Children in Crisis: The World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame’ | GFA World Special Report Part 3

May 9, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this final part of a Special Report on the world’s greatest ‘badge of shame’: Children in Crisis.

Each of their children were suffering and it was all preventable…if only they had clean water. But their nearest source was a contaminated pond and it wasn’t always possible to walk the 3-6 miles to reach safer water, so they drank what was poisoning them. One day though, everything changed.

Kids at Risk of Sexual Exploitation

For millions of children around the world, hunger, thirst and disease are just three of life’s cruel injustices. They are, however, not the vilest or the most horrific.

While an accurate number is difficult to pinpoint, it’s estimated millions of children worldwide—from the slums of Haiti to the sordid child sex industry of Bangkok, Thailand—are victims of sexual exploitation and prostitution.

Millions of kids around the globe are at risk of sexual exploitation — These three children are safe for now in a loving family in the state of Haryana, India, but millions of other kids around the globe ages 10-17 are at risk of sexual exploitation or enforced prostitution.

A report on child trafficking by UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, says:

“Sexual activity is often seen as a private matter, making communities reluctant to act and intervene in cases of sexual exploitation. These attitudes make children more vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Myths, such as the belief that HIV/AIDS can be cured through sex with a virgin, technological advances such as the internet [that] has facilitated child pornography, and sex tourism targeting children, all add to their vulnerability.”^[32]

UNICEF’s report highlights the following highly disturbing facts:

Surveys indicate that 30-35 percent of all sex workers in the Mekong sub-region of Southeast Asia are ages 12-17.
Mexico’s social service agency reports more than 16,000 children engage in prostitution, with most of them active in tourist destinations.
In Lithuania, 20-50 percent of prostitutes are believed to be children, some as young as 11. Kids from orphanages and children’s homes are especially at-risk, and 10-12 year-olds have been used to make pornographic movies.

“Prostitution is legal in some parts of Asia so the chances of girls being victimized are drastically increased,” said GFA World’s Yohannan. “Many of the poorest families are manipulated into selling their daughters to opportunists who promise a better life for them. But many of these girls are never heard from or seen again. It’s a fate worse than death.”^[33]

National Geographic tells the harrowing story of “S” in Asia (name withheld) who left home at the age of 12 with a family acquaintance who promised to find her a job in the city. She was sold to a brothel where she was kept as a sex slave for two years before the police freed her and sent her to a shelter. Six months later, “S” met a woman who promised to take her back home to her family—but sold her to another brothel instead.^[34]

A vulnerable young girl — The young and unprotected are easy targets for those who would carry out unspeakable atrocities against them.

The shameful catalog of sexual abuse against unprotected girls is a global disgrace.^[35]

According to the Korea Future Initiative (KFI), North Korean girls who escape across the border to China are forced to stay “invisible” and often end up in brothels and the cybersex trade. “Girls as young as 9 are forced to perform graphic sex acts and are sexually assaulted in front of webcams, which are live-streamed to a paying global audience,” says KFI.^[36]

In Haiti, many young girls enter into “survival prostitution” because they have no other way to feed themselves.

A church leader in Haiti explained to me: “Let’s say that a girl does not eat for a day. She’s hungry but she will survive. However, the next day, she has nothing to eat. Now, she has gone two days without food. A married man asks her, ‘Can I take you to a restaurant?’ She will not say ‘no.’ The next day, he offers to buy her clothes… a nice dress. Do you think she will say ‘no’? Before long, she is his mistress. She has become dependent on him for food and clothing. This happens all the time in Haiti.

“Many girls practice prostitution in our cities and even in our churches. Their parents encourage them because they are desperate for food, so they encourage their 15-year-old daughters to have sex to bring in money. It’s a desperation trade: ‘You help me, and I will have sex with you.’”

In Haiti, these child sex workers are known as “Degaje.“ In the local Creole language, the term refers to sex workers in survival mode. Their families are known as “Brase,” also a reference to being in a state of survival. Hence, Haitians talk about “Degaje” from “Brase” families.

In nations around the globe, poverty also leads to child marriages, with men frequently marrying girls under the age of 13. According to a report by Gospel for Asia (GFA World), there are as many as 650 million “child brides” in the world today, including adult women who married in childhood.^[37]In 2020, a startling report by CBS News stated that one in every five children in the world is married.^[38]

“Globally, millions of girls—a number so vast as to defy comprehension—are trapped in a web of exploitation,” said Yohannan. “Girls living in areas of political instability, conflict, or oppression are especially vulnerable to forced marriage and sex slavery.”

In 2014, the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Haram terrorists grabbed the news headlines, but globally the ongoing, rampant abuse of girls continues largely under the radar:

In Bangladesh, a survey of 375 sex workers revealed nearly half of them were child brides, married as young as 11, and trafficked into prostitution.
In China, sex-selective abortions resulted in a national shortage of women, fueling demand for child brides and sex workers.^[39]
In the U.S., more than 200,000 minors were married between 2000 and 2015. Most were girls and more than 80 percent were married to an adult, CBS News reported.^[40]

Girls trying to survive in the slums — Maharashtra, India – February 2018: Life is anything but simple for these girls who live in one of the many slums in their state. Survival here is often dependent on scavenging and selling what you can.

Children with their mother collects stones to help earn a little money for their family — West Bengal, India – August 2020: COVID cost their father his job which made his drinking problem worse. Their mother was forced to Delhi to earn money, leaving these three siblings alone and abandoned. Without alternatives, these children at risk of starvation, had to visit the river each day to break up stones to sell to somehow get something to eat.

Little girl selling vegetables in the weekly market — Maghalaya, India – October 2021: This little girl runs her family’s stall to sell various items in the weekly market. Like her, many children have to work to help their family make ends meet. But the practice can hinder a child’s education, especially if they drop out of the school for ongoing work at home.

Children at Risk of Slavery

In addition to trafficking for sex and forced marriage, children worldwide are also highly vulnerable to labor exploitation and modern-day slavery.

Millions of children in Asia, like this young boy, are involved in child labor — Millions of children in Asia are involved in child labor. Some children are forced into it, while others have to drop out of school so they can work to help their struggling families.

Around the world, 152 million children as young as five are engaged in some form of child labor. More than 4 million children work in factories, sweatshops, brick-making kilns, hazardous mining operations, rice fields, domestic servitude and other exploitive, forced labor.^[41]

In Southeast Asia, 13-year-old Min Min searches for precious stones at a quarry. In 2020, at least 160 people were killed by a mudslide at a jade mine in the region where he lives. “We risk our lives for these stones,” Min Min said. “A man died last night … I saw it with my own eyes.”^[42]

Because of the dire economic situation in Haiti, many young children are turned out of their homes by parents who can’t afford to feed them. Often, these children—some younger than 10 years old—enter into domestic servitude, a form of child slavery, with another family.

Facing neglect and physical abuse, these children are known as “rest avek,” translated “stay with,” and are treated essentially as slaves, expected to rise early each day to do the most menial chores.

Real-life Cinderellas

These real-life Cinderellas don’t have the opportunity to attend school, so they have virtually no chance of escaping their situation.

Bhil boy works in the brick making factory alongside other adults and children.

“Haitians dream of escape,” one Haitian man in the capital Port-au-Prince told me. “If you look at Haitian paintings, many of them depict the ocean. The ocean represents escape… liberty. For Haitians, the outside world is paradise; Haiti is hell.”

But for Haiti’s “rest avek” children and millions more trapped in exploitive labor around the world, there is no escape.

In Asia, nine-year-old Lakshmi worked in a factory as a cigarette roller. But it’s her 10-year-old sister she’s most worried about.

