WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) – Discussing the two different lives of Murali and Pranay, and the songs that carry the message of hope in the midst of despair found at Sunday School.
Two worlds collided when Murali and Pranay played together. Although neighbors, the 12-year-old boys lived completely different lives. As their friendship grew, Pranay learned of the struggles Murali’s family faced—struggles Pranay had never known. Pranay had known love and care from his father, a Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported pastor, from the earliest age. Hope and purpose permeated Pranay’s family life and he enjoyed close community at Sunday School.
For many children, Sunday School is a happy, safe place where they can escape the hardships of life. Loving teachers bring joy through songs and Bible stories, giving kids the hope of a bright future.
Nearby, and yet a world away, lived Murali. Murali’s father was an alcoholic, drinking away the small income that should have been provided for his family. He did not care that his wife and son went days without food. He did not care about them at all.
Grit Curtailed by Illness
Fed up with her husband’s neglect, Murali’s mother, Misha, decided to look for a job to support her son.
Ironically, as soon as Misha determined to provide for her family herself, she fell ill. Severe headaches plagued her daily, preventing her from working. She went to the doctor, but the medication he prescribed did nothing to abate her excruciating pain. Also finding no relief in her religious practices, Misha’s frustration grew. Her husband showed no concern. Only her son, Murali, seemed to care about her.
Pranay’s Happy Place – at Sunday School
Knowing his friend’s hardships, Pranay invited Murali to attend with him at Sunday School. Maybe he would experience some of the happiness of Pranay’s life.
The next Sunday, Murali walked through the doors of the Sunday School room arm-in-arm with his friend. He was amazed to see so many children happily singing and dancing. Joy filled the room. Murali thought some of it might come to him.
Hearing about Jesus during the Bible lesson fascinated Murali. He wanted to know more about this Man who loved everyone so much.
Coming back to Sunday School every week, Murali learned how to pray and read the Bible. He learned how to share about God’s love with others. His friendship with Pranay took on new dimensions as their interests and passions began to overlap.
Children at Sunday School take home the songs they learn; along with the message the songs convey.
Singing the Message of Hope in a Home of Despair
One day, while at home, Murali was so filled with joy that he began to sing one of the songs he learned at Sunday School.
“Jesus, grant me your peace and joy,” Murali sang.
Misha heard the words of the song through her pounding headache. The lyrics pierced her heart. For many days, she pondered the words in her mind. Peace. Joy.
Seeing the transformation in her son, with no apparent cause other than his new attendance at Sunday School, she was intrigued about going to church with him. She wanted to hear about this Jesus for herself.
Misha attended Pastor Aloke’s church with her son. Pastor Aloke, excited to see his neighbor at the service for the first time, approached her. He asked how he could help her.
Hearing about the troubles of Misha’s family and constant headaches, Pastor Aloke went before God asking for healing and peace for the troubled woman.
After a few days, Misha was shocked when her headaches completely went away!
After this transformation in her health, Misha attended services regularly with Murali. Both mother and son have found peace and joy in the Lord, which radiates in their faces. Pain and frustration have turned to laughing and hope.
“This [transformation] wouldn’t be possible without the love, care and wisdom from the Sunday School teacher and local pastor,” says Misha. “I am so thankful to the pastor and Sunday School teacher for teaching my son and [sharing the love of] Christ.”
New Life Grows and Spreads
The neighbors, once living in different worlds, now share a hope and a future. The transformation in Misha and Murali has not gone unnoticed by Murali’s father. He has gradually stopped drinking as much and attends worships services occasionally with his family. Family unity, which once seemed like an impossibility, is now within sight as mother and son walk with Jesus. Hope has dawned for this once broken family.
*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) – Discussing the lives of Dhumal, his mute son, Japa, and their experiences of loss, grief, distraught, and ultimately hope in God through Whom all things are possible.
Clapping, stomping and cheerful singing filled the Sunday school room. Children in brightly colored clothes moved together as Sunday school teachers led them in the motions to their favorite praise songs. Little Japa, only 5 years old, clapped and danced with the other children. But when the songs ended, it became clear again that something was wrong with Japa. When Japa first started attending Sunday school, he sat quietly during the lessons. In fact, he was always quiet, except during the songs—Japa’s favorite part of the class. It didn’t take long before his teachers realized that Japa was mute.
After his wife died, Dhumal did not know how to help his mute son. Father and son found hope through the prayers and encouragement of the local Gospel for Asia (GFA) Women’s Fellowship.
Women’s Fellowship Speaks Hope to Father, Mute Son
After learning about Japa’s condition, the Women’s Fellowship reached out to the little boy. Tenderness filled their hearts, and they discussed how to help him. They visited his home and found out that Japa lost his mother when he was only 1 year old. Japa’s grieving father, Dhumal, did not know how to help his little boy who was mute from birth.
The Women’s Fellowship diligently fasted and prayed for Japa’s healing. At the same time, they visited the little boy and his father, encouraging them from God’s Word. As Dhumal listened attentively to their words, hope started to bloom in his heart. He started to believe God could heal his son. But would He?
Following a month of fervent prayer, the impossible happened—Japa experienced complete healing! The little boy began talking. Dhumal listened in awe at the sound of his son’s voice. What was impossible for the father to give his son was possible for God. Grateful to the Lord, Dhumal committed his life to serving the God of healing.
Father and son now attend worship services together, lifting their voices side by side to Jesus, the Great Healer and giver of hope.
Singing is still Japa’s favorite part of Sunday school, but he now also participates in the lessons with the other children, no longer watching in silence.
