May 17, 2023

WILLS POINT, TX – KP Yohannan, founder and director of GFA World (Gospel for Asia), which inspired numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, and Metropolitan of Believers Eastern Church, to assist the poor and deprived worldwide — shares on the impact of George Verwer, his life and ministry, radically changing lives.

KP Yohannan: 'I invite you to come, die, and live.' I listened as George Verwer issued that unforgettable challenge to 400 young people like me.
George Verwer and K.P. Yohannan on a prayer walk together January, 31, 2020, in London, England.

“I invite you to come, die, and live.”

Those eight words! I’d never heard anything like it.

As a 17-year-old from a village in India, I listened open-mouthed at a mission conference as George Verwer issued that unforgettable challenge to 400 young people like me.

That night, I tossed and turned, agonizing over George’s invitation. I knew the Lord was calling me to go to places where people had never heard the name of Jesus, and the consequences could be persecution, sufferings, even death. These were the places George was always burning with readiness to go to.

On April 14, when George — radical evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilization (OM) — went to be with the Lord Jesus, the mission world lost a giant role model, and I lost my life mentor and one of my closest friends.

My life was fashioned, mentored, by one human being more than any other, George Verwer. I cannot think of anyone in my life journey that lived such an authentic, humble, broken life and showed such passion for the lost. I’ve studied the life of the Apostle Paul, and I watched George live out that same passion and focus. He showed me what it means to be both passionate about Christ and compassionate toward a hurting, lost world. George was among those incredibly rare believers who — like the Apostle Paul — could have said: “Follow my example, as I follow Christ’s.”

So Human, So Real

And follow George I did! In those early years, George would lead our youthful band of missionaries on the streets all day, handing out gospel tracts. At night, he’d lead prayer meetings that sometimes went on until 6 a.m. I’d never even heard of some of the places we were praying for, but George had such a genuine love for every nation. He was so human, so real.

When George came to India, he instilled in us the passion to reach our own people with the gospel at a time when everyone else was sending American and European missionaries. He showed us we could be missionaries. We could take the love of Christ to our people — and beyond.

George knew how to share Christ’s love like no one I’ve ever known. He loved people, and I experienced this personally. During a crisis in my own life, George flew from England to Texas to spend two days with me, praying with me and encouraging me. When others abandoned me, George stayed with me to the end.

And George was never interested in material comforts. He could have run a global empire. He could have lived like a king. Instead, he chose to live in a small house in England and drive a clunky, old car. When I showed up to visit, underdressed for the English weather, he gave me his scarf to keep me warm. That was the type of person George was.

George was among those incredibly rare believers who—like the Apostle Paul—could have said: “Follow my example, as I follow Christ’s.”

Catalyst That Launched A Global Movement

George Verwer and K.P. Yohannan at the Set Apart Retreat at GFA World in 2022.
George Verwer and K.P. Yohannan at the Set Apart Retreat at GFA World in 2022.

Looking back, George’s invitation to “come, die, and live” was the catalyst that God would use to begin Gospel for Asia, now GFA World, the global mission I started and have been privileged to lead for almost 45 years.

During that sleepless night more than a half-century ago, I responded to George’s challenge: “Lord, I have nothing to offer you,” I prayed, “but if you want me, I give you everything I am.”

The Lord heard my prayer and used this skinny teenager from an unknown village. Over the past four decades, GFA World has trained over 100,000 young people in the knowledge of God, teaching them to serve millions of Asia’s poorest people through Christ’s love in word and deed, and is now expanding into Africa. All this through the incredible life and influence of one man — George Verwer.

George’s life was a real life, a radical life, a life lived for the nations of the world, a life completely given over to the will of Christ.

That’s why when people ask me, “Who’s been the greatest influence on your life?” there’s no hesitation. George Verwer walked a very narrow road. By God’s grace, I will walk that road, too.

And now I think about George in heaven. He is not dead; he is just departed to be with Christ. I can see him now busy talking with the saints like St. Paul and St. Thomas who planted a church in Niranam, India, where I was born. Lord, please help me to run my race and finish as George did, holy unto the faith.


About KP Yohannan

KP Yohannan, founder and director of GFA World (Gospel for Asia) and Metropolitan of Believers Eastern Church (BEC), has written more than 250 books, including Revolution in World Missions, an international bestseller with more than four million copies in print. He and his wife, Gisela, have two grown children, Daniel and Sarah, who both serve the Lord with their families.

About GFA World (Gospel for Asia)

GFA World (Gospel for Asia) 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 880 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 163,000 needy families, and teaching to provide hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through broadcast 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/.

Media interested in interviews should contact Gregg Wooding at InChrist Communications @ 972-567-7660 or gwooding@inchristcommuications.com

December 15, 2022

WILLS POINT, TX — For the world’s poorest children, one thing increases their chances of graduating from university by up to 80% — being sponsored by someone in the U.S. or other Western country.

Child sponsorship makes university dream alive for world's poor, escaping the generational poverty trap, says Gospel for Asia (GFA world)
CHILD SPONSORSHIP ‘TURNS DESPAIR TO REMARKABLE HOPE’: A new report (http://www.gfa.org/press/sponsor) by global mission agency Gospel for Asia (GFA World) says research suggests the sponsor-a-child model adopted by many leading nonprofit organizations gives children in abject poverty a much higher chance of graduating from university and achieving their dreams.

A new report (http://www.gfa.org/press/sponsor) says research conducted in six developing countries around the world over a two-year period suggests the sponsor-a-child model adopted by many leading nonprofit organizations makes “significant impacts” on sponsored children’s education, health, well-being, and aspirations.

Researchers from the University of San Francisco (USF) and University of Minnesota found sponsored children in South Asia, Africa and Latin America stayed in school longer, were much more likely to complete high school, and were 50-80% more likely to graduate from university, says global mission agency GFA World (Gospel for Asia).

Escaping Generational Trap

When children in abject poverty have no prospect of going to school, their dreams are crushed and they have no hope of escaping the generational poverty trap,” said Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founder K.P. Yohannan, also known as Metropolitan Yohan.

Child sponsorship “provides the opportunity to go to school, receive basic healthcare, and have clean water–meeting whatever needs the child’s community might have,” he said. “It turns utter despair to remarkable hope. Many sponsored children grow up to be teachers, nurses, and even doctors.”

Sponsored children — most of them supported by donors in the U.S., Canada and other Western countries — show “higher levels of self-esteem, aspirations and self-expectations, and lower levels of hopelessness,” says the report titled Child Sponsorship Helps Lift the Young Out of Cycle of Poverty (http://www.gfa.org/press/sponsor).

Created For So Much More

For thousands of children — like Bir, a boy who used to scavenge in trash piles to survive, and Divena, a five-year-old girl abandoned by her mother — when a sponsor steps up it speaks to their hearts, showing them “they’re created for a higher purpose and that God really loves them,” Yohannan said.

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) donors have helped support 142,000 children across South Asia, and the organization aims to sponsor 500,000 children worldwide by 2030.

Millions of children living on the streets and in slums today is truly heart-breaking,” said Yohannan. “We must rescue them and give them hope in Christ’s name.”


About GFA World

GFA World (Gospel for Asia) 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 880 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 163,000 needy families, and teaching to provide hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through broadcast 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 more blogs on Poverty Alleviation, Children’s Education, and Child Sponsorship on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

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

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Source: GFA World Digital Media Room, Child Sponsorship Makes University Dream Come Alive for World’s Poor, Says Gospel for Asia [GFA World]

September 7, 2022

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) and affiliates Gospel for Asia Canada, founded by KP Yohannan issued the first part of a Special Report update authored by Karen Mains on the chilling reality of missing and murdered indigenous women in North America.

To understand the dynamic of what is termed MMIW (Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women), I took some time to ask myself what this phenomenon might look like in the community where I now live.

In my previous special report for Gospel for Asia (GFA) titled “100 Million Missing Women,” I unpacked the plight of missing women on a global scale and what governments and NGOs are doing to address the problem. The sheer magnitude of a global issue can make it difficult to internalize the gravity of the situation, so in this update, I drill down on a specific aspect of this problem that exists in North America — one that needs to be brought to the attention of the public.

Sometimes, when exploring complex world problems or catastrophes, such as a hurricane obliterating a whole community, it helps me if I sit down for a few moments and withdraw into silence. Then, I take some time to imagine myself and my family dealing with the same kind of total ruin.

Cries to end violence against indigenous women get louder. A movement to draw attention to Native American women and girls who have been killed or reported missing is expanding in some areas to include males. Photo by NBC Montana
Cries to end violence against indigenous women get louder. A movement to draw attention to Native American women and girls who have been killed or reported missing is expanding in some areas to include males. Photo by NBC Montana

So in order to understand the dynamic of what is termed MMIW (Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women), I took some time to ask myself what this might look like in the community where my husband, David, and I now live.

Our town is a little place, thought unexceptional by many. Recently, I was sharing with friends about the winter banners hanging on main street that say: “One Good Friend Warms Many Months.” Our little town is a basically overlooked western suburb with an immigrant community that grew and thrived because, long ago, Campbell Soup planted a large factory here on the far western edge of other suburbs growing around Chicago. That plant now stretches empty and abandoned, covering several acres, a quiet witness to economic collapse.