“Every morning at 7 a.m. she goes to the bonded labor man, and every night at 9 p.m. she comes home,” Lakshmi said. “He treats her badly. He hits her if he thinks she’s working slowly, or, if she talks to the other children, he yells at her. He comes looking for her if she’s sick and can’t go to work.”

“I don’t care about school or playing. I don’t care about any of that. All I want is to bring my sister home. For 600 rupees [about $8] I can bring her home—that is our only chance to get her back. We don’t have 600 rupees … we will never have 600 rupees.”^[43]

A better life seems like a far-fetched dream to children like Lakshmi and her sister in Asia. At the root of their despair is grinding poverty.

But there is hope.

More than 138,000 children received food, medical care, and an education since GFA World’s Child Sponsorship Program began in 2004. GFA World’s Child Sponsorship Program opens the door to a life of opportunity for thousands of children whose lives teeter on the brink of hopelessness, exploitation and suffering. Through its community development approach, Gospel for Asia (GFA World) shows children, their families and their communities the love of Christ by meeting practical needs.

Working with community leaders, solutions like basic health care, food, clean water and educational and community service opportunities help break the cycle of generational poverty.

In the next decade, Yohannan says, he wants to see 500,000 at-risk children in some of the world’s most desperate places enrolled in the program—and his organization invites people to sponsor a child, or more than one child, to help set them free from the curse of poverty and its childhood-ravaging effects.

Children at risk living on the street in Asia — God loves each child at risk, each kid in crisis, living on the street in Asia and Africa. He sees their needs and will not ignore their cries for help. Nor will we. Through GFA World’s child sponsorship program, and your support, children are getting their needs met, while finding out that God cares for them.

Redeeming Children in Crisis

Impoverished children from Karnataka, India — Two young impoverished children in Karnataka, India convey the wonderful beauty found in every child, no matter their station in life.

Our world bears a great “badge of shame” for its appalling neglect of and cruel injustice toward children in every nation, on every continent. But there’s an opportunity for redemption—and each of us can do our part.

In Kampala’s Kisenyi slum, one lonely street boy about 10 years old caught my attention as he sat in the dirt, wearing only torn rags. His leg was badly injured, split open, and flies had gathered on the gaping wound. He was inhaling fuel from a plastic bottle to dull the pain. As I crouched beside him, he told me he’d been run over by a car. The driver hadn’t bothered to stop. Maybe God put me on this earth for this very moment? It was, perhaps, the first time someone had actually cared about this boy, the first time he’d experienced God’s love through another human being. It was an honor to clean and bandage his wound. At that moment, God broke my heart for the suffering children of this world. But He did more than that—He showed me that every child reveals His beauty, even when they’re dressed in filthy rags and lying in the gutter.

As Mother Teresa is quoted as saying:

Mother Teresa holding a child — Mother Teresa
Photo by Wikimedia

The child is the beauty of God present in the world, that greatest gift to a family.^[44]

Give to Help Support Children at Risk & Kids in Crisis »

If this special report has touched your heart and you would like to make a real difference in the lives of children in crisis around the world, and bring hope to kids at risk of violence, impoverishment, or child labor, then make a generous one time or monthly gift to help kids in need in Asia or Africa.

About GFA World

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based global mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and sharing the love of God. In GFA World’s latest yearly report, this included thousands of community development projects that benefit downtrodden families and their children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and teaching providing hope and encouragement available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.

Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Children in Crisis — World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame’ — Part 1, Part 2

Learn more about the GFA World Bridge of Hope program and how you can make an incredible difference in the lives of children, bringing hope to their lives and their families, transforming communities.

Learn how to provide a chance for children without sponsors. When you give to help unsponsored children, you help supplement the lack of resources when children in Asia don’t have the sponsors they need to stay in a Bridge of Hope center.

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Read what 25 Christian Leaders are affirming about Gospel for Asia.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Children in Crisis: The World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame’ | GFA World Special Report Part 2

May 4, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, which inspired numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to assist the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this 2nd part of a Special Report on the world’s greatest ‘badge of shame’: Children in Crisis.

Street children resting outdoors exposed to danger and hunger — Without much to call their own, these two boys hold tightly to each other. The streets are a dangerous place for anyone to live, but even more so for vulnerable, and often exploited children.

Child Sacrifice: Boy’s Head ‘Sold by Father For $2,000’

Moses' grave site. — 15-year-old Moses went out to buy potatoes and never returned home. His heartsick parents found his body the following week. He is laid to rest here, the cruel victim of child sacrifice and leaves behind not only parents, but his three-year-old sister. This community in Uganda now has a unique alert system that has already rescued two children from a similarly awful fate. ©2014 World Vision/photo by Jon Warren

Other street boys, Kandwanaho told me, fall victim to Uganda’s sinister underworld of child sacrifice. With its roots in witchcraft, child sacrifice is still practiced among both the poor and the rich. Wealthy businessmen abduct a young street boy with few physical blemishes, have him beheaded and then bury the boy’s head under the foundation of a new building “to bring them luck” with their new money-making venture, Kandwanaho said.

A report by ABC Newstells the story of a young mother who found the headless body of her 17-month-old son in a shallow grave in a banana plantation in her rural village near the Congo border. “I pulled my son’s body out of the soil,” she said. “I realized he had no head.” The child’s killer turned out to be his own father, who was given $2,000 by a rich businessman in return for the boy’s head.^[16]

Atrocities against street children are not confined to any single country. In Brazil, news reports tell of organized “death squads” that deliberately seek out and murder street children viewed as nothing more than garbage littering the streets.^[17]

Kandwanaho showed me where his friends sometimes sleep inside giant, used tractor tires, piled up in a yard. One night, they were swept up in a police “clean-up” operation and transported to a children’s detention center outside Kampala. Every year, hundreds of street kids end up in “remand” centers, juvenile prisons, where they can be detained for months or even years without a court hearing. Their crime? Often, it’s just living or begging on the streets and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sixty Feet, a nonprofit organization, helps bring smiles back to marginalized and forgotten children. — Sixty Feet serves in the midst of pain and hurt to help bring smiles back to the children most of their society has written off or forgotten. Photo by Sixty Feet

Nonprofit organizations such as Sixty Feet seek to help children in the prison facilities. Their vision is to “provide a Gospel-centered continuum of care for critically vulnerable children that includes minimizing contact with the law, providing for critical needs, and supporting long-term restoration.”^[18]

In Uganda, many street kids are from the northern Karamojong tribe.^[19] They’ve fled the underdeveloped, famine-prone region to come to the capital, where they live in crowded slums, such as the Katwe slum featured in the Disney movie Queen of Katwe, and beg at the intersections. These beautiful children, especially the girls, are extremely vulnerable to sexual predators.

Every month, scores of Karamojong children and families arrive in Kampala, putting more pressure on the slums and increasing the number of kids competing for handouts.

Kids as young as 3 wander along the streets, their hands outstretched, narrowly avoiding the perilous open drainage ditches. If they collect a few thousand Ugandan shillings, maybe 50 cents or a dollar, it goes straight to their parent or someone posing as a parent. Mostly, though, they’re ignored by passers-by and motorists, many of whom believe they’re simply feeding the problem and incentivizing begging if they give a handout.

This exodus of children from poorer, rural areas to the cities in search of food and work is not unique to Uganda. It’s a global phenomenon in poor, underdeveloped countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Street children begging on the streets of South Asia — Small fingers reach through the jeep’s open window. These children shift through the busy traffic in Maharashtra risking life and limb in hopes a few rupees will be slipped their way.

