When John Esteves returned to his home in Goa, India, to show the JESUS film, a cousin confronted him publicly. "If you screen that film here or anywhere in Goa," he shouted, "I'll break your legs! I don't want you to bring shame to our family."

John took it like a slap in the face. "I knew he meant it," says John, then a new staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ. "He was a hard case." As John's relatives and neighbors watched the confrontation on the road, the cousin, who'd been drinking, grew louder and louder. Finally John turned in embarrassment and slunk into his parents' house.

The earnest, young Indian had become a Christian a couple of years earlier while working at a hotel in the Arabic country of Bahrain. Right from the start he'd wanted to help fulfill the Great Commission in Goa, from whence he came.

Goa, an Arabian Sea port 200 miles south of Bombay, is not like the rest of India. Red-tile roofs, Portuguese names, and a strong Catholic influence bespeak four centuries as a colony of Portugal. When the first evangelicals arrived 20-some years ago, the populace considered them a cult and opposed them severely.

Nevertheless, John persisted, despite his cousin's threat. He knew God had brought him, so the very next day he went to the office of the panchayat (a government official) and asked permission to show the film outdoors. Permission was denied.

As chance would have it, upon leaving the office for the crowded street he met the very same cousin coming in. "I went cold," says John, "for I knew he would ask what I was doing there. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me."

The cousin did ask, and John forthrightly explained that he sought permission to screen the JESUS film. "Wait here," commanded the cousin. "I'm friends with the director." He took the paper, went in, and a few minutes later came back and thrust a paper into John's hand. "Here's the permission. Go screen your film."

"I don't know why he did this," says John, 42. "I was too scared to ask. To this day he has not become a Christian."

Thus began the fulfillment of John's dream to take the gospel to every person in the palm-studded state of Goa. Thirteen years later, the "postman," as John described himself to local pastors, would see that dream become reality. Goa represents the first place in India, and perhaps the world, where a Million Population Target Area was fully reached with the gospel.

Along the way, however, persecution and dissension threatened to unhinge the dream.

Where few evangelical churches exist and a plethora of other religions drown out the message, it's easy for Christians to slip into a fortress mentality, becoming suspicious even of each other.

"In Goa," explains Matthew Kurien, pastor of the New India Church of God, "every pastor in every church was very much interested in backbiting, gossiping, and sheep-stealing. Nobody was willing to accept each other. I used to think, 'Robert Lobo [pastor of a New Life Fellowship] is against me. If I allow him to come closer he may take somebody from our village.'"

"John Esteves has been one of the main brothers who has brought the church together," affirms Pastor Robert over a plate of rice and curry. "He's the postman."

John chuckles at the term. "I called myself the postman because I wanted to show I was there to serve, not lord it over them. Just as a postman facilitates communication and brings good tidings to people, my job was to build bridges from one pastor to another by carrying messages of peace and love.

"A lot of the disharmony and backbiting was due to lack of communication," John goes on. "When communication was clear, people realized that things happened out of ignorance or fear, not because the other person meant harm. Things started improving."

"One of the main things John had on his heart was to reach Goa [with the gospel] in 1995," says Pastor Robert. "But that cannot be done with one organization or church; the whole church has to come together. He managed to call all the pastors together, and we have been meeting every month even up to today."

"It was the work of the Holy Spirit," John is quick to point out. "I was just the instrument." In any case, the cooperation brought results. Two years ago, through Reach Goa 95, evangelical churches joined forces to take the "mail" of God's Word to the 1.2 million people in the state. Operation Mobilization and Youth With a Mission brought in teams of young people from across India, while Campus Crusade provided JESUS film teams and trained everyone to evangelize using the Four Spiritual Laws booklet. The ship Doulos wrapped things up by sending one final wave of evangelistic teams to trudge the narrow, asphalt lanes.