*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) – Discussing the life of a young girl named Naija who was filled with anger and bitterness throughout her youth, but after attending a Sunday School program (Vacation Bible School) she embraced God’s message of love and forgiveness.
Naija’s family lived in a small remote village that was Christian in name only. She did not know Jesus personally, nor did her family attend church. “Christian” was just a word without meaning to Naija. Sunday School, VBS and Bible stories—so familiar to most Christian kids—were completely foreign to Naija.
Naija experienced the forgiveness of Jesus at VBS—a forgiveness she now extends to others.
Naija grumbled as she worked in the field. All her friends were hanging out and having fun during their school holiday, but, as the oldest of eight children, she had to work to help support the family. Her grumbling fueled the growing anger in her heart. Life was so unfair.
Once home for the day, Naija released her anger toward her parents, complaining about the hardness of her life. She knew how her parents would respond—scolding or possibly even a beating—but she couldn’t hold her frustrations in.
Being the eldest in her family was a burden Naija resented. All throughout her childhood, she missed out on fun with friends, while she watched her siblings or worked in the fields. By the time she was 13 years old, Naija hated her life and felt unloved and uncared for.
Standing at the Crossroads of Love and Hate
School was Naija’s escape from family responsibilities. She started lying to her parents, saying she had to stay at school longer to work on projects, while she was really having fun with friends. She never thought of the moral implications of her actions. In fact, being unchurched, she never thought about spiritual things at all.
Then, one day, one of her classmates invited her to a Vacation Bible School organized by a congregation supported by Gospel for Asia (GFA). Naija was hesitant, but her friend pleaded until Naija finally gave in.
For three days, Naija sang songs that praised God and heard Bible stories about Jesus. It was a turning point in her life. Her encounters with the Word of God challenged her. Hearing teaching on the Bible for the first time, she was gripped by the message of love and forgiveness. She was excited by what she heard. Happiness bloomed in her heart.
After VBS ended, Naija continued to think about what she learned. She would hum the songs she learned as she went about her daily tasks. Her sadness about life gradually faded away. She began attending Sunday School at the church, stoking the flames started at VBS.
Forgiveness Replaces Bitterness After VBS / Sunday School
At Sunday School, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported pastor Karmjit, who had also overseen the VBS Naija attended, saw the need to teach the teenagers more specifically. He started meeting with the teenagers of his congregation, helping them know the saving love of Jesus more clearly. During these meetings, Naija opened up about her struggles to the pastor, sharing how meaningless her life felt and how angry she was toward her parents. She felt they were ruining her life.
Through the insight of the Holy Spirit, Pastor Karmjit encouraged Naija to forgive her parents for the hurts she felt and to trust Jesus with her life. Naija recognized the damage unforgiveness had brought to her heart. Convicted within of her sin, she confessed to the Lord with a broken heart. Naija determined to forgive her parents just as God had forgiven her.
This caused a great change in Naija’s life. Joy flooded the deep places in her heart and overflowed to those around her.
Publicly demonstrating her faith in the Lord, Naija is now an active member of the local body of believers. She hopes the Lord will use her life to bring faith to her parents and siblings. Her dream is to one day worship together, side-by-side with those whom she once blamed—those whom she now lives with Christ’s love.
*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) Part#3 Special Report on the aftermath of acute gender imbalance: Discussing the horrendous reality of 100 million missing women worldwide.
A Little Girl’s Future Transformed
A beautiful story from Gospel for Asia’s archives tells about the day a cook at a Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Bridge of Hope center noticed an elderly woman begging on the street. The cook was distressed because the older woman had a little girl, filthy and dressed in rags, in tow.
Knowing that adult beggars will often use children as bait to receive monies, then pocket the funds and do nothing for the child, the cook challenged the older woman, “Why are you exploiting this child?”
To the cook’s surprise, the older woman broke into tears and wept.
Daya, pictured at age 8 and age 15. Once among beggars in the street, she is now a thriving teen finding her place in this world and walking in her faith.
She wasn’t a professional beggar at all, but the grandmother of the little girl, Daya, who had been abandoned by both her mother and father. Without income and desperate, the grandmother had begun begging at bus stops, train stations and on the streets. With a change of heart, the cook invited the grandmother to enroll Daya in the Bridge of Hope center, which was in a building wedged between a railway station and a slum, conveniently available to children without a future.
The little girl was enrolled in the center but was so filthy that other parents complained. The Bridge of Hope staff conducted an intensive scrub session to relieve the child of dirt and germs and to replace the same filthy clothes she wore each day with clean clothes. They introduced her to soap and taught her to use it when she washed.
As the report states, “Daya’s future hung in the balance. If rejected from the Bridge of Hope center, she would return to the streets as one of the hundreds of thousands of child beggars in Asia. At some point, she would likely join the 20 to 30 million other boys and girls who are exploited as child laborers.”
The staff was determined to see that Daya thrived in Bridge of Hope, and she grew up to be an educated young woman. However, millions of other children never get that chance.
In a fact sheet on girls’ education, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) explains:
Some 31 million girls of primary-school age are not in school. Seventeen million of these are expected to never enter school.
Some 34 million female adolescents are missing from secondary schools, which often offer vocational skills that are essential for procuring future jobs.
Two-thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are female.
Thousands of these children can’t go to school because they are caught in bonded labor.
“It is doubtful they’ve ever held a toothbrush or a bar of soap; they’ve probably never eaten an ice-cream cone or cradled a doll,” Gospel for Asia (GFA) states. “The child laborers of Asia toil in fireworks, carpet and match factories; quarries and coal mines; rice fields, tea plantations and pastures; and even brothels. Because they are exposed to dust, toxic fumes, pesticides and disease, their health is compromised, and their bodies can be crippled from carrying heavy weights.”