Children at Risk of Starvation

Children in poverty from Haiti walks by mud cakes drying in the sun — Haitian children walk by ‘mud cakes’ drying in the sun. The cakes, made of dirt, salt and oil, make a cheap food to stave off hunger. At 2 cents each, they’re the only affordable food option for thousands of Cite Soleil kids at risk and other impoverished residents. Photo by Crossroads Foundation, Flickr

When crops fail due to drought or other calamity, or work opportunities dry up, children and their parents often face a stark choice: move… or starve.

Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of young children around the world suffering acute malnutrition, a polite term for starvation, was expected to skyrocket by 20 percent in 2020, according to a report by the U.N.^[20] That’s an additional 10 million starving children worldwide. “Children living on the streets are particularly at risk,” the report says.

In Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, I’ve watched children eat “mud cakes,” sun-dried cakes made from dirt mixed with salt, water and a little margarine.^[21] Mud cakes are a symbol of the despair children face in this Caribbean island nation—a sense of hopelessness that continues into adulthood.

“Ask a Haitian, ‘what do you think you’ll be doing in five years?’ and he will laugh,” a Haitian doctor told me. “Our people do not think about tomorrow; we do not plan for the future. We live from day to day. We are a people in survival mode.”

Around the world, humanitarian agencies such as GFA World (Gospel for Asia) have increased efforts to feed the most vulnerable children and their families during the pandemic as millions of day laborers have been laid off from jobs or unable to work because of lockdowns.

The Texas-based agency has distributed food to tens of thousands of families on the edge of starvation in Asia and Africa, filling a critical gap for parents facing the near-impossible task of feeding their children amid total loss of income and with no safety net to fall back on. “The situation in our village is terrible,” one parent told Gospel for Asia (GFA World). “We don’t have any work and we’re unable to provide food.”

Child hunger is also growing in rich nations, such as the U.S., where more than 11 million children live in “food insecure” homes and don’t have enough to eat, according to the U.S. Government.^[22] A staggering 18 million children in the U.S. could go hungry in 2021 because of the pandemic’s economic impact, according to the No Kid Hungry campaign.^[23] In the U.K., 1.8 million school-age children—one in every five kids—is at risk of hunger.^[24]

These children and their family struggle with hunger due to poverty — Uttar Pradesh: Most of the families in this neighborhood live in small houses in the surrounding fields, and typically struggle to make ends meet financially. Parents often earn 50-60 rupees per day as manual laborers, meaning that the family goes hungry, including their children, like these young ones shown here.

Thirsty? How About a Cup of Feces-contaminated Water?

Small boy collecting unclean water from an open water source — Sinduhli, Nepal, March 2021: As the water levels underground start shrinking, people collect water from small puddles in the forest for drinking. This small boy was asked by his parents, who were working in the fields, to fetch water for drinking from a puddle in the hills. But the water collected from these open puddles can be full of germs and bacteria, as other animals and birds use them too, often causing fatal illnesses.

Hunger is dreadful, but for millions of children, the most immediate threat to their health and survival is the lack of safe drinking water. A staggering 2 billion people, mostly in Africa and Asia, get their drinking water from feces-contaminated ponds and watering holes, leading to often-fatal diseases such as cholera and dysentery. Children under the age of 5 are the most at-risk.^[25] The World Health Organization (WHO) says nearly one in every three people in the world doesn’t have access to safe drinking water,^[26] and the U.N. predicts that by the year 2050 up to 5.7 billion people worldwide could be affected by water shortages.^[27] Drinking contaminated water can lead to many deadly diseases, such as typhoid, hepatitis A, and diarrhea. Globally, diarrhea kills almost 2,200 children every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).^[28]

Organizations like World Vision and Gospel for Asia (GFA World) have made clean drinking water a top priority.

GFA World drills about 4,000 new community wells called “Jesus Wells” every year, providing safe drinking water for entire villages. Over the past two decades, the organization has drilled more than 30,000 wells and distributed more than 58,000 BioSand water filters that remove 98 percent of water impurities.^[29]

The organization’s Jesus Wells supply safe drinking water to approximately 37.5 million people across Asia—roughly equivalent to the entire population of California.

“We offer clean, life-giving water to all people,” says Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founder, K.P. Yohannan (Metropolitan Yohan). “The Lord has used our efforts to bring clean water to the suffering. They receive healthy, life-sustaining support. This gift of free water is one more way we are able to demonstrate the love of Jesus for those in need.”

Jesus Wells are deep wells, drilled in remote villages in Asia where girls often have to trek miles on foot every day to the nearest watering hole or pond to fetch water, putting themselves at risk of sexual assault and even tiger attacks.

“Our family members were suffering from diarrhea and other [waterborne] diseases,” says Arnab, father of three girls and a boy, describing the difference a Jesus Well has made in his village. “Our children who were sick are healthy now.”

Give to Help Support Children at Risk & Kids in Crisis »

About GFA World

Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Children in Crisis — World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame’ — Part 1, Part 3

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Read what 25 Christian Leaders are affirming about Gospel for Asia.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Children in Crisis: The World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame’ | GFA World Special Report Part 1

May 2, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, whose heart to love and help the poor has inspired numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to serve the deprived and downcast worldwide, issued this first part of a Special Report on the world’s greatest ‘badge of shame’: Children in Crisis.

A shocking U.S. Border Patrol video showed human smugglers dropping two unaccompanied children—sisters ages 3 and 5 from Ecuador—over a 14-foot section of the border fence in the New Mexico desert.^[1] The smugglers ran off, leaving the young girls alone and stranded.

Migrant children and their desperate parents enter the U.S. illegally on June 15, 2019 by crossing the Rio Grande in rubber boats near Los Ebanos, Texas. Photo by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Flickr

Another young mother from Central America thought she was on the cusp of giving her 9-year-old daughter a better life in the United States. They’d traveled a long, perilous journey and had just one more hurdle to cross: the Rio Grande River separating Mexico from Texas. Tragically, it was a step too far. The little girl apparently drowned before reaching the other side, NBC News reported.^[2]

Desperate to escape extreme poverty and surging gang violence in their native countries, thousands of migrant children from Latin America continue to flock to the U.S. southern border, with or without their parents. The journey is fraught with dangers that include becoming prey for human traffickers and ruthless drug cartels en route.^[3] Every day in Spring 2021, U.S. border officials were detaining more than 600 unaccompanied migrant children trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, with many children risking their lives to do so.^[4] According to a CNN report in April 2021, there were more than 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the custody of U.S. officials at that time.^[5]

The plight and peril of migrant children seeking refuge in the U.S. is a stark reminder that “children in crisis” are not restricted to far-away countries.

Children are in crisis right on our doorstep, in our own neighborhoods, wherever we live in the world. And the problem is growing worse. Until we take steps to protect and prioritize children, their neglect will be a shameful legacy for the nations of our world.

SANTA TERESA, N.M. – U.S. Border Patrol Agents responded to a potentially life-threatening situation involving two female tender-aged toddlers mistreated and abandoned by human smugglers just west of Mt. Cristo Rey. Camera technology observed a smuggler dropping two young kids from the top of the 14-foot-high border barrier, and then immediately fleeing the area after abandoning the helpless little girls on the north side of the international boundary line around March 30, 2021. Video by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs – Visual Communications Division, dvidshub.net

The sight is too much to bear for many Western visitors: A frantic teenage mother, with a newborn strapped to her back, looking for a handout to feed herself and keep her tiny baby alive.

But this real-life scene often isn’t what it appears to be. The baby is not hers. She has actually rented the newborn from its mother or guardian so that her pleas for help solicit greater sympathy from passersby.

Renting out “babies-to-beg” is a common practice in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, where hundreds of children and teenagers from outlying areas—some with parents, many without—descend on the city in the hopes of scraping together money for food. Every day the ritual is the same: hustle, beg, scavenge or steal to survive.