For the sake of discussion, let me impose a hypothetical situation upon my unremarkable little town with its population of 27,086 according to 2019 Census Bureau data. The real drama from which I would like to draw a hypothetical is the one that has recently been drawing attention from national reporting agencies and that I mentioned in the opening paragraphs. In certain areas of the United States and Canada, there is a horrific epidemic, which some term a “genocide,” of murdered and missing indigenous women. Let me impose the statistical dilemma, now much-reported.

Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, giving a speech on missing and murdered Indigenous women in front of Parliament in Ottawa in October 2016. Photo by Delusion23, Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, giving a speech on missing and murdered Indigenous women in front of Parliament in Ottawa in October 2016. Photo by Delusion23, Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Data on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

It was not until 2016 that the government of Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, established a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. This was a much-belated response to repeated calls from indigenous leaders, social activists and multiple non-government agencies that were outraged that nothing was being done about the growing problem. The term “indigenous people” includes citizenry from First Nations, Inuit, Métis and Native American communities.

In 2011, Statistics Canada reported the following concerning Aboriginal females:

  • It was estimated that from 1997 to 2000, the rate of homicide for Aboriginal females was almost seven times higher than other females.
  • Compared to non-indigenous females, they were also “disproportionately affected by all forms of violence.”
  • They are also significantly over-represented among female Canadian homicide victims.
  • They are far more likely than other women to go missing.

The statistical incidence of MMIW is so high that the Canadian Inquiry reported that indigenous women and girls represented 16 percent of all female homicides in Canada despite representing only 4 percent of the female population.

16% of all female homicides in Canada were of indigenous women and girls
16% of all female homicides in Canada were of indigenous women and girls

No wonder activists, journalists, women’s-safety advocates and law-enforcement agencies have now become vocal in their concerns about examining the reasons for such violence committed against mothers, daughters, girls, women, teenagers and children in this population demographic. Not only has there finally been alarm and public outcry about a decades-old dilemma, but several excellent documentaries are also available on the Internet for concerned viewers. What If? and Silent No More and other news specials examine various case studies of missing women.

Using My Little Town as a Hypothetical Example

First, because of the natural tendency not to be concerned by social dilemmas unless they touch our own lives, let’s stop and aside set some time to attempt to build some empathetic concern. Let’s use my little town with its total population of 27,086 citizens as a hypothetical example. Some 51.1 percent of the population of this far-western Chicago suburb is Hispanic. That would be 13,841 people of Latino origin.

A participant in the Greater Than Fear Rally & March in Rochester Minnesota. Photo by Lorie Shaull, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A participant in the Greater Than Fear Rally & March in Rochester Minnesota. Photo by Lorie Shaull, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

For the sake of discussion, let’s divide that number in half, which would broadly represent the population of females within the Latino population of my little town at some 6,920 women and girls. Then, let’s just grab a murdered- or missing-women statistic—let’s say that 24 percent (which pops up in statistics on MMIW dealing with per-hundred ratios, such as the homicide rate for indigenous women in Canada is 24 percent per 100,000 population) of the MMW in my little town would be almost one-quarter of the estimated 6,920 women and girls who live here. Now let’s expand our acronym from MMIW to MMWG (Murdered and Missing Women and Girls).That would be some 1,661 victims who had gone missing or been discovered murdered. Bodies have been found face down in the branch of the DuPage River, discovered in a shallow grave, found lifeless along the Prairie Path where many of us like to walk and jog. Of course, these deaths or unaccountable absences wouldn’t have happened over the period of any one year, but would be the aggregate of some 10, 15 or 20 years—who knows exactly how many decades?

Yet I am certain—absolutely, determinedly certain—that if this kind of quiet-but-steady mayhem had occurred in our community, even in the Hispanic percentage with its immigrant roots and now large immigrant population, a large cry would have developed, a shout of horror that would proclaim that my little town was a dangerous place for women to move into, live in or be born into. Stay away! Be warned! Do not look at real estate or contact a realtor.

In addition, some 67.6 percent of my fellow towners are white. So, an estimated half of that would be 34 percent white women and girls. One-quarter of 34 percent would be how many missing and murdered? You do the math.

When there is high incidence of murdered and missing women in any population, doesn’t the normal, the ordinary and the everyday hold the potential of terror?

I’m even more certain that if the same demographic had been applied to the white citizenry of my little town, the resultant reaction of distress, concern and investigation would have been tremendous. Wealthy folk who could move would do so. Due to the resulting wave of public outcry, more tax dollars would be assigned to the MMWG disaster. Eventually, the hazardous female environment would be examined by sociologists, written about by PhDs, covered in national news and exploited by carrion-feeders who inevitably make their reputations out of the sensational.

An Imaginative Exercise in Empathetic Fear

The physical facts and data regarding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women are one thing, but imagine, again—if you will, make a leap of attempted understanding—what it must be like for a woman of any age to live in an environment so hostile to her sex that she knows someone who has gone missing or who has been murdered. A grandmother, an aunt, someone’s own mother, a daughter-in-law, a teenager, a teacher, a little girl has disappeared. A body has been found discarded by a roadside. And no one can say for sure exactly what happened. Not only that, the local police don’t take the problem of missing women seriously. Crime labs are overloaded with other, more-immediate concerns. Those gals will show up some day. Someone will find them. They’ll eventually call home.

Think about the nagging uncertainty that comes from running alone for a last-minute errand to a grocery store. Think about driving somewhere alone at night. Think about a walk home from some school event with friends, then think about those last two blocks you must walk alone. Think about a stranger passing you in a car, slowing, getting a good look, then speeding ahead. Think about an argument in a family, about the gun stored and locked in a cabinet but still there. Think about being at home alone. Think about that phone call from a stranger that reports an accident with a family member being harmed and you needing to come to aid.

When there is high incidence of murdered and missing women in any population, doesn’t the normal, the ordinary and the everyday hold the potential of terror? Doesn’t a world surfeited with sunshine, growing things, seasonal changes, rain on the fields and starlight at night get bent out of emotional shape?

The questions raised by the reality of a large demographic of women of any population facing extinction should impale us on the truth that something serious and radical must be done.

And if you or someone you know has survived an attempted incident of rape or kidnapping or brutality, does the world ever seem safe again?

To be caring citizens, we all need to become proficient in these imaginary exercises in order to create empathy for others in distress. In fact, a hallmark of Christian faith has to do with how much we are willing to enter into the suffering of others, into a suffering that at this time in our lives does not touch our present circumstances. In fact, justice mostly begins with a kind of appalled empathy, then it moves to indignation, finally resulting in activism—the attempt to “do something,” to change a wretched environment, to touch one life that has been wrecked by evil.


Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report on An Imaginative Exercise in Empathetic Fear — Think about Living in a Community with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: Part 2

Learn more about Gospel for Asia’s programs to combat the 100 million missing women reality by helping women through Vocational Training, Sewing Machines and Literacy Training.

This Special Report article originally appeared on GFA.org

Read another Special Report from Gospel for Asia on 100 Million Missing Women.

Learn more about the Women Missionaries who are bringing hope as they share Christ’s love to women in Asia.


Read more on the missing and murdered indigenous women dilemma on gender imbalance and violence against women on Patheos.

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

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June 1, 2022

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by KP Yohannan, issued a Special Report on the ugly truths of world hunger: “Scandal of Starvation” — world hunger is a long-term social and global crisis, directly or indirectly causing around 9 million deaths each year – more than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

Gospel for Asia (GFA) founded by KP Yohannan, issued a Special Report on the ugly truths of world hunger: Scandal of Starvation

There are many things wrong with our broken world, from prejudice and violence to modern-day slavery. The United Nations has identified 16 top enemies of humankind, with ambitious aims to tame if not defeat them by 2030. But have you ever paused to wonder what subjects top Jesus’s list of great ills?

4 month old malnourished baby
In March 2016, 4 month-old Farhan Abbas was accompanied by his grandmother to SC Children’s Hospital in Punjab, Pakistan, where he was diagnosed with severe wasting and provided immediate nourishment. © UNICEF/UN0281410/Pirozzi

Hunger is one of them. Shortly before His betrayal, Jesus spoke to His disciples about the coming judgment, when everyone will appear before Him. He told of those who will inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world, and why.

“For I was hungry and you gave Me food,” he began (Matthew 25:35). He went on to name the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. Meeting their needs was also a reflection of God’s kingdom, He said. But He recognized empty bellies first.

Perhaps that is because it is hard to hear anything else above the rumble of an empty stomach. Words of hope for a better tomorrow—whether practical advice or spiritual encouragement—tend to fall on deaf ears when someone has eaten little or nothing for too long.

Gospel for Asia (GFA) founder K.P. Yohannan said, “If you see a dying man begging on the street, how can you share the Good News with him and not give him something to eat?”

When hunger muffles your hearing, it’s not because of frustration but physiology. When you are hungry, your body starts to do what it can to conserve energy. Like a computer, it shuts down peripheral programs. In the short term, hunger makes it harder for you to concentrate. Over time, it makes it harder for you to understand. You go from not having the desire to learn to not having the ability.

Children standing in line
Every day, many children around the world, don’t get enough nutritious food to eat. But kids enrolled at Bridge of Hope Centers throughout Asia receive a healthy, balanced meal every day, along with a daily education, school supplies, and regular medical checkups.