Worse still, these children could be entrapped in prostitution.
These young women are prostitutes in the red-light district; some most likely entrapped since childhood.
Prostitution is not illegal in India so the chances of victimization are mind-blowing. In addition, many impoverished families sell their daughters to opportunists who promise a better life for their children.
ABC News reports, “Aid organizations estimate that 20 to 65 million Indians have already passed through the hands of human traffickers at one point in their lives. Ninety percent of them remain within India’s national borders, and the majority are female and under the age of 18.”
One social worker, Palavi, explained, “Human trafficking works because the victims are afraid and cannot communicate. … Many of them have children who live in constant danger of also being sold or sexually abused. They grow up under the beds where their mothers were robbed of their dignity.”
When census data is gathered, these women, mothers and little girls are not in their villages, local communities or urban settlements. They are hidden by sex slave traders (but made available to the men who seek them out).
Let me ask again the question Jesus asked Simon the Pharisee, “Do you see this woman (or child, or little girl or teenager)?”
I have a granddaughter named Eliana who is 10 years old. Four mornings a week, I pick up Eliana and her brother, Nehemiah (8), to drive them to school. Their younger sister, Anelise (5), is picked up by the preschool bus. My driving effort is to help out their mother, who was married to our son Jeremy Mains. Our son, her husband and the children’s father, died five years ago at age 42 of blastic mantle cell lymphoma.
Angela, my daughter-in-law, is raising the children by herself while holding a full-time job as the director of a local community-outreach organization. She has just completed her dissertation and received a doctorate in adult education. Nevertheless, even with remarkable mothers, studies show that children raised without fathers are vulnerable. So my husband and I live close, are on call when babysitters fall through and try to do a lot of one-on-ones with our grandchildren.
Though I watch these grandchildren grow with an attentive heart, I am certain my granddaughter Eliana will never worry about entering bonded labor or be forced to go begging on the streets. It is impossible for me, even for the sake of achieving a frightening empathy, to impose through my imagination the horror of the lives of some 20 to 65 million trafficked females on these precious little girls I love.
These Bridge of Hope students look happy during class time at GFA’s Bridge of Hope program. Education can protect a girl from exploitation—and redirect her future. This is a primary solution to begin changing the statistics of 100 million missing women.
Education as a Deterrent
Education can protect a girl from exploitation—and redirect her future. An educated girl can read. She can find work. She can get training to become a teacher, a doctor or a policewoman, for instance. She can tutor other children. A social system begins to change slowly, very slowly, one educated girl by one educated girl.
The latest statistics regarding GFA’s supported work with women in 2018 include:
290,753
women received free health care training
8,812
sewing machines distributed as a means to obtain work as a seamstress
61,880
illiterate women learned to read and write
11,000+
women desperate for jobs received vocational training
The World Bank stresses that girls’ education goes beyond getting into school. It is also about ensuring they learn and feel safe in school. One research study in Haiti indicated, “One in three Haitian women (ages 15 to 49) has experienced physical and/or sexual violence, and that of women who received money for sex before turning 18 years old, 27 percent reported schools to be the most common location for solicitation.”
What Can We Do? How Can We Conquer the Horrific 100 Million Missing Women Statistic?
What can we—those of us who have hearts that beat with concern about the unbelievable evils of this world—do about the 100 million missing women worldwide who face discrimination and violence? How can anyone make a dent in a problem with such magnified proportionality? How can that horrific statistic—100 million missing women—be conquered, overcome, defeated, reduced or even eliminated?
Well, there are some things we can do, small as they seem, but mighty nevertheless in their possibility:
We can sponsor girls (and boys) so they get educated through programs like GFA’s Bridge of Hope Program. And if $35 a month is too much for you (and it is for some compassionate people), invite your small group, Sunday School class, men’s softball league, neighborhood coffee-klatch or members of your extended family to pool funds.
Think about this question: Why do more people not see this inequality and neglect, not grieve for the 100 million missing women and girls who have experienced such hardships and take action to be part of the solution? Then read the book of Luke and think about the societal shift that begins with women’s encounters with Jesus.
Remind yourself of Christ’s question: “Do you see this woman?” Write it out on a card, and then use it as a bookmark in the books you read or paste it on your bathroom mirror. Write out a prayer, like the one I included in the beginning of this article, but adapt it to this horrific dilemma: Lord, what do You want me to do about the masses of women? And if you are not a praying person, send some discontented energy into the atmosphere any way you feel fit. Just don’t forget.
Let us conclude by going back to Jesus, except now He is not eating at the table of the VIPs. He is bloody, tortured, hanging from a cross and nearing death. The Gospel of John describes the inhumanity of the Roman soldiers and the crowds standing beneath the cross.
“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”
Concern for the widow. Concern for the women.
“Look at this woman. Do you now see your mother?”
So, let us also be about this work in the world.
Oh, Lord, help us to care for every human with hearts that beat like Your heart beats for them. And help us, please help us, no matter our gender, to see the women.
Whoever dreamed up the idea of gender reveals was onto something fun. Have you seen them on social media? Sometimes, they’re baby shower games or scavenger hunts that bring the participants ever closer to finding out the big secret. Sometimes, they’re clever videos. One of the most bittersweet examples was for a military wife whose husband had been killed in action before meeting his new child. His fellow soldiers made a video of the big reveal with a shower of pink tissue paper and confetti descending as they cheered for the new baby girl.