If she’s fortunate, this desperate teenage girl, who is extremely vulnerable to sexual exploitation and prostitution, will solicit enough sympathy to purchase a Rolex. Not the luxury wristwatch Rolex you and I might think of, but an egg-filled chapatti, similar to a burrito, that’s served on nearly every street corner.

Her plight and the fate of the baby she carries on her back are intertwined. Both face a life—likely a very brief life—of perpetual struggle. Both face the threat of abandonment and exploitation. Both girls are continually at risk.

That so many of the world’s children in crisis live without compassionate considerations or safeguards from harm is tantamount to being one the world’s greatest “badges of shame.”

They’re among the estimated 1.2 billion children worldwide who are considered “at risk,” vulnerable to a host of calamities, abuse, hunger and diseases—a toxic combination driven largely by poverty and supercharged by the COVID-19 pandemic.^[6]

2021 Global Childhood Report — The 2021 Save the Children Global Childhood Report highlights the toughest places on Earth to be a child, and examines the many factors that rob children of their childhoods and reveals where greater investments are needed to save children from poverty, discrimination and neglect. Photo by Save the Children

According to Save the Children, more than half the world’s children are at risk of poverty, conflict and discrimination against girls.^[7] A report by the international charity states that one billion children live in poverty, 240 million live in areas impacted by conflict, and 575 million girls live in countries where discrimination against women and girls is common.

According to Save the Children, Singapore and Slovenia are the best places to be a child, where childhood is most protected.^[8] In contrast, Save the Children’s latest Global Childhood Report for 2021, “The Toughest Places To Be A Child,” lists 10 sub-Saharan African nations as the worst places to be a child, “where childhood is most threatened.”^[9]

Perhaps surprisingly to some of our readers, the United States is ranked 43rd on the list, behind Russia, Lebanon and Belarus. According to Save the Children’s report, “The United States badly trails many other advanced countries in helping children reach their full potential.” Nonetheless, it ranks among the top 47 countries in the world where relatively few children miss out on their childhoods. The report states, “Countries with similar scores include Bahrain, China, Montenegro, Qatar, Russia, and Slovakia.”^[10]

Save the Children says millions of children are being “robbed of the childhoods they deserve.” The agency states that every child has a right to childhood free from fear, safe from violence, protected from abuse and exploitation.

The concept of childhood is defined in the (U.N.) Convention on the Rights of the Child. It represents a shared vision of childhood: healthy children in school and at play, growing strong and confident with the love and encouragement of their family and an extended community of caring adults, gradually taking on the responsibilities of adulthood.^[11]

But, the report acknowledges, “This ideal contrasts starkly with the childhood many experience.”^[12]

Poor children in Asia walking along the street — These children, just like almost every child in their Haryana slum, set out early each morning in search of garbage in their area. They go around looking for empty plastic bottles, cans, metal, and the like which they then can sell to make a little money to help their families.

Fatherless Kids in Crisis: The ‘Epidemic’ of the Street Children

Around the world, one of the most critical issues affecting children is the surge in the number of kids living on the streets, with no one to protect them or care for them.

Child abandonment is a worldwide crisis. Globally, the “epidemic” of absent fathers, especially, is a major cause of child neglect, often leaving children without a male role model, protector and provider.^[13]

Combined with the tribal practice of having multiple wives or concubines, it’s not unusual in some African countries for one man to produce upwards of 30 children.^[14] Many of these children grow up never having any relationship with their father, or even knowing who their father is.

An abandoned child in the slums of Kamapala, Uganda — An abandoned child sits alone and neglected next to open sewage in the slums of Kamapala, Uganda in July 2007. Photo by SuSanA Secretariat, Flickr

A report published in 2020 by the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect revealed that child neglect and sexual violence were the biggest issues facing kids growing up in Uganda, one of the lowest-ranking countries.^[15] In 2015, a study of street children in the capital city of Kampala revealed that most kids, the large majority being boys, began their life on the streets between the ages of 5 and 10. Seven out of every 10 street kids had come to Kampala by public taxi or bus. They came for a myriad of reasons. Some came to find work and advance their prospects; others were orphans or victims of abuse or neglect who’d fled horrible home environments; and then there were the rebels and runaways. Almost two-thirds of the kids had lived on the streets for at least a year, and many of them had been on the streets for four years or more. More than half of the children reported they’d been physically abused on the streets, and one in every four said they’d suffered sexual abuse.

Many street boys have nothing more than torn rags or sackcloth to wear as clothes and no shoes on their feet, leaving them vulnerable to puncture wounds that quickly become infected, causing their feet to swell grotesquely. Many of them carry a constant companion tucked inside their ragged clothing—a plastic bottle containing fuel, dipped in a filthy piece of cloth. Every few minutes, they inhale the fumes from the bottle, their eyes floating upwards as the cheap “drug” takes effect. It’s the only way they know to dull their senses and take away the pain and suffering in their lives.

Young boy from Africa collecting garbage to help earn some money for his family — Young Kandwanaho (not pictured) fights for survival by working excruciatingly long hours searching for cardboard to sell. Sometimes he has nothing to show for it at the end of the day and, if so, goes hungry. But even on the days when he makes enough to eat, Kandwanaho still has to join the thousands of other children searching the streets of Kampala for somewhere safe to wait out the night.

I once met a boy named Kandwanaho who told me how he searches the alleys of Kampala from daybreak until dusk, collecting discarded cardboard boxes. He visits the alleyways behind the local market stalls and shops, picking up boxes that once held soap, sodas or other goods. Sometimes, he’ll “strike gold” and find a giant TV box. When he’s gathered several boxes, he takes them to the sprawling downtown marketplace, known as Owino Market, and sells the cardboard to the shoe salesmen. They cut the cardboard into sole-size pieces and slide the card into the footwear to help the shoes keep their shape. If Kandwanaho works a 12-hour shift, he makes just over one dollar.

There are times he roams the streets alone all day—dodging taxis, stubbing his bare toes on the cracked roads, inhaling exhaust fumes, hoarse from thirst—and does not find a single box to recycle. On those days, he has nothing to eat unless he dives into the garbage piles to search for a scrap of anything edible among the competing stray dogs and cockroaches.

For Kandwanaho, and many like him, the most troubling time is nightfall as the city’s hectic rhythm subsides. It’s as if everyone is returning home, except for the kids who live on the streets. They have nobody, and nowhere to call home. The dimming light is their cue to find a place in a drainage ditch or empty shack for the night. It’s their hour to poke around the trash piles for any bits of food ditched at the end of the day. As the light fades, their reality mirrors the approaching darkness.

In Uganda, because street boys are viewed by many business owners as thieves and troublemakers, they’re chased off, beaten up and, in extreme cases, even murdered. The reality that human life is cheap and expendable on Kampala’s volatile streets is clearly evident.

As the lowest of the low, street kids are most often the “whipping boys” when anything goes wrong. Kandwanaho told me that a group of his friends were once caught stealing copper pipes they intended to sell. They were kicked in the head, beaten unconscious, soaked in gasoline and set alight, Kandwanaho recalled tearfully. At their burial in a paupers’ graveyard, he and other street boys were the only mourners present.

Give to Help Support Children at Risk & Kids in Crisis »

About GFA World

GFA World (www.gfa.org) is a leading faith-based global mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and sharing the love of God. In GFA World’s latest yearly report, this included thousands of community development projects that benefit downtrodden families and their children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and teaching providing hope and encouragement available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.

Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Children in Crisis — World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame’ — Part 2, Part 3

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Read what 25 Christian Leaders are affirming about Gospel for Asia.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

From Cybersex to Child Sacrifice: GFA World Reports on ‘Children in Crisis’

February 8, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, which inspired numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to assist the poor and deprived worldwide, reveals on a shocking new report, from U.S. border to South Asia, 1.2 billion children in crisis face ‘horrors,’ exploitation on sickening scale.