"At any given stretch during 1995," says John, "we had 300 to 350 people witnessing." Those people went to nearly every home, explaining the gospel to farmers, iron miners, fishermen and many others. JESUS film teams went to each of the 360 villages in Goa. On a typical night, the film was being shown in at least five different places.

A stroll along the crowded streets of Panjim, capital of Goa, helped verify John's claims. "I saw the film in my home village," said a boy near a market smelling of day-old fish. "I doubt that my friends have, however. They are from different villages."

"Hey, I saw the film in my village, too," shot back one of his friends. "Me too," chimed in another boy.

"I'd estimate we took the gospel to probably 80 percent of the people in Goa," says John. "Then we had the JESUS film on TV to catch anybody we missed."

A postman's life is not always easy. Sometimes he gets rained on. And sometimes animals dispute the right to pass.

Likewise when believers delivered the Good News in Goa. When Robert Lobo, who narrated the Konkani-language version of the JESUS film, tried to show JESUS in his home village, rabble-rousers rained rocks on him, tearing down the screen and breaking the projector bulb. "It was good for us to experience that," says Pastor Robert. "It raised our faith," adds June, his wife.

Such outright attacks on film teams are rare in Goa, according to John. "We can count on two hands the number of times the JESUS film teams were attacked," he says, "maybe only seven or eight times in all."

Sometimes, however, unhappy friends or neighbors dispute a person's decision to follow Christ. At the end of a passageway in the village of Zuari, a small band of believers meets in a two-room house belonging to Pavadappa, a former Hindu. When he turned to Christ two years ago (through Reach Goa 95) he stopped drinking and stopped beating his wife. Many people were healed at that time, as well, and 40 new believers began meeting in his one-room house. But when Pavadappa and his wife pitched the household idols, problems arose.

A rumor ran around the community that if a Hindu became a Christian, he would be forced to eat meat. Other neighbors were upset that he was not worshipping Mother Mary, and uttered a most surprising rebuke. "Don't accept Jesus," they told him. "He is our God, not yours."

Co-workers at the chemical plant down the road mocked him. "Look," they would taunt as he sat down to lunch, "there's Jesus Christ about to eat." And they threw things at him--tomatoes, carrots and onions.

The family pressured Renuka, his wife. "You let your husband do what he wants," they said, "but don't you try to follow him."

"I'm not doing it because of him," Renuka replied. "I know the truth, and I understand who the real God is, and I will not even keep idols in my house."

Finally a mob of 38 men surrounded Pavadappa's house. When he answered their rapping on the door, they dragged him out and beat him. Pavadappa held firm, but others did not. The 40-member house church wilted to 10 or 15.

"I'm glad that we have had opposition," says John. "That shows we have made a dent in society.

"There is a witness in every nook and corner of Goa," the 17-year staff member goes on. "You may not find a house church everywhere, but you will find at least one person who will say, 'I'm a believer. I read the Bible.' These people share with their relatives, their friends, their neighbors at every opportunity. They are becoming the light and salt of Goa."

And slowly but steadily, evangelical churches are growing. Two years ago there were just 40 churches in Goa; today there are 65. "The kind of Christianity that is growing in Goa is strong, solid, and not easily destroyed," says John. "They believe the Word of God, they obey the Word of God, and they practice the Word of God. I believe that one day we will see a third of the people in Goa taking a stand for Jesus."

And when they do, the churches will be ready to receive them. Pastors have become good friends with each other, so much so that recently several picnicked together at the beach. During the picnic they played soccer, with husbands and wives holding hands and playing as a unit--husbands dribbling and wives shooting at the goal.

In many ways this teamwork symbolizes the new sense of camaraderie and unity between the churches.

"If even one soul gets saved in Goa," says John, "it's because of teamwork. God uses one church to pray, one organization to show the JESUS film, another church to do something else. No individual can claim 'this soul has come to Christ only because of my effort.'"

And because of this teamwork, Goan churches today comprise a small army of "postmen" and women committed to carrying the message of Christ to their friends, their neighbors, and even to other parts of India.