Gender reveals have surprise endings by nature: something pink or something blue. In America, we tend to cheer for girls and boys, alike. In parts of Asia, the happiness scale dips heavily in favor of boys. Many girls never have confetti, applause or even a chance at life beyond the earliest days of protection in their mother’s tummy.
Selective Abortion Accounts for an Untold Number of Missing Girls
Would you say that you’re undecided about whether or not gendercide is okay? Certainly, the answer is, “No!” How about eugenics? More than one notorious, historical figure has proclaimed that culling people they believed were bad for society was a good thing for all. But there is a direct connection between abortion, gendercide and eugenics. No matter where you stand on the vitriolic issue of abortion, one undeniable truth exists: when a child is aborted because of its gender, that abortion is gendercide.
In many parts of Asia, gendercide is real and it’s not uncommon. Along with improved access to prenatal care comes one of the most common procedures that any pregnant woman undergoes. But the ultrasound that so many mothers and fathers eagerly await can quickly turn into a death sentence if it doesn’t reveal a boy.
It’s difficult to separate the issue of choice from that of violence against women when choice is used to exterminate the life of a girl child specifically because she is female. Even worse, if that’s possible, is the fact that the choice is usually not their own. Heartbroken women are forced into abortions by aggressive and abusive family members. What happens in truth is often much different from what should happen on paper.
Sex Selection Continues After Babies are Born
If you have read this far, you might already be in turmoil. There is more. Gendercide isn’t just practiced during pregnancy. Especially in poorer parts of Asia, it continues after birth. An unwanted girl child isn’t inherently safe just because she managed to make it into the world. Some people have no compunction about terminating the life of a precious little girl even after they have seen her face, held her and heard those first sweet baby sounds.
Unimaginably, some girls approaching school age are killed because they are both female and unwanted. The BBC reported in 2011 that there are millions of missing girls. According to The Atlantic, girls 5 years old and under are killed in abusive homes as an extension of gender selection, violence against women, and general contempt for the lives of females of any age.
Infanticide, which specifically is killing a child after birth, isn’t new, and it isn’t unique to South Asia, but it is likely underreported. Societies the world over have expressed a fondness for boys. The most frequently cited reasoning is to carry on the family name.
The World Bank expands on the terrible, regrettable practice in their report, Violence Against Women and Girls: Lessons From South Asia. They found that infanticide is the “most direct postnatal driver of excess female child mortality” throughout South Asia. Sadly, the mindset that girls are less than boys and that violence against girls is tolerable persists from birth until death, oftentimes an early death.
For girls who survive infanthood, laws forbid violence against women. That sounds like a step in the right direction. But the realities lie elsewhere, not within those pages.
In major cities and small villages across Asia, women and girls are often at a very literal, daily risk of being attacked, raped and killed. The law does little to help, even when it does manage to overcome its apathy toward those who harm women. Sometimes, attackers end the lives of their victims. But sometimes, a girl’s family plays an equally heinous role in her untimely end.
It doesn’t take much search time to find news story after news story of girls who were raped by a man or group of men, and then beaten or killed by her parents or extended family for bringing their so-called shame back to their family’s threshold. In some places and in some families, just being a girl must feel like a crime.
Gendercide Has Far-Reaching Effects
If you wonder how anyone could kill a child, regardless of whether or not they’ve been born, you’re in good company. But beyond the most obvious terror of killing girls and girl babies, the longstanding practice has far-reaching, damaging effects to a society.
According to Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques (INED), the proportion of boys born in Asia “is abnormally high because couples practice sex-selective abortion.” These imbalanced birth rates affect marriages and population growth long into the future.
Although many Asian families treasure their little girls as much as they do boys, girls come at a cost. That cost is the most common reasoning behind gendercide.
A boy will grow up, marry, have children of his own, and will always contribute to the welfare of the family that raised him. For girls, it’s different. Girls are married off. The families that raise them, feed them and clothe them will eventually need a dowry just to watch them leave for their husband’s home. Dowries were largely outlawed decades ago, but the traditional practice is still observed.
Girls are expensive and then they leave. Boys are also expensive, but they’re an investment that has the potential to pay off later. It’s a very sad truth that’s difficult to leave in the past.
INED explains that the girl/boy imbalance in Asia also has a practical problem. It affects the way men find the wives who will join their family and bear the next generation.
With so many girl babies killed, fewer and fewer women are available to marry later. Some men must find wives elsewhere, which accounts for a growing female migration trend. And some men wait until they’re older to find a wife and marry, which, in an ironic twist, can exacerbate the so-called problem of having daughters.
Men play the deciding role in the sex of their children. The older a man is when he fathers a child, the greater his chance of fathering a daughter. According to Psychology Today, the likelihood of older men having fewer sons is well-documented. Two-thirds of girls, they explain, are born to parents over the age of 40. Every year, a man’s chance of having a son decreases by 1 percent. And so the cycle grows as it continues.
Gendercide is violence against women. There are no two ways around it. In families where women of all ages are not uniformly treasured as precious children of God, but sometimes merely tolerated, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Killing a girl child who can run and skip and laugh is bound to be more difficult than aborting a female baby who hasn’t taken her first breath. But both practices have equally disastrous and heartbreaking consequences for the child, her family and society.
For girls who are allowed to live, life may become harder than anyone could ever deserve. Some girls are put to work before they’re old enough to enter school. Again, laws may forbid child labor, but that doesn’t mean it’s uncommon. Many surviving girls are underfed and neglected, with boys getting a better share of food, care and education. Marriage for girls may come at an unusually young age. Then she takes on her role as the extremely hopeful mother of precious boys, and probably also girls whose fates lie in someone else’s hands.