Children in Crisis: World's Greatest Badge of Shame, released by Texas-based missions GFA World, reveals child exploitation on a global scale — **CYBERSEX TO CHILD SACRIFICE:** The humanitarian crisis on America’s southern border featured in a shocking new report that examines the horrors facing the world’s children in 2022. “Children in Crisis: The World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame'” (www.gfa.org/press/KidsCrisis), just released by Texas-based mission agency Gospel for Asia (GFA World), reveals child exploitation on a global scale.

America’s humanitarian border crisis is featured in a shocking new report that examines the horrors facing the world’s children in 2022.

Many migrant boys and girls fall prey to human traffickers, smugglers, and drug cartels en route to the U.S., according to the report “Children in Crisis: The World’s Greatest ‘Badge of Shame‘” by Texas-based humanitarian agency Gospel for Asia (GFA World).

The report highlights a terrifying U.S. Border Patrol video that shows human smugglers dropping sisters – 3 and 5 years old from Ecuador – over a 14-foot section of the border fence in the New Mexico desert. The smugglers ran off, leaving the young girls alone in the dark.

The border situation, says the report, is a “stark reminder” that children are “in crisis right on our doorstep … wherever we live in the world. And the problem is growing worse.”

Situation Critical

The report estimates 1.2 billion children worldwide are vulnerable to a host of calamities, including abuse, hunger and diseases. It’s a “toxic combination” driven largely by poverty and supercharged by the pandemic, the report says.

Among the horrors are child slavery, sexual exploitation – including the online cybersex industry – and even child sacrifice.

In Uganda, a young mother found the headless body of her 17-month-old son in a shallow grave. The child’s killer turned out to be his own father who was paid $2,000 by a businessman in return for the boy’s head, the report says. It’s believed the child’s head was considered by him to be a “good luck” charm.

The report highlights the following disturbing facts:

30-35% of sex workers in the Mekong sub-region of Southeast Asia are 12-17 years old
Mexico’s social service agency reports more than 16,000 children engage in prostitution, mostly in tourist destinations
20-50% of prostitutes in Lithuania are believed to be children – sometimes as young as 11 – and orphans have been exploited to make pornographic movies
North Korean girls, some as young as 9, are forced to perform sex acts in front of webcams, live-streamed to paying customers worldwide

“Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is helping children escape poverty and protect themselves against such vile abuse and atrocities,” said the organization’s founder K.P. Yohannan, also known as Metropolitan Yohan. “Unless we act now to protect all children and show them God’s love is real, the consequences will be unforgivable.”

About GFA World

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based global mission agency helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and sharing the love of God. In GFA World’s latest yearly report, this included thousands of community development projects that benefit downtrodden families and their children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and teaching providing hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit the Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Source: GFA World Digital Media News Room, From Cybersex to Child Sacrifice: New GFA World Report Probes ‘Children in Crisis’

Children Become More Than Scavengers at a Bridge of Hope Center

July 8, 2020 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan – Discussing Adya and her siblings who, like many students, were rescued from difficult situations when they are enrolled in Gospel for Asia (GFA) Bridge of Hope.

Adya lost her father when she was a small child. Her mother, a Christian in name only, remarried and had two more children, only to be abandoned by her new husband shortly thereafter. Though Adya’s mother labored from early morning to late night every day, she never earned quite enough to provide for the family. Adya and her siblings often went hungry.

Adya’s mother managed to send her to school from time to time, but Adya’s younger sister, Lalana, and brother, Gayan, spent most of their lives roaming the slums, collecting trash to recycle. That is, until they began attending a Bridge of Hope center near their home.

Guiding Their Now-Clean Hands

Tarli, a social worker at Adya’s Bridge of Hope center, remembers when young Adya first joined seven years before. The girl, then 8 years old, was scrawny and unclean. She and her siblings didn’t know how to bathe or comb their hair; they didn’t have enough clothing to cover their bodies; they hardly knew how to carry on a conversation.

The tutors and social workers patiently worked with Adya, Lalana and Gayan. The children didn’t know how to read or write, so the Bridge of Hope tutors helped each one individually, guiding their hands to help the children form the letters. The center provided a daily meal, hygiene lessons, clothing and abundant doses of love. Under this care, it didn’t take long for the children to blossom.

“The life of Adya entirely transformed after she joined the Bridge of Hope center,” Tarli reflects. “She looks beautiful now and has become an energetic student in our center.”

No Longer Searching

Rather than scavenging for trash, Lalana and Gayan enjoy studying, and 15-year-old Adya has become one of the best students in her school. Her teachers and tutors are proud of her accomplishments, and her mother, after witnessing the transformation in her children’s lives, has come to understand that the Christ she once knew in name only is a Living Savior who still changes lives today.

Thank you so much for standing with us to make stories like this possible. May the Lord bless you.

Learn more about the Gospel for Asia Bridge of Hope program and how you can make an incredible difference in the lives of children, bringing hope to their lives and their families, transforming communities.

*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.

Source: Gospel for Asia Featured Article, Children Become More Than Scavengers

Learn more about the Discarded, Abandoned and Abused Children, and how, through your partnership, the ministry through Gospel for Asia can give them a home, protection and strive to reunite them with their families and help change their lives forever.

Learn more by reading the Gospel for Asia Special Report on Child Labor: Not Gone, but Forgotten – Millions of Children Trapped between Extreme Poverty and the Profits of Others

Learn more by reading the Gospel for Asia Special Report: Poverty: Public Enemy #1 – Eliminating Extreme Poverty Worldwide is Possible, But Not Inevitable

Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

A Helpful Thief: How Gospel for Asia Children’s Programs Transformed a Teen’s Life

May 29, 2020 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan – Discussing Bhoj, the struggles of his family with poverty, and his struggles with bitterness and covetousness in his heart, and the Gospel for Asia Children’s Programs that transformed his life.

It’s difficult to know how Pastor Patakin had the idea to put a thief in charge of caring for the Sunday School and the students. Fourteen-year-old Bhoj already had a terrible reputation among his classmates, and even he wasn’t thrilled with the idea. Bhoj knew it would force him to mend his ways, and he wasn’t excited for the change.

Gospel for Asia founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan: Discussing Bhoj, the poverty, bitterness and covetousness in his heart, and the Gospel for Asia Children's Programs that transformed his life. — Bhoj’s grandfather, Idhant, fled money lenders and took Bhoj (pictured) with him to a new town for a fresh start. But the boy was a “wild child” when Idhant first brought him to Pastor Patakin’s Sunday School.

Family Flees Money Lenders

Bhoj used to live in the same town as his parents and baby sister until the money lenders started knocking at their door. Bhoj’s grandfather, Idhant, had been borrowing money and squandering it on alcohol. When the money lenders wanted to collect, Idhant didn’t have a single penny to give them. Instead, he grabbed his wife and his grandson and fled to a neighboring village.

Bhoj was able to continue his education and visit his parents and sister, Misri, over the summers. Idhant eventually found a job as a security guard in an apartment, but the three of them didn’t have peace in their lives.

About a year after they moved, Idhant met on of our pastors named Patakin and shared all his troubles. Patakin prayed for Idhant and his family and encouraged them that all was not hopeless. Idhant started spending some Sunday mornings with Pastor Patakin and other Christians in the area, worshiping the Lord, and he brought his grandson along as well.

That’s how Bhoj started attending Sunday School, and that’s how even more troubles began.