Consider the student faintings last year that became common at the Augusto D’Aubeterre Lyceum school in Boca de Uchire, Venezuela, in the wake of the country’s severe economic crisis. They occurred because so many students went to class without eating breakfast, or dinner the night before, reported The New York Times. At other schools, children wanted to know if there would be any food before they decided whether to go at all. “You can’t educate skeletal and hungry people,” one teacher said. Hence hunger is not just a desperate and immediate personal issue. It is also a long-term social and global crisis, directly or indirectly causing around 9 million deaths each year—more than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. One report has estimated the annual impact on the global economy of malnutrition through lost potential and production to be as much as $3.5 trillion, or $500 for every single person in the world.

That is the financial impact of what Roger Thurow, a Senior Fellow on Global Food and Agriculture at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, has called malnutrition a “life sentence of underachievement and underperformance.” If you ask why some countries remain poor or why development aid isn’t as effective as possible and doesn’t have the impact many think it should, he said, “it’s because so many kids are getting off to a horrible start in life.”

COVID-19 Accelerates Starvation in Asia

Food distribution at Punjab, India
600 migrant laborers in Punjab jobless due to COVID-19, get food from Bishop Martin Mor Aprem who tries social distancing. “We know the risks. But this is the only food they will get in 2-3 days.”

 

The global COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated hunger fears. Lockdowns and stay-at-home orders brought national economies to a grinding halt overnight, sending unemployment soaring, and instantly plunging hundreds of millions of families into survival mode.

At the grassroots level, millions of furloughed day laborers and agricultural workers—the backbone of the workforce in many developing nations—faced the grim threat of watching their families starve. “These nations are in the hands of God right now,” said Yohannan. “There is a real danger that millions could starve to death.”

In southeast Asia, hundreds of millions of children were immediately at risk, as the lockdown paralyzed entire nations. Huge numbers of street children—estimated at 70,000+ in some cities in Asia alone—had no one to beg from and no one to turn to.

“When a crisis hits, the children are always hit the hardest,” Yohannan said. For more details on this story, go here.

 

Food Insecurity, World Hunger Are Increasing

5-year-old Meena, standing in a sewer
A haunting photo of little Meena in Bombay, India, standing in a sewer, a silent victim of poverty.

In the measured words of officials and academics, those who don’t have enough to eat are victims of “food insecurity,” not knowing if and when they will eat next or whether it will be enough. The impact of hunger is seen in what they call “wasting” and “stunting,” which describe the different ways lack of food keeps someone from developing physically as they should.

In the everyday world, hunger is 5-year-old Meena, who was reduced to begging for scraps from strangers and eating sewage-soaked dirt off the streets of Mumbai, India. Not long after her haunted image was photographed, she went into a coma and died.

It is not only an issue in parts of the world where lack is as clearly obvious, however. People also suffer from hunger in places like Liverpool, England, where one young boy chewed wallpaper at night, not wanting to tell his mother how hungry he was because he knew that she didn’t have any money for supper.

Concerted attempts to eradicate hunger are not new. Though he rallied the collective effort to put a man on the moon in the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy was less successful in achieving another ambitious goal he voiced.

“We have the ability, as members of the human race, we have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime,” he said. “We need only the will.”

Despite best efforts, from governments to the grassroots, it is not a problem that is going away. Worldwide, hunger increased in 2018 for the third successive year. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 820 million people did not get enough to eat that year.

India accounts for two-thirds of all the malnourished children in the world

The largest concentration of undernourished people is in Asia, especially South Asia, with the region accounting for two-thirds of all the malnourished children in the world. In India, nearly 200 million people are undernourished. The country was ranked 103rd of 119 in the 2018 Global Hunger Index.

According to the UN report, however, Africa “has the highest rates of hunger in the world and [these] are continuing to slowly but steadily rise in almost all subregions.” Indeed, more than a quarter of Africa’s population was classified as food-insecure in 2016, more than four times the rate of any other region. The Global Hunger Index includes six African nations among the ten hungriest worldwide: the Central African Republic, Chad, Madagascar, Zambia, Liberia and Zimbabwe.

“We have the ability, as members of the human race, we have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime, we need only the will.”
President John F. Kennedy
World Food Congress, June 4, 1963

One small indicator of the seriousness of hunger is that it gets not one but two annual days of international attention. This year’s World Hunger Day (May 28) will focus on “sustainability.” Organized by The Hunger Project, it will emphasize how long-term solutions must address issues interwoven with hunger, such as political instability, the environment and gender inequality. The U.N.’s World Food Day is to be observed October 16, marking the founding of the body’s food and agriculture organization.

Feeding leprosy patients
Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers provide a free meal to those in a leper colony on January 1st, 2018 in Uttar Pradesh, India.

World Hunger’s Ugly Truths Revealed

Each year, Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers recognize the U.N. event with a host of special feeding programs. They take food packages to local communities in need—including homeless people who beg by railway and bus stations—and prepare meals for the residents of leprosy colonies who are ostracized and unable to find work.

Sisters of Compassion comforts a sad mother whose son is sick.
Sisters of Compassion seen here are comforting a sad mother whose son is sick. After praying for them both, they will provide food or supplies to meet their specific needs. Through their loving kindness, lives are being given physical and spiritual nourishment in God’s name.

As Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers provide simple, nutritious food—such as bread, eggs, and bananas, pulse curry and vegetables—they extend a lifeline to people like Lalita. At 32 she had been living by the footpath near a railway station when some of Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Sisters of Compassion arrived with food.

“I lost my husband six years ago, after which my family abandoned me, as I am blind,” she told the visitors. “Now, I cannot do any work. Today I am happy that I received this food packet.”

Hunger is ugly on many levels, not least because many of its root causes are human action and inaction—wars, corruption, and environmental mismanagement. Three additional realities make it even more difficult to swallow:

  • There is enough food in the world to go around.
  • A lot of good food just gets thrown away, some merely because it doesn’t look picture-perfect.
  • While millions go hungry because they can’t afford to eat, others spend large amounts of money following fad diets.

Pope Francis called out some of these wrongs in a 2019 World Food Day message: “It is a cruel, unjust and paradoxical reality that, today, there is food for everyone, and yet not everyone has access to it, and that in some areas of the world food is wasted, discarded and consumed in excess, or destined for other purposes than nutrition.”

One third of all produced food is wasted

Improvements in global food production mean that the world produces a harvest big enough to feed everyone on the planet one-and-a-half times over. Yet fully a third of all the food that is produced goes to waste—discarded in production, lost somewhere along the farm-to-table route, or thrown away by end-consumers: restaurants, institutions like hospitals, and families. It has been reckoned that, globally, around $1 trillion worth of food is lost or wasted each year.

Losses before food gets to the consumer are highest in Central and South Asia, reflecting the bigger challenges in the supply chain there. However, North America is high in the overall waste league—some 133 billion pounds each year.

And that’s just considering the immediate value of the food. The wider cost is “a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labor and capital.”


Give Food, Aid to Victims of Hunger & Starvation

Learn about how to bring practical help in Jesus’ name to the suffering and needy, relieving the burdened, rescuing the endangered and revealing God’s compassion to the people of Asia through Gospel for Asia Compassion Services.


Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report on The Scandal of Starvation in a World of Plenty: World Hunger’s Ugly Truths Revealed — Part 2, Part 3

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Read another Special Report from Gospel for Asia on Poverty: Public Enemy #1 – Eliminating Extreme Poverty Worldwide is Possible, But Not Inevitable.

Learn more by reading this special report from Gospel for Asia: Solutions to Poverty-Line Problems of the Poor & Impoverished — Education’s Impact on Extreme Poverty Eradication.


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January 7, 2022

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 update on the extraordinary pressures and hardships of widows intensified by the COVID 19 Pandemic.

Continuing Problems in Developing Nations

Smiling widow despite isolation and suffering.
Despite her smile, as a widow in Assam, Sukra was not only despised and reviled by her community, but also her own brothers shunned her.

“Although most African and Asian farmers are women, only 15 percent of the world’s farmland is owned by women.” states Landesa, a land rights charity.10 A research report in the spring of 2020 from the World Bank showed that in 40 percent of countries, women face persistent barriers to land ownership, including unequal inheritance rights and authority over assets during marriage—a situation worsened by the pandemic, and one that especially affects widows.

The World Bank’s Victoria Stanley said among the new obstacles widows now face the following:

  • If their male relatives succumb to the pandemic, the standing of already highly dependent women can weaken because of limited legal protections, lack of documentation, and restrictive social norms. They are also at risk of their husband’s relatives trying to grab their land.
  • Pandemics can reduce economic assets like wages and savings, making housing, land and other property even more important. Yet, when conflicts arise over them, women may lack the resources or support to enforce their rights.

Stanley believes, in the short term, it is critical to implement broad protective measures that ensure no one will lose their home during the pandemic; for inheritances, it’s important during the crisis that countries not allow female heirs to sign over their property. Over the long term, she said, reforming inheritance laws and marital property regimes will be key to improving the implementation and enforcement of women’s rights to housing, land and property.

