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In July 2013, a partnership with Blessing Youth Mission was established to support village ministries in Neymalai and Vathalmalai with two full time missionary families stationed there.  Both these rural villages are in Tamil Nadu, South India.

Neymalai is situated 50km from Salem, and consists of 6 villages, with a total population of 3650.  Vathalmalai is a rural village situated on a hill top 25km from Dharmapuri.  In Vathalmalai there are nine tribes with a total population of 3600.  People from these villages depend on their own small-scale agricultural produce for income, while others look elsewhere for daily wages.  They travel to other towns to make a living and some sell their land for income.

In each of these villages, they have a school providing education up to year 10, however 20 – 30% of the children do not complete their studies. More than 30% of all marriages are child marriages.  Many men suffer from alcohol addiction which leads to financial and domestic violence issues within families. BYM has commenced tuition classes to supplement content learned in school. The people from these villages have to travel a long distance to get drinking water, and MFA is planning to install tube wells in these villages.

There are no hospital facilities in Neymalai or Vathalmalai.  In order to reach a primary health centre, villagers would need to walk more than 20km.  As a result, they resort to ‘traditional’ medicine or will turn to witchcraft for healing.  As both of the missionaries’ wives are trained nurses, they are able to provide basic medical services and many have been blessed.  Medical camps are conducted twice a year by visiting missionary doctors from Vellore and Chennai.

The missionaries conduct house visits to share the Gospel with the villagers.  Weekend programs are conducted in Neymalai and about 275 children regularly attend these programs.  Bible stories are taught, with children also participating in sporting activities.  Many children are attending Sunday worship services and it is a blessing to hear that some have shown a keen interest in regular attendance.

The long term plan for both of these villages is to share the Gospel and establish churches.  There are opportunities to expand this partnership with BYM by establishing further mission bases in the hills districts of Tamil Nadu and other states of India.