Wild Child in Sunday School

Bhoj was a terrible student. He fought with his classmates, disobeyed his teachers and wouldn’t listen to the lessons. They tried to stop him, but Bhoj was unstoppable. One by one, little by little, the students’ pens, pencils, notebooks and money began to disappear. What’s worse, he even stole some of the children’s shoes—a precious commodity for families who can’t easily afford to replace them. Over the summer, when Bhoj saw Misri, many of these missing items would reappear as “gifts” to his little sister.

As parents complained to Pastor Patakin and the Sunday School teacher about Bhoj’s activities, they knew something needed to be done.

Gospel for Asia founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan: Unlike the children pictured, Bhoj continually disobeyed his Sunday School teachers and would even steal from his classmates when no one was looking. — Unlike the children pictured, Bhoj continually disobeyed his Sunday School teachers and would even steal from his classmates when no one was looking.

GFA founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan: Wanting to help Bhoj (not pictured) change his wild ways, Pastor Patakin gave him responsibilities in the Sunday School class and often encouraged him to help prepare for meetings and events, as the young man pictured is doing. Bhoj found his new activities left little room for thieving and wild behavior, and he turned his attention to serving others instead. — Wanting to help Bhoj (not pictured) change his wild ways, Pastor Patakin gave him responsibilities in the Sunday School class and often encouraged him to help prepare for meetings and events, as the young man pictured is doing. Bhoj found his new activities left little room for thieving and wild behavior, and he turned his attention to serving others instead.

Young Thief Learns to Work

When Pastor Patakin put Bhoj in charge of the Sunday School, Bhoj knew it meant he wouldn’t be able to steal from his classmates. This made him sad, but he did as his pastor said. Pastor Patakin took Bhoj under his wing, invited him to his home and introduced him as a “good boy.” Pastor Patakin also gave Bhoj more responsibilities, like helping to take care of the sound equipment and arranging the church before prayer meetings.

Seeing how much he was trusted and needed, Bhoj began to change, and he stopped stealing from the children.

But God wasn’t done with him yet. Bhoj’s actions had changed, but Jesus knew there was still covetousness in the boy’s heart.

VBS Shows Thieving Teen a New Way

The church hosted a special VBS program one day, which Bhoj decided to attend. The stories of Jacob, Esau and Samuel struck him, and Bhoj’s heart started to melt. He told Jesus he wanted no more covetousness in his life and desired true, internal change.

After the program, Bhoj stood up in front of his church to share about his experience. He asked the Sunday School children to forgive him for all the things he had stolen through the years.

God had touched Bhoj’s heart, and Bhoj wasn’t the same. He started reading the Bible every morning and sharing the stories with his grandparents. He also shows up early to help clean the church, and follows the pastor as he ministers to small groups of believers. Whenever there is a prayer meeting, Bhoj is sure to be there. The once rebellious and wild boy became obedient and helpful and has grown in favor with everyone around him.

Gospel for Asia founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan: When Bhoj attended a VBS, like the one pictured, God did a mighty work in his heart. He finally gave up all his thieving ways and even apologized to all his classmates and his church for his former manner of life. Now he wants to teach Sunday School and minister to other troubled youths in need. — When Bhoj attended a VBS, like the one pictured, God did a mighty work in his heart. He finally gave up all his thieving ways and even apologized to all his classmates and his church for his former manner of life. Now he wants to teach Sunday School and minister to other troubled youths in need.

“I was really touched by the Word of God taught in the VBS,” Bhoj said. “From now on, I have decided to walk in His footsteps, and I will assist my pastor in the ministry like the boy Samuel, who assisted Eli in his old age, in the Bible.”

Today, Bhoj has a desire to be a Sunday School teacher someday, ministering to those who, like him, need a touch of love from someone who cares.

“Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need.” —Ephesians 4:28

Help a ‘Wild Child’ Today!

As children attend Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Sunday School, there’s no telling what God will do in their hearts. You can just imagine how the testimony of Bhoj’s transformation has impacted the other children in his class, as well as the adults in the congregation! God has truly touched his heart. Through your prayers and financial support, you can stand with mothers and fathers in Asia who desire their children to grow in godly ways.

Source: Gospel for Asia Featured Article, A Helpful Thief

Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Gospel for Asia Shares: For Those Who Ran — For Those Abandoned

November 21, 2018 By GFA Staff Writer

1 Comment

Wills Point, Texas – GFA (Gospel for Asia) – Discussing the innumerable children, abused and abandoned, and the impact Bridge of Hope centers make to transform their lives with God’s love.

The innocence of a child is one of the most beautiful things this world has to offer. For most people, once they reach a certain age, that innocence and naiveté is lost—merely a thing of the past. Nostalgia rules supreme among the elderly, and adults sometimes wish they could return to the time of their youth where there seemed to be no troubles and no cares in the world.

Unfortunately, some children today do not have the innocence and naiveté they should. Some have been brutally and carelessly robbed of their childhood. UNICEF reported that 13 percent of Asia’s total labor force in 2011 was composed of children.^[1] These children had lost one or both parents.

With no other way to take care of themselves, these children are forced to then take to the streets. Some children are either pushed into child labor, roam the streets, or are trafficked. Many are simply abandoned by uncaring parents. More than 100 million children live on the street in Asia alone. Either they were born on the streets—or, like Akmal, they had no other place to go.

No Safe Place

Reclaiming His Childhood - KP Yohannan - Gospel for Asia — This is Akmal in 2013 when he was 10 years old.

Akmal’s father murdered his mother and disappeared without a trace. Akmal, only 6 years old, was abandoned by his village and taken in by his uncle. Sadly, this uncle proceeded to abuse the already traumatized Akmal. It wasn’t long until the 6 year old ran away, taking to the streets.

Akmal decided to get on a train, leaving his horrific past behind him. He had no direction, no knowledge of where he wanted to go, just that he needed to leave. Seventeen hours later, the young boy stepped off the train.

Akmal was picked up by a worker for a local toy factory. Hope quickly turned into despair as Akmal was made to work at the very station he arrived at. Every day, Akmal tried to sell toys to passersby to make his “boss” happy.

Reclaiming His Childhood

A couple of months later, local officials took notice of the too-young salesman. They brought Akmal to a home for abandoned children that is operated by GFA’s field partners. There, the staff poured love into this troubled young boy, giving him what he needed most: a childhood. Now, Akmal is a far cry from the scared, traumatized little boy he once was. Joy and love permeate every aspect of his childhood thanks to the workers at the home.

Akmal now has a chance that millions of other street children desperately need:

The chance to grow and to experience true love and compassion, the chance to realize their dreams, and their aspirations, the chance to live like a child.

Left for Dead

For many children in Asia, the chance for a true childhood is rare. For females, the chance to even live to adulthood is rarer still. The rate of survival of females in Asia is much lower than males. According to UNICEF,^[2] in 2017, 40 out of every 1,000 female births did not live long after delivery. Some died to sickness and others to abandonment. A little girl named Janvi would have been counted among the dead had she not been rescued.

Dayalu, a local believer, was walking one day when he came across a wailing toddler sitting among a bed of ants, covered in nearly dozens of bites. It was discovered later that this baby had been left to die by her alcoholic parents.

Dayalu wept at the pitiful sight and, scooping little Janvi up, took her to his home. Dayalu and his wife already had two children of their own but they readily and lovingly accepted Janvi as their daughter. Despite the joy and love in which they embraced their new family member, Dayalu and his wife were poor. For Dayalu, feeding a family of four was difficult enough, but now he had to provide for a family of five.

Thriving, Thanks to Love

Fortunately, a GFA-supported Bridge of Hope center was nearby. Finding out that Janvi was eligible to attend, Dayalu readily registered her. There, Janvi began to thrive. Dayalu wanted to give his eager-learning daughter a good education but couldn’t because of their financial situation. By the grace of God, the Bridge of Hope program came alongside this family and provided Janvi a place to truly flourish.