Victoria Stanley
Ms. Stanley, Senior Land Administration Specialist at the World Bank: “the pandemic is placing [widows] in a precarious situation.” Photo by Victoria Stanley, Twitter
“It’s time we break down the barriers to women’s access to land around the world, and make sure to protect women’s rights while the pandemic places them in a precarious situation,” Stanley said.11

Such legal steps are advocated by two members of the law school faculty at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. Fatimah AbdulRasq and Ayinla Lukman say it is hard to gauge COVID-19’s legal impact on widows, and there is no assurance of established parameters to guarantee relief packages aimed at widows and other needy citizens are implemented.12

“Despite the relief packages and palliatives provided by government, private individuals and organizations to the populace, much ought to be done to specifically target the welfare of widows and ensure that their plight is positively addressed,” the professors said in an article for the Institute for African Women in Law.13

Jeeva, already a widow, lost her family home and all that she owned when the tsunami wave hit her village in Tamil Nadu. She had nowhere to go or anyway to survive with her two children. It was during this time that Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers discovered her plight and began to immediately help her with relief supplies. Eventually, as they determined Jeeva was a widow with no other means to recover her loss, it was decided Gospel for Asia (GFA) would provide her with a house that her family could live in. Jeeva was deeply touched by God’s love demonstrated through their actions.

Providing Direct Aid

In addition to the United Nations’ observance of International Widows Day, a variety of charities, non-profits, and non-governmental organizations work year-round to shine a spotlight on the plight of widows and relieve their suffering. The Global Fund for Widows calls it an “epidemic,” with widows subject to such problems as food insecurity, poor health, poor education, human trafficking, extremist groups, a lack of shelter, and no access to justice.14

Stand in the Gap Widows Team
Staffers Melissa Phenicie and Glenda Love are speaking up for widows in Tulsa, OK by voicing their common needs to church leadership and offering the tested and proven Stand in the Gap for Widows program to churches for free.
Photo by Stand in the Gap Ministries

Some organizations come from a faith-based perspective, like Stand in the Gap Ministries, which advocates that more churches establish ministries to widows and offer practical help, like hosting regular widows-only social gatherings, offering education in home maintenance, and facilitating small groups.

Then there is the practical assistance offered in the field by NGOs like Gospel for Asia (GFA World). While long active in widows’ assistance, the organization instituted specific relief measures soon after lockdowns began in the first quarter of 2020.

In March and April, Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers in one region of Asia visited three different villages to distribute more than 400 food kits consisting of three kilograms of mixed vegetables, four kilograms of rice and one liter of oil to widows.

“I am a poor widow,” said one recipient named Sabella, 37. “Due to the lockdown, my survival became so hard. Like me, there are many in our village who are starving. Pastor Lesharo with the compassionate heart distributed raw food kits to many people in our village. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank the church for providing the food supplies.”

In mid-April, Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers in another area gave essential items to 50 widows and other individuals. After receiving permission from local authorities, the pastors organized a program to provide for those struggling amidst the lockdown with a package that included 11 pounds of rice, two pounds of lentils, six pounds of potatoes and a bar of soap.

“During this untimely crisis, [the church] in my village stood beside us to help the poor families by providing them with food items,” said a member of the village council. “I feel proud of them. I want to thank [them] for their great help.”15

Such gifts reflect the aid given throughout the years via GFA World’s widows ministry, which provides women in desperate situations with tangible necessities. K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia (GFA World), said this kind of aid has long been needed because in some Asian cultures a widow can be stripped of her dignity, worth and human rights. When coronavirus struck, the need grew, he said.

Woman toiling in labor to provide for her family.
Serving as farm laborers in various parts of South Asia, women working in cultivation and farming earn less than $2 for one days’ work. Becoming widowed can jeopardize even that modest income.

“These women are typically daily wage laborers, the very group hit hardest by the government shutdowns instituted to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus,” reported GFA World. “Already struggling to feed their families, they were suddenly unable to work. Widows often are victims of poverty, ostracism and humiliation, and they can be vulnerable to abuse. Many receive little help from relatives as they care for their children.”16

However, by helping lift their burdens by providing income-generating gifts (like sewing machines) and vocational training, clothing, basic essentials, and the comfort, encouragement and assurance of God’s love, generous donors can help these widows hear promises like that found in Isaiah 41:9–10: “I have chosen you and have not cast you away: Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

Many widows are waiting for those who will join their hands with God’s. Their suffering, grief and pain can be alleviated, in part, through practical expressions of God’s loving kindness.

Through GFA, your donation can help widows in practical, tangible ways.


Give to Help Widows »

If this special report has touched your heart and you would like to do something today about the plight of widows around the world, please share this article with your friends and consider making a generous gift to GFA World to help widows in South Asia and other locations.


Read the rest of this Gospel for Asia – Transforming Communities (GFA World) Special Report: Coronavirus Intensifies Hardships for Widows  Part 1


About GFA World

GFA World (Gospel for Asia) 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://press.gfa.org/news.


Read more blogs on GFA World, WidowsWorld Missions and the Coronavirus Pandemic on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

GFA’s Statement About Coronavirus

Learn more by reading this Special Report from Gospel for Asia: Widows Face Uphill Battle After Losing Spouses — The plight of widows, whether in affluent or developing nations, can be a desperate struggle


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Read what 25 Christian Leaders are affirming about GFA World.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

October 24, 2021

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 1st part of a Special Report update on the extraordinary pressures and hardships of widows intensified by the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Widows due to the Coronavirus Pandemic endure extraordinary hardships
Gospel for Asia (GFA) Sisters of Compassion visit Asian widows regularly to talk, help and provide hope and prayer.
Widow receiving relief package amid Coronavirus Pandemic
While visiting a famished, poor widow living among huts in this slum area in Telangana, Gospel for Asia (GFA) provided a food packet consisting of mixed vegetables, rice and oil to sustain her, and ten others, during the pandemic. She said: “From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for providing these food supplies.”

As I conveyed in a previous Special Report, the plight of widows, whether in affluent or developing nations, can be a desperate struggle. In this update, I share how the coronavirus has compounded their hardships even further.

For women worldwide who have lost husbands during the COVID-19 pandemic, grief and pain are an overwhelming experience. But for many of these women, their sorrow has been multiplied to an unbearable level due to isolation, expulsion from family, loss of property rights, and other extraordinary pressures that are often overlooked.

In America, while pandemic fears started to ease as vaccine distribution ramped up in the spring of 2021, for widows who lost spouses during the past two years, the pain is only beginning. Many young widows forged support bonds through Facebook, Zoom or other electronic means even as lockdowns and social distancing practices prevented them from gathering in person. A recent NBC News investigation discovered the following:

Among the newly grieving spouses is Pamela Addison of Waldwick, New Jersey. She became a widow in April 2020 at age 36 after her husband was exposed to the virus while conducting swallow evaluations on speech pathology patients.

“All my friends had their husbands, they were healthy,” Addison told a reporter from NBC News. “I knew only me. I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, nobody else is going to understand what I’m going through—and that was a whole other part of my grief.”1

Graphic representation of different kinds of women widows.
The Modern Widows Club provides various services for widows, including one that helps locate support groups in person or online for ongoing empathy. Photo by Modern Widows Club

After receiving inspiration from a sympathy card, Addison launched the Facebook support group Young Widows and Widowers of Covid-19. In its first two months, it surpassed 80 members from the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

Another member, Kristina Scorpo, 33, of Paterson, New Jersey, commented: “We didn’t plan to be widowed at 36 or 33. We didn’t plan to raise our kids without our partners that we saw our lives with and we saw a future with. It was like [people in the group] knew exactly what the other was going to say, because we had been through all the same things, and it’s a really great thing that life brought us together.”2

Some who have lost spouses find common identity in their ethnic background, like those who are part of Black Women Widows Empowered. It was launched by Sabra Robinson of Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2015 after she lost her husband to cancer in 2012. Last year, the more than 700 members included at least 20 who had lost spouses to COVID-19.

“I feel for all these ladies, black or white,” Robinson said. “There’s so many COVID widows now, and they don’t have to be COVID widows.”3

Widow from Nepal toiling in labor
Nepal: Having lost her husband, Esther’s life is difficult, although she’s grateful to still have her land. She sows corn manually by hand to grow a life-sustaining crop for her family during the rainfed conditions from April to August.

Yet there is strength in their affinity, says member Erika Taylor-Ruffin of Apple Valley, California, who credits the group with “saving her life.”

“When you’re an African American widow, it’s like you still have to be strong,” Taylor-Ruffin said. “We can’t show weakness. This group allows us to be vulnerable and to show our pain without being judged. [There] is something about being around women who understand your pain.”4

While the grief and sorrow of COVID-19 widows is profound in developed countries like the United States, in developing countries of the world, the painful losses widows experience are amplified to an entirely different level.

“COVID-19 is a widow-maker,” Karol Boudreaux, chief program officer at the land rights charity Landesa, said in a webinar organized by the Land Portal online platform. “[The virus] exacerbates an already unequal situation for men and women.”

Boudreaux referred to a Tanzanian widow who was unable to stop the illegal sale of her property in another city due to limited land rights and COVID-19 travel restrictions as an example of this inequity.

It’s been a decade since the United Nations organized International Widows Day, which is observed annually on June 23. The UN says there are 258 million widows worldwide, with a ratio of nearly 1 in 10 living in extreme poverty.

258 million widows worldwide, with a ratio of nearly 1 in 10, are living in extreme poverty.On last year’s International Widows Day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said when countries build back from COVID-19, they must also work to dismantle laws that discriminate against women. He said the isolation and economic hardships brought on by the pandemic can further compromise widows’ ability to support themselves and their families and cut them off from social connections during their greatest time of grief.

