mile along the road, and a Hindu temple atop nearly every hill. Every one of its 17,000 villages and communities has its own devat or god, and every household the same.

At work among the 6 million people that inhabit the mountainous region is a native ministry that is raising up grass-roots workers to preach Jesus Christ among these gods. They are finding that prayer and one-on-one training play a major role.

David (not his real name) was born in Himachal Pradesh in 1965. He became a Christian in 1987, though his parents are still Hindu. He took Bible training at a short-term Bible school in Singapore in 1991, and worked alongside the pastor in a local church in New Delhi. After planting a new church in New Delhi, he began ministry in his native state in 1998.

For the first year he did little more than pray. He walked through one village after another, praying as he went. As he made repeat visits villagers began to recognize him and were friendly. Speaking fluent Hindi, the lingua franca of North India, he began to speak to them about Jesus Christ as opportunity provided.

One by one some villagers placed their trust in the Lord. Soon he had a nucleus of baptized believers gathering under his tutelage. Eventually, certain young men showed an interest in wanting to help proclaim the gospel in the "land of the gods."

David sends such to a theological training institute in Southern India. But knowing that formal training alone is not adequate to prepare a man to be a discipler and a church planter, David mentors them for six months when they return. Together they take prayer walks through different villages. When David senses that his trainee feels a burden for a particular village, David assigns him to it.

"There is the difference between being sent and being called," David told Christian Aid last week. "We don't just assign men to a place that has a need; we wait until we see that they are called to a place; then we send them there."

The prayer walks accomplish other objectives as well. In one village they came across a family that did not have a water supply. They prayed that the Lord would supply water. Soon after that the family discovered a hidden spring behind their house. Now their gardens are well watered.

Another family was suffering because its water buffalo could not conceive and therefore would not even give milk. The family could even not kill and eat the buffalo because they were strict Hindus and vegetarians. The missionaries prayed that God would bless the buffalo. Soon thereafter the buffalo conceived and bore a calf. Now the family has a milk supply, and can sell the calf for profit. They are very interested in this God who cares even for buffalos.

Not everything goes smoothly. Recently one of David's personally trained missionaries was beaten by hostile Hindus so badly he could not attend the monthly training meeting.

"In Himachal Pradesh they will beat you, but at least they won't kill you," David said. He mentioned that hostility to the gospel takes different forms in different places of India. "In Gujarat they will kill you."

Shunning is another weapon Hindu villagers use against the gospel. "In one case villagers rejected a missionary's Hindu parents and wouldn't even let them attend a wedding or a funeral," David said. "That is the worst form of rejection a family can endure. As a believer the missionary has his faith to strengthen him, but his Hindu parents have done nothing to deserve mistreatment and have no faith to fall back on. That is very hard on the family."

But David and his band of native missionaries are making headway. Starting with just him and his wife in 1998, the group now has 16 missionaries who are native to the soil. Ten of these came to Christ within the last two years. They have planted nine churches, and gather believers for prayer and teaching in 24 locations located in five of Himachal Pradesh's 12 districts. They recently baptized 59 new believers in one location, thus adding to the 11,000 professing Christians in the state.