What do you get if you put 160 Indians together with 4 people from Scotland? Global Alpha Training Indian style! Enthusiastic worship, hungry and receptive delegates, lots of laughter, great Indian food, a sense of impacting a nation, and weather very similar to Glasgow (ok that last bit is stretching things!) – that’s GAT. 

Partnering with Alpha India, we ran a four day GAT in Delhi and then followed it up with another four day event in Karnal, which is about 200 km north of Delhi. In Delhi we had about 70 delegates from a number of denominational backgrounds, some pastors and others lay leaders. The delegates at Karnal were nearly all Pastors and senior church leaders, and the training was received with real enthusiasm in both venues. Several Senior Pastors expressed their desire to see their own networks of churches and leaders also trained to run Alpha, which means as a minimum, developing new GAT teams to train 350 pastors in Feb, and 200 leaders in May 09!

Were hoping many courses will start as a result. After our last trip in June 07, 150 courses started right after GAT. There are too many great stories than we have space for, but here’s a taste: A converted Sikh pastor attended Karnal. He and his entire family came to faith after seeing a vision of the Cross covered in blood. Now he plans to run Alpha, and also take it into the prisons in his area.

And a special thanks to Allan Jack and Fr Keith Herrera from the Aberdeen Alpha Regional Team for investing a valuable week of their busy schedules, with Paul Davie and myself from Alpha Scotland.

Kieran Dunne