“The death of a partner at any time can leave many women without rights to inheritance of property,” Guterres said. “In times of a pandemic, these losses are often multiplied for widows and accompanied by stigma and discrimination.”5

The UN also says that the actual number of widows is likely to grow much higher and expand further as the coronavirus and its related impact on health continues: “The pandemic has just worsened the situation during the past several months with a devastating human loss, and one that is likely leaving tens of thousands of women newly widowed at just the time they are cut off from their usual socio-economic and family supports.”6

This family of a widow is planting an entire field completely by hand.
Uttar Pradesh, India: When a husband is lost to COVID-19, for example, the remaining widow will often need to mobilize her remaining family to survive. This family, fortunate to have land, is planting an entire field completely by hand.

Widows Rights Routinely Violated During Pandemic


An article reported from Johannesburg, South Africa, on the same Tanzanian story referenced by Karol Boudreaux—written by Kim Harrisberg for the Thomson Reuters Foundation—said that women often only earn legal or socially recognized rights to land and property through a husband or father. These rights are regularly violated during times of disaster, whether that be a war, the HIV/AIDS crisis or the coronavirus.

She quoted Patricia Chaves, head of the women’s rights charity Espaco Feminista, as saying that in Brazil when a man dies, women are approached at the funeral about selling their land.

Widows supported by Widow's Might program of Kenya Hope
Kenya: Because polygamy is practiced widely, when a husband dies from COVID-19, he often leaves behind several wives with multiple children. These vulnerable women are frequently preyed upon. The Widow’s Might program of Kenya Hope supports these women by providing them with food assistance each month, giving them five goats in the first year to start their own self sustaining herd, and by training them with marketable skills, all in God’s love. Photo by Kenya Hope, Widow’s Might Program

Chaves said that poor women have been particularly vulnerable during the pandemic because they are forced to put themselves at risk to feed their families while isolating in poor housing conditions.

In Kenya, there are reports that widows were forced out of their homes by their in-laws during quarantine because they were seen as an extra burden and not really part of the family, said Victoria Stanley, a World Bank land specialist.

“Widows depend on their (deceased) husbands for their property rights. There may be pressure from families to return properties or they may be forced into marriages with other family members. This could be devastating if we aren’t paying attention,” said Stanley, who called for a moratorium on evictions to protect women’s rights during the pandemic.7

Of course, when it comes to suffering, widows have experienced this long before last year’s lockdowns.

A widow begs on a busy road
Afghanistan: A widow begs for food on a busy road in Kabul; the two loaves of bread she has are the entire dinner for her family of eight. According to Sharia teachings, widows only get an eighth of the inheritance from their spouse’s death if the husband has children (if not, then one quarter). The rest is distributed amongst other family members. Photo by Lacuna Magazine, Widowhood in Afghanistan

One example is in Afghanistan, home to “the hill of widows.” The term refers to women who eke out independence in a society that shuns them and condemns them as immoral. The first residents settled on a stony slope outside Kabul in the 1990s, hoping to escape the stigma attached to women who have lost their spouse.

The war-torn nation was home to approximately 2.5 million widows in 2017. Often uneducated and shuttered away at home, the women have few options when their husband dies. According to a report by a French news agency, “At best, they receive $150 a year from the government if their husband was killed in fighting. They survive by doing household chores, a little sewing, or by sending their children to beg in the bazaar.

“Women are perceived as being owned by their father before becoming their husband’s property. Widows are often rejected as immoral or regarded as burdens: they suffer violence, expulsion, ostracism and sometimes forced remarriage, often with a brother-in-law, as reported by the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in a rare study published in 2014.”8
Widow from Nigeria
Nigeria: Deborah’s husband was shot and killed in raids by Muslim extremists. After her husband’s death, her in-laws wanted her to leave her home so they could profit from it. They consistently abused her and pressured her to leave. Soon, she gave in, left her home and rented a house. She was hopeless, alone, and filled with grief. And ready to give up on life, until she received help to survive from an Open Doors trauma center. Photo by Open Doors USA

Similar difficulties face widows in Nigeria. In one state in the geopolitical region of South East Nigeria, legislators enacted laws in 2001 prohibiting widows from being compelled to do such things as shave their heads, be locked in the room with their husband’s corpse, or be compelled to remarry a relative of her late husband’s. Yet nearly two decades later, some of these practices were being kept alive through sociocultural norms, said an early 2020 report by a group of health researchers.

“There are often frictions between cultural practices and state policies/laws, as well as human rights, which obstruct policy implementation,” they wrote. “The lack of resources in low-resource regions adds to the difficulty in enforcing laws and policies, especially in rural areas, giving room for abhorrent cultural practices to thrive. These conditions prolong and intensify the traumatic experiences of widows.”9


Give to Help Widows »

If this special report has touched your heart and you would like to do something today about the plight of widows around the world, please share this article with your friends and consider making a generous gift to GFA World to help widows in South Asia and other locations.


Read the rest of this Gospel for Asia – Transforming Communities (GFA World) Special Report: Coronavirus Intensifies Hardships for Widows  Part 2


About GFA World

GFA World (Gospel for Asia) 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://press.gfa.org/news.


Read more blogs on GFA World, WidowsWorld Missions and the Coronavirus Pandemic on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

GFA’s Statement About Coronavirus

Learn more by reading this Special Report from Gospel for Asia: Widows Face Uphill Battle After Losing Spouses — The plight of widows, whether in affluent or developing nations, can be a desperate struggle


Learn more about Gospel for Asia: Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | SourceWatch | Integrity | Lawsuit Update | 5 Distinctives | 6 Remarkable Facts | 10 Milestones | Media Room | Widows & Coronavirus | Endorsements | 40th Anniversary | Lawsuit Response | International Offices | Missionary and Child Sponsorship | Transforming Communities through God’s Love

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

Read what 25 Christian Leaders are affirming about GFA World.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

July 2, 2021

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 – Discussing GFA World celebrating 42 years of showing the love of Christ by meeting practical needs of impoverished communities across Asia. 

The Lord has been using GFA World to share Good News, to send indigenous workers to provide help to needy communities, and to grow Bible-believing churches over the past 42 years. We’ve enjoyed global recognition as a major faith-based humanitarian organization. However, our primary mission remains to represent Jesus Christ and His love through word and deed across Asia.

Discussing GFA World celebrating 42 years of help & meeting the practical needs of impoverished communities across Asia with the love of Christ.The humanitarian aid aspects of our ministry includes:

And yet, there is so much more.

Many may not realize the marvelous ways the Lord has used Gospel for Asia (GFA World) to minister to the millions of people in Asia. Reaching out to those who have never experienced God’s love is just the beginning of the process it takes to establish local churches that not only serve their immediate communities but endeavor to provide help and hope to outlying villages.

Sharing

The humanitarian ministries listed above highlight the different ways we share help and hope with the hopeless, and transforming communities in despair through practical ways that help them escape persistent poverty.

These specific Gospel for Asia (GFA) ministries address practical, everyday needs that communities have, like the need for clean water, sanitation, food, basic health care, education and vocational support. They are provided with a generous dose of local loving-kindness to express the heart of Christ and his love for all people.

Sending

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) also supports national workers who share the love of Christ with their neighbors. As these relationships deepen, more and more people experience God’s love, and a new fellowship is born as new believers gather together for fellowship and discipleship.

The national worker often takes on the role of pastoring this congregation and will also continue ministering to surrounding villages where the name of Jesus is still unknown.

Growing

Generous and faithful donors provide a portion of the funding for the construction of places of worship. However, we believe that a healthy church is a self-supporting church. In fact, there are many churches that are now self-supporting, meaning they are a full-fledged church with land, a building, and believers who are giving enough via their tithes and offerings to sustain their church and its various ministries to help their community.

Local believers are taught how to do their part – and they are quite willing to do so. For example, in one year, the believers in one country financed 70 percent of the construction of 48 new church buildings. More than 400 self-supporting churches have been established with the support of Gospel for Asia (GFA World) in this nation. The believers there are poor, yet they have personally sent and supported 75 national workers in their own nation and have constructed about 280 churches.

Sharing God’s love and message of new life remains at the heart of all of GFA World’s ministry. It is wonderful to see so many churches established that are self-governing, self-financed, and self-propagating after 42 years of prayer and faithful service.

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is committed to continuing its faithful support of indigenous believers who are sharing Christ’s love, providing hope and help to impoverished communities in practical ways, and fostering new congregations.


May 20, 2021

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founded by KP Yohannan, which inspired numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to assist the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this Special Report on the ongoing fight against open defecation, using outdoor toilets to improve sanitation.

 

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) reports on the ongoing fight against open defecation, using outdoor toilets to improve sanitation.
In this part of the slums in Mumbai, India, many people live in close proximity in unhygienic surroundings—lacking facilities like toilets and proper drainage.

What Do the World’s Sanitation Problems Have to Do with Us?

For those of us with indoor flush toilets—and clean ones at that—with sewer lines that carry waste to treatment facilities, and who live in places where waterborne and airborne bacteria are not a hazard, our response to this crisis is probably, So what? We don’t say this out loud, but like so many other dire extremes jockeying for our attention, it doesn’t really touch our lives.

However, in a majority of places, America is starting to suffer from failing infrastructure. Most of us think of that in terms of roads and bridges needing repair or major overhauling, a transportation issue. Yet infrastructure means water service, too.