Gender reveal games and parties almost seem like a silly decadence when judged alongside the plight and even terror of abused women and girls in Asia. But they’re not. Every child God creates is precious in his sight, just like the nursery song taught to us in Sunday School. Every baby deserves confetti and a celebration just because they exist. Every girl deserves parents who protect and care about her. Every woman deserves a warm, loving family where she is safe from discrimination and abuse.
Someone must help the women and girls in Asia. Gospel for Asia (GFA) supports the devoted workers who are on the job.
Missionaries, pastors and everyday people reach out to their communities with programs that offer the resources they desperately need. Through kindness and generosity of spirit, they educate whole communities. Through earnest compassion, they share the love of God with women who may never have known any life besides one of pain and abuse.
Gospel for Asia (GFA) supports literacy training, health care education, Bridge of Hope programs for children, and tools that help women earn much-needed income, which helps communities learn to value women, and helps women to understand that they are valuable.
Read more articles on Patheos about gendercide: 123
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Gospel for Asia (GFA), Wills Point, Texas, Special Report 4/4 on a Christ-like response to the global clean water crisis.
What Scripture Has to Say About Water
It is intriguing, in light of the fact that 71 percent of our Earth is covered by water, that Scripture has a great deal to say on the topic. One commentator suggests that water is mentioned 722 times in the Bible. This total is less than the mentions of God, Jesus, heaven or love, but more than faith, hope, prayer or worship. In Genesis it says: “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters The name of the first is Pishon … The name of the second river is the Gihon … The name of the third river is the Tigris … And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”
For those of us with a Sunday School background, the stories dealing with water are memorable: Moses parting the Red Sea as the children of Israel fled the pursuing chariots of the Egyptians. Moses striking the rock at Horeb so that water flowed in the wilderness to satisfy the thirst of the people and of their flocks.
Refugees waiting to get water and satisfy their thirst in a camp in Dadaab, Somalia.
Wells are central stages for story-telling dramas: Abraham’s servant finds a bride for Isaac after praying near a well, “Oh, Lord God of my master, Abraham, give me success today and show kindness to my master.” Jesus declares His spiritual authority to a Samaritan woman by a well. “Will you give me a drink?” He asks, to begin a dialogue with her, and then eventually He declares, “But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, NIV).
Rivers are forded, oases with pools satisfy weary nomads and their families, and always, over and over, water is used as an example of God’s blessing. “And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones. And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail” (Isaiah 58:11, NASB).
Water is used as an example of the sacramental, where the holy mixes mysteriously with the physical. People flock to John the Baptist in the wilderness to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11, NIV).
The heavens open after Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends in the bodily form of a dove, and a voice is heard declaring, “You are My beloved Son; in you I am well-pleased” (Luke 3:22, NKJV).
Water is a symbol of cleansing, not only in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense. Jesus walks on the water. He teaches by the shores of the seas. Some of His disciples are fishermen who gained their livelihood from waters’ depths. In the last chapters of Revelation, which many theologians feel is a prophetic picture of Eden being restored again, these words bring the water theme to a close. Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Bible, the first verse: “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
A Christ-like Response to the Global Clean Water Crisis
It is a comfort, to know the fragility of our water sources around the globe is taken into account. Because of community involvement and the compassion of pastors from Believers Eastern Church and other affiliate organizations, Dr. K.P. Yohannan spearheaded the “Jesus Well” project among some of the neediest regions in India, even small villages across Asia, spanning multiple Asian nations. In 2016 alone, Gospel for Asia was able to help provide 6,822 wells. That is 6,822 sources of clean, fresh drinking water. Gospel for Asia (GFA) supporters around the world have allowed the rate of installation of Jesus Wells to continue and to remain consistent, with tens of thousands of wells drilled and constructed in the past several years. Now, the Jesus Well project is one of the largest clean water initiatives in the world.
A Jesus Well is being drilled next to a church building. This is the first well dug in the village.
Here, there are no broken wells laying waste and abandoned because well-meaning but neglectful charities dug wells that villagers could not maintain or repair. Jesus Wells are maintained in good repair by Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported local pastors. In fact, wherever possible, the wells are dug near local churches, not simply so that they will be maintained, but so that the beneficiaries will recognize that our love for them is genuine, because everyone is able to drink freely—no matter their income or social background.
Digging a Jesus Well supports the local economy, because local labor and materials are used to drill the wells. This keeps costs low, often even seven times lower than wells installed by other organizations.
Though simple in construction, BioSand water filters are easy to use and provide water that is 98 percent pure.
In regions where water might be available, but it’s just not safe to drink, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers provide BioSand water filters. These simple structures—locally built from concrete, sand and rocks—filter the water to remove impurities, providing water for drinking and cooking that is 98 percent pure. In 2016, Gospel for Asia (GFA) provided 14,886 BioSand water filters for families and individuals.
Gospel for Asia published a story in 2016 that shared the paradox faced by four villages in one region of South Asia. These communities faced severe water shortage during the hot, summer months, but in the rainy monsoon season their water sources were contaminated by chemicals. Their situation was an echo back to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem: “Not a drop to drink.” Local congregations in the region were concerned about the people and their need for clean water, and in 2014, Gospel for Asia (GFA) helped drill four Jesus Wells to provide safe, pure water for these villages. By God’s grace, there are now more than 5,000 people who benefit from these wells!
A woman pumps water from a Jesus Well.
A Jesus Well Transformed Salil’s Family
Salil (pictured) lives in a northeastern region of Asia with his wife and three children.
The situation drove them even deeper into poverty as their illnesses kept them from work, and their meager income was not adequate to provide for the medicines they needed—let alone their other essential needs. Salil did everything he could think of to provide for his family, but nothing he did was adequate.
