Pastor Bryan Nerren, a Christian Pastor in Tennessee, has been preaching the Gospel and training Sunday School teachers in India and Nepal for 17 years through his non-profit ministry Asian Children’s Education Fellowship. On a recent trip to attend a conference in Bagdogra, India, he was arrested after airport officials learned that the money he brought with him was to support his Christian work. Now he is detained in India and his family needs all the prayers they can get and a petition has also been started to get him back home to Tennessee.
The Christian community has started a petition seeking the release of Nerren from detainment in India. The “Petition to Free American Pastor Bryan Nerren and Allow Him to Come Home to His Family” has received over 92,000 signatures as of this writing. The ACLJ, which is representing Pastor Nerren, is working alongside the State Department and Congress in globally advocating his plight.
Nerren’s family is also asking everyone for their support and prayers for the return of the American pastor. His heartbroken wife Rhonda is asking all ACLJ members and the church around the world to unite in prayer for her husband’s release. She said Nerren has done nothing wrong and said that “his only crime is living out his steadfast love for Jesus.”
“Please pray for our family. Pray for the hearts of the officials who have the power to give him back his passport and let him come back to us. And pray for our legal team at the ACLJ as they work on our behalf to bring him home,” Rhonda said in a statement posted on ACLJ.
Pastor Nerren was arrested after New Delhi officials cleared him for travel to Bagdogra, but it turned out that they had contacted officials there for his arrest. He was jailed for six days in Siliguri where he got sick and hospitalized, treated by a doctor who despised Christians, and not allowed visitations.
Thankfully, he was put on bail and is now staying with Nepali partners. But he cannot go home to his family in Tennessee because the judge presiding over his case has ordered a travel ban and seized his passport. This means he is trapped in Siliguri until the judge resumes with his court hearing on Dec. 12, which was initially scheduled for Oct. 22.
Let us all pray for Pastor Nerren’s safe return to Tennessee. May the officials find it in their hearts to accept and understand Nerren’s purpose and let him go home to his family.