Just two years ago, reporters from the Chicago Tribune conducted an exposé of the high bills being charged for water in underserved metro area neighborhoods. Maywood residents in a western suburb paid one of the region’s highest water rates, because older pipes allow major seepage. Of the 946 millions of gallons that Maywood bought from neighboring Melrose Park in 2016, some 367 million gallons, or 38.7 percent, never made it to taps. That cost residents in an already cash-strapped population nearly $1.7 million more than residents paid in other towns of similar size. And the poor are tapped for a disproportionate share of the bill.

What if I had to stand in line to use a communal latrine where flies buzzed, the floor was filthy, someone had evacuated due to acute diarrhea, and no one wanted to clean the mess? Now we’re getting closer.

Water problems may be closer than we think. In a 2012 article for a Yale University publication, reporter Cheryl Colopy—author of Dirty, Sacred Rivers: Confronting South Asia’s Water Crisis—warned: “In the United States, sewage treatment has not been a problem for the past half-century, but it could become one again as infrastructure ages and fails—especially if there is a lack of government money to replace it. In addition, certain regions of the U.S. are expected to experience water shortages as temperatures rise. New, water-saving, decentralized toilet technologies may need to be adopted not only in places like South Asia, but also in parts of the industrialized world.”

Indeed, we may be thinking more about sanitation issues in the near future. And, the burgeoning technologies used to solve defecation problems and to discover clean water solutions in the developing world may be solutions we will also seek not far down the road.

Women are prone to assault, disease runs rampant, and lives are at risk: all a result of using the bathroom outdoors.

What If You Didn’t Have a Toilet?

So I remind myself of toilet scenarios I do know about, then extrapolate some personal situations. Our home, in which we have lived for 40 years, has a septic system. During that time, we have suffered power outages amid extreme storms, meaning no water could be pumped from our underground well; this disabled our showers, faucets and toilets. I used to store plastic bottles of water so when things went black we could still brush our teeth, dress by candlelight and—get this—flush our toilets. If the power did not come back on for a couple days, frozen food thawed and excess detritus threatened to overflow the toilet basin.

So I extrapolate: What if this happened all the time? What if sewer lines broke, got clogged and backed up regularly? What if I lived in poverty, with no plumbers, no money and no electric company to call to fix this? What if I had to stand in line to use a communal latrine where flies buzzed, the floor was filthy, someone had evacuated due to acute diarrhea, and no one wanted to clean the mess? Now we’re getting closer.

A Squat Outdoor India Toilet
A well-cleaned squat toilet in Asia.

In refugee camps overseas, my travel companions and I held ridiculous discussions about who had invented squat toilets: men or women? Someone shot a photo of me holding a rickety latrine toilet door upright while a woman coworker trusted me to guard her privacy while she did her business. We may laugh, but for most of the world this situation is not a laughing matter. Smelling an overflowing latrine from 20 feet away might persuade even a Westerner to think similarly, even if only metaphorically. In truth, I don’t like the few outhouses I’ve been forced to use in the States, nor many of the spooky national park public facilities. If I can help it, I certainly avoid portable potties at public events.

When Your Septic Tank Problems Bring Embarrassment

My last attempt at toilet empathy. About 10 years after we moved to West Chicago, Illinois, our neighbor knocked on the door and apologized for complaining about the standing stinking water seeping into his property.

“I think you may be having trouble with your septic system,” he reported, a bit embarrassed.

I called two septic companies. One said I needed to have the whole septic field replaced; cost: $10,000. The other service man diagnosed another problem but with a similar estimate. Then I went to the DuPage County Health Department and asked what septic firms they would recommend. I called Black Gold, whose reps complained about the septic map drawn by the company that laid our field—that was now leaking.

“Would the health department let us get away with a layout like this?” he asked his partner. They both obviously thought the field plan had been rendered by some septic idiot. Sure enough, after spending about 45 minutes prodding our three-quarters-of-an-acre lot with long poles, they said: “Lady, you don’t need no new septic field. The lines of what’s there ain’t connected to the tank.” Their fee: $3,000. I made a garden from areas torn up by their repairs.

Many people in Asia draw water from smelly, vile ponds
Vile, brown liquid that some in Asia count on as their water source.

So what if I lived somewhere that permanently seeped smelly, vile, germ-ridden, brown liquid? What if the river at the back of the land was a running sewer, and my grandchildren couldn’t romp and splash in it? What if the fields were filled not only with animal feces but the excreta of some 300 neighbors?

You can come up with your own empathy-building stories.

Communities Band Together to Improve Sanitation

A family in front of a GFA-provided outdoor toilet facility
A family in front of a Gospel for Asia (GFA)-provided local facility.

Prime Minister Modi and his teams are sold on community-led initiatives, and so should they be. Change works best when a whole population is committed to seeing it happen.

Community development often works best when it is exactly that: an idea that grows out of the mind of a local visionary, capable of strategic thinking but with compassion for those nearby—his or her neighbors. And when a whole community becomes involved in “cleaning up its act,” few powers on earth can withstand such initiative.

Now what’s interesting about Gospel for Asia’s stories surrounding sanitation is that it is the local pastor in the village, who out of concern and knowing that open defecation has deadly disease-breeding potential, exercises compassion to love his neighbors through his concern about the availability of latrines.

This is an excerpt from a Gospel for Asia (GFA) story that appeared on last year’s World Toilet Day. It concerns a family in one community forced to use the open fields to defecate because they had no other proper place.

Malak, before being touched by Christ’s love, had been an alcoholic. After reading the entire Bible from start to finish, Malak was transformed and abandoned the bottle. Some years later, he met Jaki, and they were married.Eventually, the couple were blessed with two children. It seemed as if all was right for Malak and his family. However, a singular problem arose: The family had no toilet. The nearest place to relieve themselves was a little less than a mile away. During extreme weather, the family was forced to stay indoors, rendering those facilities useless. Going outside in the open was degrading and unhygienic, and at nighttime it was dangerous—who knew what kind of wild animals lurked about?

However, Malak and his family prayed, and their requests did not go unanswered. During a GFA Christmas gift distribution, they received a complete sanitation facility. They no longer had to trek half a mile just to use the bathroom or use the outdoors in fear.

What an extraordinary example of love in practical action.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.” —Luke 10:27

For women like this tea estate laborer, having no outdoor toilet facility could mean risking assault as they go out into an open field in the dark.
“It’s not safe to send our people, our children, our wives or our daughters to the tea garden at night to use the toilet,” Iniyavan said.
Iniyavan made only 2,400 rupees a month, which was equivalent to about $37 (USD) a month. He wasn’t able to save enough money to construct a toilet.
Open defecation means there’s the risk of disease as families continually return to communal waste grounds
GFA-supported Compassion Services teams construct outdoor toilets, also known as sanitation facilities, for people who, like Iniyavan, do not have the means to do so on their own.
“Now, since I have this toilet built in my house, I don’t have to worry. My family and I don’t have to go to the tea garden for toilet, and it is very safe here,” Iniyavan said.

On the Brink of Innovations, Change in Sanitation

Toilet technology is on the edge of remarkable, cost-effective, ecologically friendly frontiers. They’re becoming self-cleaning and solar-powered. A solar-powered toilet that converts waste into charcoal can then be used as fertilizer. An indoor toilet that works like a garden composter, spinning the contents and reducing odor and the number of dangerous pathogens. Portable rickshaw toilets. A community bio-digester toilet designed to convert human waste into gases and manure. Once ideas begin flourishing, there is no limit to what can happen.

Granted, Prime Minister Modi’s ODF csampaign may take a little longer to succeed. But the hardest pull of any new effort is at the beginning. Once new ideas start rolling, they gather steam. Some new toilet technologies may become catalysts as well. In addition, there are hundreds of international organizations working on sanitation solutions. They understand that one size does not fit all the variables that make up the particulars in this vast discussion, but added all together, it is a prohibitive association with evidence of remarkable dedication.

And when a whole community becomes involved in “cleaning up its act,” there are few powers on earth that can withstand such initiative.

A Canadian doctor, one of those “creative renegades” unhappy with the condition of the world who I have come to admire and love, was appointed as a provincial health officer in the highlands of Papua, New Guinea. During an aerial survey, he and his team discovered one distinctly cleaner and healthier village. Far below lay the evidence of what turned out to be a pastor with basic health training who had taught his people those lessons; the difference could be seen from the air. Inspired, they searched for a more integral way of ministering and soon began using a community health evangelism methodology, which had been developed in Africa.

Sometimes we get lost in the details on the ground. We need to stand back, take deep breaths and find some way to gather broader assessments—an aerial view. Progress is being made; it’s just a little harder in some places than in others. I’m proud that Gospel for Asia is one of the players.

Shout Out to Toilets!

Christianity has everything to do with sanitation. We serve a God who is expecting us to help restore the world He created to its original design. That is a world, among many other things, without rampaging diseases. One day, Scripture promises, it will be a world without death and suffering. So in this interim, let’s hear a shout out for all the toilets in the world!


Donate to Sanitation Projects

For only $540, you will help reduce the risk of common diseases by providing a family with an outdoor toilet.


About Gospel for Asia

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially to those who have yet to hear about the love of God. In GFA’s latest yearly report, this included more than 70,000 sponsored 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 spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://press.gfa.org/news.


Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Fight Against Open Defecation Continues – Using Outdoor Toilets to Improve Sanitation Part 1

Learn more by reading these Special Reports from Gospel for Asia:


This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Read what Christian Leaders have to say about Gospel for Asia.