How appropriate: “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward” (Matthew 10:42, NIV). Those who receive are blessed, and those who give are blessed. The accompanying video will give you a feel for just what that means.
So, our Blue Planet spins in space, obedient to its determined orbit. Its surface is covered by 71 percent water. So far, there has been no confirmed verification of liquid water existing on any other planet in our solar system. As yet, not a single drop of water has been detected anywhere in interstellar space, and scientists have determined that only a planet of the right mass, the right chemical composition and the right location can support liquid water. Let us remember that it is good. It is very good.
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Give Towards Clean Water Projects
You can provide life-saving water to people in Asia suffering from the global clean water crisis through Jesus Wells and BioSand water filters, and help support ongoing maintenance of these clean water projects.
The wedding guests have gathered in great anticipation; the ceremony to be performed today has been long awaited. The orchestra begins to play an anthem, and the choir rises in proper precision. The bridegroom and his attendants gather in front of the chancel. One little saint, her flowered hat bobbing, leans to her companion and whispers, “Isn’t he handsome?” The response is agreement, “My yes. The handsomest.”
One by one, the bridesmaids, heralds of the nuptials, begin to stride in measured patterns. Several flower girls sow rose petals upon the white, unmarked aisle cloth. The sound of the organ rises, a joyous announcement that the bride is coming. Everyone stands and strains to get a proper glimpse of the beauty—then a horrible gasp explodes from the congregation. This is a bride like no other.
In she stumbles—something terrible has happened! One leg is twisted; she limps pronouncedly. The wedding garment is tattered and muddy; great rents in the dress leave her scarcely modest. Black bruises can be seen welting her bare arms; the bride’s nose is bloody. An eye is swollen, yellow and purple in its discoloration. Patches of hair look as if they had actually been pulled from her scalp.
Fumbling over the keys, the organist begins again after his shocked pause. The attendants cast down their eyes. The congregation mourns silently. Surely the Bridegroom deserved better than this! That handsome Prince who has kept himself faithful to his love should find consummation with the most beautiful of women—not this. His bride, the Church, had been fighting again.
Karen Mains writes for Gospel for Asia about the Bride of Christ brawling again and again.
I wrote this story, shamelessly copying my husband’s sermon idea, and used it in a book I wrote on forgiveness. Last week, a friend asked me in which book I had used this illustration.
“Key to a Loving Heart,” I informed her.
“That’s such a powerful picture,” she replied.
So I looked it up, and it is a powerful allegory. Here, I give proper credit to my creative husband (since I didn’t give him credit for the story in the book!)
I am a child of the American church. My early memories are intertwined with Sunday school teachers, morning worship services, fellowship hours, youth groups, choir practices, evening evangelistic efforts, midweek prayer meetings, summer Bible camps. I was raised in the church, and much of adult life has been spent serving the church. I am all too aware of church splits, minor fracases, non-amicable partings, ecclesiastical skirmishes. In fact, last Sunday after church, someone mentioned an acquaintance who had dropped his attendance.
“Church hurt somewhere in the past,” was the diagnosis.
The Church corporate, that household of the living God, has too often formed itself into a series of the fortified camps, entrenched not against the enemy without but against the enemy within. Cold, silent wars or outright major offensives—it doesn’t matter which, hostilities are occurring. Word bombardments are being unleashed. Slaughter is havocking the board meeting. Bloodshed is launched in the women’s ministries. The Bride is brawling again.
Why? Why are so many of our churches filled with this bitterness? Why is it impossible to love those members of our own church families? Here in the States and in churches across the world, the potential for household fisticuffs seems all too eminent.
“Defending the doctrine!” we respond. “Keeping the faith pure! Protecting the truth against liberalism! Guarding the traditions against parochialism!”
No matter the rationalizations we feebly offer, I think the underlying reason for our warring has been succinctly defined by the apostle James. He writes an exposition that could practically be entitled, “On Brawling Brides:”
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people!” —James 4:1-4a
The reason for our church disputes is the raging passion of our own hearts. If we really loved one another, we would find the grace to agree to disagree.
“Now, James,” I hear some of us amending, “things are not really so bad. We have never actually killed a church member.” We might, at this point, remind ourselves of Christ’s discussion on the sixth commandment:
“You have heard that it was said to the people of old, ‘You shall not murder; and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” —Matthew 5:22–24
Whoa! this is an extraordinary warning. In other words, if you are battering the Bride, if you are tearing her garments, if you are pulling out her hair, if you are kicking her in the knees, you are in danger of what? Divine judgment. Correction and approbation by leadership councils. Hell fire. Wow! Can we possibly surmise that Christ used this extreme language of caution because it was of paramount importance to Him? Yes, I think we can.
All through Church history, there have been self-appointed heresy hunters. They do extraordinary damage to the church. We have personal experience with them as our own ministry has come under attack by some folk of this ilk. My response has always been to be open to their criticism, but to always go to the Holy Spirit and to ask Him to teach me where I am in the wrong. Generally, a loving God, now that He has my attention through these unkind critiques, will say, “No. No, Karen. That’s not what you have to worry about. I’m only using this slander to draw your attention to this.” “This” is always a truth about my own behavior that I’ve been avoiding.