Today, Janvi attends school thanks to the Bridge of Hope program. Janvi, a once lonely, crying baby, now is a bubbly young girl full of life and love.

Those Who Remain

Akmal’s and Janvi’s stories resonate across the world, especially in Asia. There are still millions of children living without the proper love and care they deserve.

Fortunately, many workers have risen up to help these children. Day after day, they go forth and find the least of these, so that they, too, may experience God’s love. Whether it be in homes for street children or GFA-supported Bridge of Hope centers, children are finding their worth in a world of uncertainty.

Pray for our Bridge of Hope centers – for the power of God’s love to continue to impact the lives of children through the staff and volunteers.

Ask the Lord how you can help to support this great work.

To learn more about Bridge of Hope, go here.

^[1] UNICEF India, Child Labour

^[2] UNICEF Data, Monitoring the situation of children and women

To read more posts on Patheos on Bridge of Hope, go here.

Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

Go here to know more about Gospel for Asia: Flickr | GFA | GFA.org | Facebook | Youtube

Gospel For Asia: Giving Children Like Pria a Future Beyond Poverty

October 20, 2017 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

What was on your mind when you were 6 years old? Maybe your thoughts were taken up by bicycles, stuffed animals and your next snack.

That was not the case for young Pria, a little girl from a poor family in Asia. Her perky pigtails held no big hair bows, and special treats were few and far between. But something more important was missing: a hopeful future.

An Unpromising Beginning

From the first moment of her existence, Pria’s life could have taken many tragic turns.

When her mother, Gala, discovered she was pregnant with Pria, her partner refused to take responsibility for their child and abandoned Gala. Unmarried and now an expectant mother, Gala was crushed by this betrayal.

Despite her abandonment and the looming possibility of abortion, Gala saved her baby. But as her pregnancy progressed, Gala sunk into a depression that slowly clutched hold of her reasoning. Eventually, her depression gave way to mental illness.

Gala’s grandparents stepped in to care for the child, helping any way they could. But as time passed, old age began taking its toll. And as Pria grew older, more needs arose: clothing to cover the pretty child, who was growing taller every day; greater quantities of nutritious food for her increasing appetite; education to train the curious mind developing within her. How could her aged grandparents and mentally ill mother meet all these needs?

Beyond the Walls of Poverty

The answer came from within a building in their community: a Gospel for Asia-supported Bridge of Hope center. Pria and more than 100 other poor children in her area were enrolled in the center, and their futures started changing.

Because of the Bridge of Hope center, 6-year-old Pria had the chance to learn things like math, science, art, the history of her country, respect and good social skills. She thrived in the loving environment, and soon reading, drawing and singing became her favorite activities.

Now a lovely ninth grader, Pria is on her way to an adulthood filled with promise and opportunity. She is equipped with knowledge and positive values, and the love she has received from her Bridge of Hope teachers is ready to flow into others.

Giving Children Like Pria a Future Beyond Poverty - KP Yohannan - Gospel for Asia — Through GFA’s Bridge of Hope Program, Pria (pictured) has grown up attending school, eating good food and learning about love and compassion.

It Could Have Been A Very Different Outcome

But Pria’s story could have taken a completely different turn. Instead of finding love and care through Bridge of Hope, Pria could have grown up malnourished and illiterate, only able to do manual labor to earn an income. She could have become one of the 10.3 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 who are engaged in child labor in South Asia. Or she could have fallen prey to traffickers who look for women and children who could disappear without anyone noticing or insisting on an investigation.

It is by God’s mercy and the love shown by His children that Pria’s story did not follow any of those paths. Through the help of Gospel for Asia’s friends around the world, Pria and 82,000 other Bridge of Hope children are receiving the school supplies, clothing and tutoring they need to attend local schools—something typically far beyond the ability of their parents to provide. With the daily meal provided at the Bridge of Hope center, they are guaranteed at least one nutritious meal a day. Medication and vitamins are being given to them to help them grow strong and healthy. And these students are not as vulnerable—their Bridge of Hope teachers care about their well-being and lovingly watch over them.

God Sees Each Child

Because God sees and loves each and every child in the world, we rejoice in the opportunity we have to be part of extending that love to the children of Asia. By meeting practical needs in partnership with the Body of Christ around the globe, we can help empower boys and girls to be more valuable citizens in their nations, wiser parents for their future families and happier children in their youth. Together, we can give these children a future beyond the walls of poverty.

=====
Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

Go here to know more about Gospel for Asia: GFA.net | GFA Wiki | GFA Flickr

Fresh Water: An Increasingly Scarce Resource More Vital than Oil or Gold | Part #2

May 27, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this second part of a special report on fresh water: an increasingly scarce resource more vital than oil or gold.

Women drawing water from a dirty and dried up river — These women in Assam have to visit the river several times daily to fetch water that is dirty, muddy and becoming increasingly scarce.

New Technologies Promise Relief

Despite an often bleak scenario, there are optimistic signs that technology can help address shortages. A recent story discussed how Watergen, an Israeli-based company uses air-to-water technology to deliver drinking water to remote areas. Its machines filter water vapor out of the air, the largest of which can provide 6,000 liters a day and has been used at hospitals in the Gaza Strip and rural villages in central Africa.^[21]

Watergen’s president, Michael Mirilashvili, told the BBC that its system alleviates the need to build water transportation systems, dispelling worries about heavy metals in pipes, cleaning contaminated groundwater, or polluting the planet with plastic bottles.^[22]

“A study conducted by scientists from Israel’s Tel Aviv University found that even in urban areas … it is possible to extract drinking water to a standard set by the World Health Organization,” wrote business reporter Natalie Lisbona. “In other words, clean water can be converted from air that is dirty or polluted.”^[23]

Despite its increasing scarcity, there are optimistic signs that technology of various kinds can help address fresh water shortages around the globe.

Watergen’s isn’t the only such technology being developed. A story by science journalist Duane Chavez outlined two others.

The first is a system proposed by engineers from the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Wisconsin. It uses carbon paper evaporators and condensers that emit more energy than they absorb, reducing the temperature below the dew point to achieve vapor condensation.

The other is a passive system developed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. It extracts water from dry air by consuming solar energy, based on a new type of porous material called Metal-Organic Frameworks.^[24]

Other methods to address freshwater scarcity include the following:

Scientists from the UK’s University of Manchester are working on a desalination alternative—a graphite oxide sieve that retains salt and only allows water to pass through. In 2019, the university’s National Graphene Institute began collaborating with a portable water filtration company to develop new water purification devices based on this technology.^[25]

LifeStraw is a plastic tube nearly nine inches long and about an inch wide that has a filtration system to remove protozoa, bacteria and other harmful materials from water. One unit can provide personal water filtration for up to three years. The technology is marketed in bottle format as well as in larger systems and has been used in places like Haiti, Rwanda and Pakistan.^[26]

A “Safe Water Book” developed by a chemist and her husband contains tear-out pages that are water filters and can provide germ-free water for four years. Their company, Folia Water, has tested the product in Africa, Asia and Latin America and begun distribution in Bangladesh. A similar product, “The Drinkable Book,” has been developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.^[27]

Associate Professor Haolan Xu leads a team of researchers at the University of South Australia who have developed a device to help with water purification. Photo by University of South Australia

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of South Australia have refined a technique to derive fresh water from sea water, brackish water or contaminated water through solar evaporation. The device includes a photothermal structure that sits on the surface of a water source and converts sunlight to heat, rapidly evaporating the uppermost portion of the liquid.^[28]

“We have developed a technique that not only prevents any loss of solar energy, but actually draws additional energy from the bulk water and surrounding environment,” said Haolan Xu, the associate professor who leads the team. “[That means] the system operates at 100 percent efficiency for the solar input and draws up to another 170 percent energy from the water and environment.”^[29]

Bucket full of contaminated water — Assam: The only water available in this rural village has a very bad odor and taste. If stored in a container, the color of the water changes and a layer of chemicals can be seen. The water has all been contaminated by arsenic, but is being ingested by the entire community.