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

Learn more about Gospel for Asia: Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | SourceWatch | Integrity | Lawsuit Update | 5 Distinctives | 6 Remarkable Facts | 10 Milestones | Media Room | Fighting Global Poverty | Endorsements | 40th Anniversary | Lawsuit Response |

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

May 12, 2021

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by KP Yohannan, issued this Special Report on the massive challenge of reducing extreme poverty worldwide, mainly through providing education, transmitting values.

GFA World, founded by KP Yohannan, reports on the massive challenge of reducing extreme poverty worldwide - through providing education.

In my original special report for Gospel for Asia titled Solutions to Poverty-line Problems of the Poor and Impoverished, I explored education’s impact on extreme poverty eradication. This update explores the idea that uprooting poverty requires education that transmits positive values.

Reducing extreme poverty is a massive challenge. Groups around the globe approach the issue in a variety of ways, the most common of which is by providing education. A strong, multifaceted link bonds poverty and lack of education, so experts around the globe are attempting to bring education into poverty-stricken areas.

E.F. Schumacher
E.F. Schumacher
Photo by The Schumacher Institute

But even with academic lessons and increased school attendance among low-income families, children will be short-changed if in the end they don’t gain the ultimate endowment: ideas and values that empower them to thrive.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” According to Aristotle, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

E.F. Schumacher writes in his influential economics book Small Is Beautiful, “The task of education would be, first and foremost, the transmission of ideas of value, of what to do with our lives. There is no doubt also the need to transmit know-how, but this must take second place, for it is obviously somewhat foolhardy to put great powers into the hands of people without making sure that they have a reasonable idea of what to do with them.”

“When people ask for education,” Schumacher continues, “they normally mean something more than mere training. … I think what they are really looking for is ideas that would make the world, and their own lives, intelligible to them.”

Why do ideas and values matter so much? Because they have the power to transform the world—to uproot global poverty.

Concepts like honesty, diligence, respect, compassion and valuing human life are widely acknowledged as good—yet in many communities around the world these values are not being demonstrated or taught to children. When one individual has a foundation of beneficial values like these, he or she can impact other lives, from their own family to the entire world. For the sake of simplicity, our individual will be referred to as “he,” although both males and females are able to make incredible changes to the world around them.

Children listening intently in Bridge of Hope center class
The staff at this Bridge of Hope Project Center in West Bengal provide their children with an ongoing education and transmit positive values with utmost care and responsibility.

Personal Impact of Ideas, Education

Schumacher defined education’s primary purpose as being the transmission of values. Positive values and ideas make a significant impact on one individual, and global change is impossible without changed individuals. The story of a young boy in Asia exemplifies the life-changing power of education plus ideas.

Children in Bridge of Hope center posing together with teachers
Where this GFA Bridge of Hope center is located, around 40-50 percent of children drop out of school after fifth or sixth grade. Thankfully, these children pictured will have a higher success rate because of the help and encouragement that Bridge of Hope is to them and their families.

Six-year-old Bir helped his farming family by scavenging for plastic bags they could use to take their produce to market. His community held fast to time-honored traditions, which ensured stability but also locked families into generations of poverty.

Even though Bir’s family lived in poverty, the young boy still had the gift of attending school. But he floundered in the classroom. His books were filled with valuable information, and his teachers taught lessons that had the potential to change Bir’s life, but Bir lacked the discipline of listening and didn’t know how to get the knowledge from his books into his mind. The shame from his terrible grades stamped out the little boy’s motivation. Education was in his hands, but it wasn’t enough.

Then a GFA World Bridge of Hope center opened in his village. Bir and dozens of other kids in the village enrolled, eager to receive free tutoring and supplemental education.

Most of the children attending Bridge of Hope live in deep poverty. Many reside in places where impoverished children grow up hearing they aren’t important, they can’t ever amount to much, and they don’t deserve anything better. But at Bridge of Hope, they hear something very different.

Alongside their schoolwork, Bridge of Hope children learn lessons on values such as diligence, honesty, kindness, respect and more. They learn their lives matter—no matter how poor their families are or how behind they are in their studies. Students thrive under the enriched education they receive from their Bridge of Hope teachers, and they gain courage and motivation to make the best of their lives.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” According to Aristotle, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

Through these foundational teachings at his Bridge of Hope center, Bir changed. He saw his potential and diligently applied himself to his studies—and to his chores at home. He learned to honor his parents, and he worked hard. By the time Bir completed 10th grade, he stood at the top of his class. Armed with impressive grades and strong values undergirding his choices and habits, Bir could pursue a college education with every reason to hope for continued success in life.

Education changed Bir’s life, but it wasn’t through academics alone. The right values enabled Bir—and thousands of other children like him—to succeed in schooling and find a better way of life. For the rest of their lives, Bridge of Hope children like Bir will know they, along with every other person, have worth and purpose. They will have the know-how to pursue their goals and to help those around them. They will become promising citizens any nation would be proud to claim as their own.

Bridge of Hope teachers and students
At the center, Bridge of Hope teachers have fun with the children to compliment their studies. In addition, BOH staff periodically visit their children and their families at their homes, which helps strengthen their relationship further. The children enjoy talking and interacting with BOH teachers whenever they visit, and the values of love and kindness get transmitted beyond their school life into their home life as well.

Ideas’ Impact on the Family

375 million children are living in poverty, UNICEF estimates.Thanks to quality, value-centered education, children become well-rounded, capable, confident adults. They know how to implement knowledge to better themselves and others, and they have a sense of participation in the world around them.

How will they impact their future families?

Parents play an undeniably important role in children’s lives. According to an article on parenting skills from Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, “Many of the skills children acquire during the early years are fundamentally dependent on the quality of their interactions with their parents. For instance, parents play an important role in fostering children’s early learning (e.g., language and problem-solving abilities) and in shaping their social-emotional skills (e.g., emotion regulation, reactivity to stress and self-esteem).”

The article goes on to state how the parents’ involvement with their child heavily influences the future success of the child’s cognitive potential, social skills and behavioral functioning.

Anna J. Egalite
“In most studies, parental education has been identified as the single strongest correlate of children’s success…” —Anna J. Egalite
Photo by @annaegalite

Anna J. Egalite, assistant professor of education at North Carolina State University, reaffirms the impact of parents’ education on a child’s success. She writes, “In most studies, parental education has been identified as the single strongest correlate of children’s success in school, the number of years they attend school, and their success later in life.”

Values are always passed along from one generation to the next—but they can be beneficial or detrimental. A parent who values the rights and dignity of others will teach their children to do likewise, even if they live in poverty and their society mistreats them because of their low status. A parent whose diligence and integrity enabled them to overcome financial and societal obstacles will encourage their child to press on in the same way. Their message to their children will be, “You can do it!” Conversely, a parent who doubts their worth and that of others, or who was discouraged from rising above “their station” will likely pass a dooming message to their children, squelching aspirations for a better life.

Poverty is a heritage millions of children receive—and wrestle to be free of. UNICEF estimates 375 million children are living in poverty. But when parents or teachers pass an education, filled with empowering ideas, into those young hands, the horizon holds incredible opportunity. The foundation of global poverty quivers, just one generation later.

GFA Pastor teaching children by the street
In this village in Meghalaya where not one person was literate, a Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor is teaching these little children how to read and write, and showing the love of God in the process.

Ideas’ Impact on Society

History provides ample examples, some inspiring and some horrifying, of how ideas and values impact society and poverty.

A widow with her children
Assam: In many parts of Asia, when a mother is widowed, she is often shunned by her community, friends and family, leaving her and her children in a pressing state of survival, with often no hope for a better future.

Some values led to the formation of the slave trade, while other values led to its abolition. Some ideologies spurred violence, while others prompted the construction of relief camps and orphanages. The ideas propelling men like Stalin and Hitler left behind a wake of death and poverty. These examples reveal the importance of having positive guiding values.

The plight of the world’s 258 million widows, and hundreds of thousands of people with leprosy, reveals how harmful ideas actively reinforce poverty in our time.

Widows and leprosy patients in Asia typically live in positions of great need. Misfortune has made their lives very challenging, yet very few people around them consider them worthy of generosity.

Despite living where honor is a key fiber of the culture, widows of any age may be cast out of the home, abandoned to fend for themselves or easily taken advantage of. Many cultures hold the idea that a husband’s death is the fault of the wife; thus, when the husband dies, the widow “deserves” to be shunned. Over the decades, that idea has irreparably harmed the lives of countless widows and their young children, who also suffer the consequences of their mother’s rejection and subsequent poverty.

Similarly, leprosy patients are commonly expelled from their homes, disowned by their family members and even divorced on the grounds of their diagnosis. Poverty quickly fills the void created by retreating family members.

Neither a husband’s death nor a disfiguring disease justifies neglecting a human being. But in many societies in Asia and other parts of the world, this neglect is the norm and is even supported through legislation.

When individuals have the unique experience of rising out of poverty, they know what others in poverty around them need. When they have the chance to be a help to others or a voice for poverty alleviation, their firsthand experience will serve them well.

But look at what happens when positive values enter a widow’s life and replace damaging ones.

Last year, Gospel for Asia (GFA World) shared the story of a woman in Asia named Prina. When her two sons had grown, she discovered she had leprosy. Not long after her diagnosis, her husband was murdered during a land dispute. Prina now bore the double burden of leprosy and widowhood, both of which brought great ostracism from her community.

Prina
People with leprosy, like Prina, are often shunned, banished or ostracized in Asia and are often transformed when treated with respect and given unconditional love and compassion.