What I’ve learned about the self-appointed heresy hunters throughout the years is that, without exception, they violate this Matthew 5 passage. They pass judgment, they are angry against their brothers and sisters, they verbally insult others they dislike, they write incriminating half-truths—now they use the Internet to “kill.” And they do great damage. And they are going to have to face a Bridegroom one day, standing blazing and beautiful and bold, asking, “Why have you beaten and tortured and raped my Bride?” Sometimes I feel terror in my heart for these accusers. Particularly, I feel terror for their offspring. One of the men in our past, the head of a media ministry that he leveraged to beat up other Christians—my husband and myself included—died of cancer, totally alienated from his children and grandchildren. God have mercy.
“Why have you beaten and tortured and raped my Bride?”
It behooves all of us to watch our attitude toward our Christian brothers and sisters. Some of us need to read the Matthew passage from chapter 5 every day and pray that Christ’s caution will take root in our souls. We can do this.
One day the Bride will walk that long aisle into eternity where she will meet her Bridegroom, King Jesus. I am certain she will move in dignity, unblemished, limping no longer, shod in slippers of satin. Her hair will flow, silky from brushing, healthy and shining in the sun. Perhaps she will be adorned in white robes of righteousness, in sacred vestments, in costly garments. For certain, one day, she will be present to the One who loves her, beautiful and adored, unspotted in her innocence. She will be a fitting love for the Bridegroom whose name is Faithful and True.
Let us make certain that we all are on the wedding guest list.
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On April 29, 2017, deadly tornados struck just a few miles away from Gospel for Asia’s U.S. headquarters in Wills Point, Texas. The GFA campus lost power for three days, but we were deeply grateful to be otherwise untouched by the twisters. However, our neighboring communities were reeling from the devastation. Homes had been torn off their foundations; a car dealership was in shambles—and so were many lives.
Local churches stepped up and organized groups of people to help clear rubble from broken homes and salvage whatever belongings could be found. Gospel for Asia (GFA) staff members quickly partnered with those churches and found ways to help serve the affected communities.
Gospel for Asia staff member helps clean up homes after a tornado devastated a nearby community.
I went with one group of helpers to a neighborhood that would have been sheltered in a beautiful wood just days prior. But now the trees were splintered, and logs and branches sprawled across lawns, cars, pools and bedrooms. The furry of the storm was difficult to fathom.
I talked with tearful home owners who had to start afresh overnight. I walked through pastures and retrieved photographs, clothing, books and even a portion of a social security card.
In a storm, suddenly everything in a person’s life is laid bare and exposed.
It was a sobering experience. Tragedy had struck, but in the midst of it, I heard beautiful stories of God’s protection over the residents of the homes I helped clear away.
One father told me he arrived at a shelter just after his living room door flew through his house, crossing the hallway he had just used. At another site, a family member told me how the house had been lifted off its foundation, and the wife flew out and landed a few hundred feet away—she survived, as did her husband. Both these families were Christ followers, and they testified that God worked miracles in the midst of their storm.
As Daniel Yohannan, vice president of Gospel for Asia, wrote, gratitude works wonders in our hearts, no matter what our circumstances.
There was such love being poured out from stranger to stranger. Prayers were offered, hugs were shared, meals were provided, sweat and labor was spent tearing out soaked drywall and removing glass, stones and trees from roofless homes.
Why were strangers so eager to help? Because of compassion. And for those who belonged to neighboring churches, it was because of Christ’s compassion.
When the horrific earthquakes in Nepal in 2015 killed more than 8,000 people in four nations, GFA-supported Compassion Services teams mobilized right away to organize relief work, rescue victims and care for the grieving. They stayed to help long after the news of the earthquake left the media.
A Gospel for Asia-supported Compassion Services team provides aid to villagers in Nepal after two earthquakes shook the country.
Like the local churches in Texas who helped their tornado-victim neighbors, these workers in Nepal ministered God’s love and mercy to people in their time of great need.
More recently, episodes of flooding in Assam, India, during 2017 and other severe floods in Sri Lanka prompted Compassion Services teams to rally together to aid their communities. Although many of the relief workers were affected by the flooding as well, they set aside their own needs and worked together to bring food and shelter to many villages.
I love these Compassion Services teams. They are used by God to save lives and bring hope into desperate situations, yet they themselves are simple human beings. They may be local pastors, students in a seminary, Sunday School teachers or Bridge of Hope staff. But when disaster strikes, they become vessels of peace and comfort during a fierce storm.
Disaster relief is one of the four ministries supported through Gospel for Asia’s Compassion Services fund. The other areas of ministry—Leprosy Ministry, Slum Ministry and Medical Ministry—hold a similar purpose: giving those who are in need the chance to experience God’s provision and care.
Do you have a story you’d like to share of experiencing a natural disaster or helping provide relief and help to those in need? Please share those stories with us in the comments below!
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If the greatest misunderstanding about leprosy is believing that it is a highly contagious disease, the second is misunderstanding its pain.
In fact, leprosy is highly treatable and curable, and nerve damage can be entirely avoided. Early treatment, in other words, limits leprosy to a minor skin disease. Even in people with advanced stages of leprosy, the likelihood of others contracting the condition is minimal at best.
As to the matter of pain, the nature of the leprosy bacteria is that it seeks primarily the cooler parts of the human body: the skin and the extremities. Once there, it can cause unsightly discolored lesions and nerve damage. The nerve damage compounds the damage by making the injuries, bruises, cuts and sores imperceptible to the victim. That unrecognized damage leads to more sores and, often, the eventual loss of fingers and toes.
Like many other diseases, the longer the disease is untreated, the greater the internal pain. But that is not the worst pain someone infected with leprosy a bears.
Leprosy, in its various forms and manifestations, has been viewed as an abomination in every culture in which it exists for more than the millennia. The common fear of contagion and the response to the repulsion of the external damage have typically cut off people with leprosy from society to spend the rest of their lives dealing with the pain and misery of rejection, shame and loneliness.