Conservation Efforts are Helping

Cape Town, South Africa — Cape Town, Africa: After a alarming water shortage in 2018, conservation efforts have brought stability to Cape Town’s ongoing water supply.

Sometimes the solutions aren’t as dazzling but still matter, as demonstrated in San Antonio. The southern Texas city found itself in a legal battle 31 years ago over arguments it pumped too much water from the Edwards Aquifer, a major groundwater source. The Sierra Club’s victory in the case forced San Antonio to limit withdrawals.^[30]

Conservation efforts that followed included better irrigation and landscaping, installation of water flow sensors, and rebates to residents who install pool filters or convert grass into patios. Despite 80% growth in their population since 1991, San Antonio has decreased per-person water use by 20%.^[31]

Cape Town, South Africa, also had to reduce water consumption after nearly running dry in 2018. Three years later, “I definitely think that there has been a permanent behavior shift,” said Limberg, a local appointed official and a mayoral committee member for waste and water in Cape Town . “There’s definitely been a greater awareness to conserve water, and of how incredibly finite this resource is, and how vulnerable we are if we face a shortage of water.”^[32]

Enhanced water meters also help. WaterOn, a device produced by India-based Smarter Homes, is a metering and leakage prevention system. In 2019 it saved 40,000 apartment households an average of 35 percent of their water consumption. In one region it saves millions of gallons of water each month.^[33]

Low-tech Tools Can Also Be Economical Solutions

Then there are more basic solutions that help numerous people, like drilling wells in areas that lack access to fresh water. This video below shares the story of one village in Nepal that benefitted from this approach provided by their local church.

Nepal: Getting fresh water was a constant time-consuming challenge for this entire village until the local church installed a Jesus Well which resolved the water shortage and benefitted their entire community.

People in this village enjoy clean drinking water through this GFA World Jesus Well — This Jesus Well in Assam has become very useful to the villagers who did not have clean drinking water, especially during rainy season. They now use the water for drinking, cooking, washing clothes, bathing, and even water their cattle with it.

For just over two decades, Gospel for Asia (GFA World) has helped drill Jesus Wells in Asia. These wells provide clean water at a cost of less than five dollars per person.^[34] GFA also distributes BioSand water filters, devices that use concrete, different types of sand and gravel to remove impurities, providing water for drinking and cooking that is 98 percent pure.^[35]

Clean water solutions from GFA World - Jesus Wells and BioSand Water Filters

The value such low-tech solutions provide is evident in the numbers: it costs about $1,400 to drill a Jesus Well, which may provide clean water for up to 300 people per day for 10 to 20 years. While a BioSand water filter only supplies water to one family at a cost of $30 per unit, it offers a readily available clean drinking source for a similar five-dollar figure.

GFA World medical camp

Over the years, more than 38 million people in Asia have received safe drinking water through GFA World’s clean water initiatives. In addition to providing water wells and filters, Gospel for Asia (GFA World) conducts free medical camps that offer treatment for such water-linked ailments as diarrhea—the most serious illness children face worldwide.

Despite complexities resulting from pandemic restrictions, the faith-based organization continues to meet a desperate need, with founder K.P. Yohannan noting that in the next 20 years, global water demand is expected to surge more than 50%.

“This desperate situation is especially acute in Asia, where millions of families get their drinking water from the only source available to them—often a dirty river or stagnant pond, which are breeding grounds for parasites and deadly bacteria,” Yohannan said. “It’s a problem we as a ministry have been actively helping to combat for years.”

Make a donation to provide clean, fresh drinking water »

If this special report has touched your heart and you would like to help give clean water to a needy village in Asia, then make a generous one time or monthly gift toward Jesus Wells and Water Filters.

About GFA World

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based global mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and sharing the love of God. In a typical year, this includes thousands of community development projects that benefit downtrodden families and their children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and teaching to provide hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit the Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.

Read the rest of this GFA World Special Report: Fresh Water: An Increasingly Scarce Resource More Vital than Oil or Gold — Part 1

Learn more about how to provide pure, clean water to families and villages through GFA World Jesus Wells and BioSand Water Filters.

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Read what 25 Christian Leaders are affirming about Gospel for Asia.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Earth On Brink of ‘Dire’ Water Shortage, GFA World Warns

May 18, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

0 Comments

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, reveals a troubling new report for World Water Day on March 22 — a growing shortage and scarcity of the planet’s most “precious” resource, water, could lead to “dire consequences” worldwide — including the Western U.S. — as hot, arid regions get thirstier.

Growing scarcity, shortage of the most precious resource, water, could lead to dire consequences worldwide -- a new GFA World report reveals. — **WORLD ON BRINK OF ‘DIRE’ WATER SHORTAGE:** Growing scarcity of the planet’s most “precious” resource could lead to “dire consequences” worldwide — including the Western U.S. — as hot, arid regions get thirstier, a troubling new report for World Water Day on March 22 reveals. The report, Water: An Increasingly Scarce Resource That Is Precious As Gold, from GFA World says global demand is expected to surge more than 50% in the next 20 years.

Surging global population, urban development and rising temperatures could leave billions worldwide struggling to find enough water to drink within the next two decades, according to the report Water: An Increasingly Scarce Resource That Is Precious As Gold.

“The consequences are dire,” says the report by global humanitarian agency GFA World. “Areas could become uninhabitable; tensions over how to share and manage water resources like rivers and lakes could worsen; more political violence could erupt.”

Water shortages contributed to both the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria and the civil war in Syria, the report says, noting: “Water scarcity is the ‘invisible’ hand behind many humanitarian crises.”

Citing a New York Times article, the report says 40 million people living in 7 states in the Western U.S. who rely on water from the Colorado River could face severe shortages in coming years.

‘Runaway’ Crisis

In the next 20 years, demand for water is expected to surge more than 50%. “Once we’re on that train, it’s not clear where it stops,” the report quotes Jennifer Pitt, director of the Colorado River program at the National Audubon Society, as saying.

The looming water crisis could also hugely impact agricultural output, including staple crops, meaning people could struggle to find food and beverages in the stores, according to London-based financial giant Barclays.

Worst affected will be those living in the world’s hottest — and poorest — regions, including Africa and South Asia. Already, 1.1 billion people — one in every 7 people on earth — lack reasonable access to drinking water. In Africa, more than a quarter of the entire population spends several hours every day walking miles to get to a water source, the report says.

Drilling for Life

Humanitarian agencies such as Gospel for Asia (GFA World) are drilling thousands of deep-water wells, supplying reliable, clean drinking water for millions in remote places where children often suffer and die from waterborne parasites and diseases like diarrhea, typhoid and cholera.

The faith-based organization has provided enough wells — called “Jesus Wells” — and simple sand-gravel filters to supply more than 38 million people with safe drinking water.

“Just as Jesus offered people ‘living water,’ we’re striving to do the same as an expression of God’s care for them,” Yohannan said.

About GFA World

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based global mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and sharing the love of God. In a typical year, this includes thousands of community development projects that benefit downtrodden families and their children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and teaching to provide hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit the Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.

Learn more about how to provide pure, clean water to families and villages through GFA World Jesus Wells and BioSand Water Filters.

Notable News about Gospel for Asia: FoxNews, ChristianPost, NYPost, MissionsBox

Source: GFA World Digital Media News Room, Earth On Brink of ‘Dire’ Water Shortage, GFA World Warns