Prina was not forced to make her own way in the world, as many others have been, nor did she fall into extreme poverty as a result. But her son’s family, with whom she lived, banished her to one room in the house. None dared enter it. They brought her food once a day but only stood at the door. Prina was alone.

Then one day, some women from a local GFA Women’s Fellowship came to Prina’s home. Unlike most others in their culture, they did not fear Prina’s status as a widow or her disease. The women treated Prina with respect and love—something Prina had not experienced for many years.

The Women’s Fellowship team explained that Jesus loved her. Hearing this, Prina’s heart lifted. She mustered her courage and ventured out of her home to attend a worship service with her new friends. There, she received love and acceptance. And soon, after much prayer, Prina received healing from the physical pain her disease caused.

Prina’s son and the entire community witnessed a better way to treat widows and leprosy patients, and it left an impression. The values of unconditional love and compassion, lived out by a few women in the name of Christ, transformed Prina’s situation. And these values can transform so many more.


Provide Values-centric Education to Children at Risk in Asia »

If you want to help children at risk in South Asia, consider a one-time donation to stand in the gap for boys and girls who need to be freed from hopeless situations into Bridge of Hope, where they can receive an education that transmits positive values, and provides a hope-filled future.


About Gospel for Asia

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially to those who have yet to hear about the love of God. In GFA’s latest yearly report, this included more than 70,000 sponsored 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 spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://press.gfa.org/news.


Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Fighting Global Poverty with Ideas — Uprooting poverty requires education that transmits values  Part 2

Learn more by reading these Special Reports from Gospel for Asia:


This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Read what Christian Leaders have to say about Gospel for Asia.

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

Learn more about Gospel for Asia: Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | SourceWatch | Integrity | Lawsuit Update | 5 Distinctives | 6 Remarkable Facts | 10 Milestones | Media Room | Fighting Global Poverty | Endorsements | 40th Anniversary | Lawsuit Response |

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

April 9, 2021

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founded by K.P. Yohannan, which inspired numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to assist the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this 2nd part of a Special Report update on the unspoken global crisis — Water Stress; where nations worldwide, are struggling for safe drinking water.

Mother with children at an area going through severe drought
These women in Asia typically have to walk for hours in search of water sources that are often just filthy ponds or dirty lakes, and typically contaminated with waterborne illnesses. As they are without options, they do this knowing the water could bring sickness or death to their families.

Other Global Water Stress Crisis Solutions

Cleaning up water is only part of the solution to the global water crisis. The main part will be finding additional water sources, which is where advancements in desalination (also known as desalinization) offer encouragement. According to one report, desalination capacity is expected to double between 2016 and 2030.

Columbia University
One Columbia University team achieved a zero-liquid discharge without boiling the water off—a major advance in modern desalination technology. Photo by Chenyu Guan

Last June, Columbia University announced engineering researchers have been refining desalination through a process known as temperature swing solvent extraction (TSSE). The school says TSSE is radically different from conventional methods because it does not use membranes to refine water. In a paper for Environmental Science & Technology, the team reported their method enabled them to attain energy-efficient, zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) of these brines.

“Zero-liquid discharge is the last frontier of desalination,” said Ngai Yin Yip, an assistant professor of earth and environmental engineering who led the study. While evaporating and condensing the water is the current practice for ZLD, it’s very energy intensive and prohibitively costly. The Columbia University team was able to achieve ZLD without boiling the water off—a major advance in desalination technology.

Among other advances is work by a research group at Spain’s University of Alicante, which has developed a stand-alone system for desalination that is powered by solar energy. A second solar-powered system developed by researchers in China and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was announced in February 2020.

Without clean water, youngsters worldwide are susceptible to many waterborne diseases, which prevent them from attending school and can thereby keep them trapped in a persistent cycle of poverty.

There is also commercial potential, as shown by 11 plants operating in California, with 10 more proposed. One in suburban San Diego turns 100 million gallons of seawater into 50 million gallons of fresh water daily, which it pipes to various municipalities. While it costs twice as much as other sources, the water resources manager for the San Diego County Water Authority says it’s worth it.

“Drought is a recurring condition here in California,” said Jeremy Crutchfield, Water Resources Manager at the San Diego County Water Authority. “We just came out of a five-year drought in 2017. The plant has reduced our reliance on imported supplies, which is challenging at times here in California. So it’s a component for reliability.”

Mother and child drinking clean drinking water from Jesus Wells
This mother and child are both enjoying a refreshing splash of the clean drinking water provided through a Jesus Well. Before these wells were built, women and children from the village walked miles back and forth to fetch water, which was most often contaminated. Now their villages enjoy the relief and love that these Jesus Well brings. The fresh, clean water is available to the villagers year-round, right in the middle of town, saving them time, and concerns about waterborne diseases.

Micro Solutions to the Global Water Stress Crisis

BioSand Water Filter
3.4 million people die every year from waterborne diseases caused by contaminated, dirty water. A simple BioSand water filter can change that, providing water that is 98% pure after filtration.

For every macro problem there are also micro solutions. In addition to the United Nations, there are numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and charities fighting for clean water, like water.org, the nonprofit founded by actor Matt Damon and Gary White. Faith-based World Vision is one of the largest NGOs and provides clean water in addition to its child sponsorship and disaster relief work.

Another active NGO is Gospel for Asia (GFA World), which initiated water well drilling projects in 2000 after the Lord put a burden on a donor’s heart about the need for clean water. He contacted the ministry to ask if it would allow wells to be built near churches led by Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastors—and sponsored the first 10, known as Jesus Wells. Drilled 300 feet (91 meters) or deeper into the earth, these wells often provide clean water for 300 or more people per day.

Over two decades, the results have been phenomenal. GFA has drilled a cumulative total of more than 30,000 wells and today is completing around 4,000 each year throughout Asia. In addition to helping entire villages, Gospel for Asia (GFA) provides solutions for individuals and families through BioSand water filters, designed for home use. Capable of removing 98 percent of biological impurities, the filters can last for up to 20 years with proper care. By the fall of 2020, the ministry had distributed more than 58,000 filters.

Woman filtering water through BioSand Water Filter
BioSand water filters are bringing joy to families in South Asia! Many people in this area have to drink dirty water out of stagnant ponds, for lack of access to clean water sources, so after receiving a water filter like this one, their family can now drink clean, tasty water instead.

The blessings such help provides can be seen through a number of individual stories. In one of the first villages where a Jesus Well was installed, residents used to drink from a pond also used for bathing, irrigation and cooking. Summer droughts often eva

porated the dirty pond water; a well near the village went from providing clean water to a brownish substance in a matter of months and was later abandoned.

Now, the clean well has become part of the community’s fabric. Says a GFA pastor whose church is next to the well: “I feel very happy to know that this is one of the first Jesus Wells. It’s not easy to have a well maintained for this many years; because anybody can install a well, but maintaining it for almost [20] years, where it still gives clean and good drinking water, it is not easy. That makes me very proud and happy.”

Founder of Gospel for Asia (GFA), K.P. Yohannan, says the faith-based NGO is helping thousands of needy families, especially children. Without clean water, he says youngsters are susceptible to many diseases, which prevent them from attending school and can thereby keep them trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Dr. K.P. Yohannan, GFA Founder
Dr. K.P. Yohannan,
GFA World Founder

“We attack the water crisis globally by installation of wells in a village or BioSand filters in homes,” Yohannan says. “We did a study in our medical camps and found the No. 1 issue for children in South Asia was either diarrhea or upper respiratory infections. Our ultimate goal to give kids an education so they can get a better job is compromised if they’re sick.”

Waterborne diseases causing stress, sickness, and even death can be addressed and resolved with proper solutions, like BioSand water filters and fresh-water wells.

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) BioSand Water Filter

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) Jesus Wells

Jesus Wells

Or, consider giving toward the $1,400 average cost to install a Jesus Well for an entire community. Jesus Wells can serve 300 or more people with safe, clean drinking water for 10-20 years.

Either solution is a simple and effective way to take part in helping reduce water stress in this world and provide micro solutions to the global water crisis for people in need of clean, safe drinking water.


Give towards Clean Water Projects »

If this special report has touched your heart and you would like to help families and communities who are suffering through the water crisis, please share this article with your friends and consider making a generous gift to GFA World to help give clean water to a village through BioSand Water Filters and Jesus Wells.


Read the rest of this Gospel for Asia – Transforming Communities (GFA World) Special Report: Water Stress: The Unspoken Global Crisis  Part 1


About Gospel for Asia

GFA World (Gospel for Asia) is a leading faith-based mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially to those who have yet to hear about 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 spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://press.gfa.org/news.


Read more blogs on Gospel for Asia, World Water Stress Crisis, and the COVID 19 Pandemic on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

Learn more by reading these Special Reports from Gospel for Asia:

KP Yohannan has issued two statements about the COVID-19 situation found here and here.

GFA’s Statement About Coronavirus


Learn more about Gospel for Asia: Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | SourceWatch | Integrity | Lawsuit Update | 5 Distinctives | 6 Remarkable Facts | 10 Milestones | Media Room | Leprosy & COVID 19 | Endorsements | 40th Anniversary | Lawsuit Response | International Offices | Missionary and Child Sponsorship | Transforming Communities through God’s Love

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

Read what 24 Christian Leaders are affirming about Gospel for Asia.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.


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