The unrealistic perception of the otherwise healthy population imposes medically irrational isolation on victims of leprosy. The path to the pain of loneliness looks something like this:
Leprosy: The Path to Pain (GFA)
It is part of the human condition to fear the unknown – and to fear that which is not visually appealing. Leprosy presents both conditions. Therefore, the uniformed response is rejection at the family and communal levels.
The scope of rejection, in fact, goes far beyond, as evidenced by the fact that World Leprosy Day is necessary to raise awareness of the disease. Our human nature, left untransformed, doesn’t even want to think about it.
In some developing nations of Africa and Asia, the misunderstanding of leprosy runs deep. Most, but not all, cases of leprosy appear in the poorest of communities, so victims may already be objects of derision living in slums and already isolated from the community at large. But people with leprosy are rejected by their own equally impoverished families and friends.
“While this ancient disease may be largely forgotten in many parts of the world, it’s an everyday reality for many in Asia,” said Dr. KP Yohannan, Gospel for Asia founder.
Left to fend for themselves, they are relegated to leper colonies where they can be amongst “their own,” often without treatment and without apparent hope. This is the pain of leprosy. Life separated from family and former friends. Life where the other residents bear the same “shameful” marks and disease. Life where all you see is the unsightly and loathsome ravages that others don’t want to see. Life in the pain of despair.
Through national missionaries and aid workers, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported leprosy ministry provides practical relief services to these victims, including food distribution, medical aid, health and hygiene awareness programs, adult education and tuition centers for children.
The ministry also offers Sunday school and fellowship groups to those forced to live in leprosy colonies, giving sufferers the opportunity to hear about Jesus’ unconditional love for them.
During the week surrounding World Leprosy Day, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported missionaries demonstrate Christ’s love through special one-day programs. Beyond their routine care for these leprosy patients, they also clean leprosy colonies and individual patient homes. Doctors will also visit the colonies to provide much-needed medical care. In addition, missionary teams will provide patients with gifts, such as blankets, shoes and goats, which can be used for individual or community income-producing opportunities.”
Prayer Point: Pray that people with leprosy will see the unconditional love of Jesus, as demonstrated to them by GFA-supported national workers.
Jagat isn’t a super hero. He isn’t a genius. In fact, he dropped out of school early. Yet he is a mighty man of God. Through him flows the Spirit of the Living God, and within him dwells the One who gives all wisdom and strength. But it wasn’t always this way.
Jagat is a Gospel for Asia-supported national missionary. Because of Jagat’s willingness to be used by God, many people in South Asia have started intimate relationships with Jesus. But each one of their glory-filled stories exists because of Jagat’s own story of finding Jesus.
Pastor Jagat and his family. Jagat’s life took a dramatic turn from drugs and irresponsibility to serving God as a Gospel for Asia-supported missionary.
Form of Godliness Fades Away
Jagat grew up in a Christian home, but he had many of the characteristics James 3 warns against. He held a form of godliness—he obediently followed his family to church services, Sunday school and other activities—but he did not know Jesus personally or live in His power.
Soon, the form of godliness faded away. In its place, selfishness, lack of self-control, disobedience to his parents, recklessness and a love for pleasure rather than a love for God filled the young man’s heart. Jagat welcomed wild boys and girls into his life, and with them, drugs. Abandoning his studies, Jagat started working with a carpenter, but he soon lost interest in that as well.
One day, a local pastor named Narain visited Jagat at his home. Jagat’s reputation preceded him, so Pastor Narain dedicated a portion of his day to sit down with the young boy. Jagat still bore the title “Christian,” so Narain asked Jagat several questions about Jesus. Although Jagat had spent years in church, he had never paid much attention, so he was unable to answer Pastor Narain’s questions. Narain opened his Bible and spoke truth into Jagat’s life. He asked Jagat to read a portion from Revelation—and that was the turning point in Jagat’s heart.
Jagat realized that the way he was living was absolutely against the way God desired him to live. Recognizing his wrongdoing, Jagat soon prayed, asking to be brought near to God and cleansed by Jesus’ blood.
A New Man
The next several years of Jagat’s life looked quite different than his previous years. Jagat attended a Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Bible college for three years, strengthening himself in the Lord and in the foundations of his faith. He abandoned his reckless, irresponsible ways and married a godly young girl, assuming the responsibilities of husband and of father of their soon-to-follow sons. A passion burned within Jagat, no longer for drugs but for helping his neighbors and others in distant places understand the mercy and grace of God.
And God moved through Jagat to help others delight in Christ too.
As years passed, gatherings of new believers sprinkled the map around Jagat. In one community, a family experienced God’s powerful answer to prayer and were delivered from several problems in their lives. They joyfully opened their home to anyone who wanted to praise Jesus with them. Over time, their house filled with men, women and children whose hearts held love for Christ.
Jagat’s own home grew crowded when he tried to organize prayer meetings or worship services. In addition, Jagat’s landlord didn’t like so many people entering the house. With no place to worship in their area, they had to make due with crowded rooms or divide up to meet in smaller groups.
Then in 2013, Jagat and the believers around him experienced the generosity of GFA friends from around the world: A building was constructed to house the struggling congregation!
Pastor Jagat and his congregation received a permanent place of worship through the help of GFA friends.
The 65 believers could now freely gather to pray, sing, fellowship and disciple one another. Jagat—who as a child tried to escape his house whenever a prayer meeting was scheduled—eagerly lead the thriving congregation in their new building.
This fellowship stands as a testimony of the power and love of God. Each one in the congregation carries a unique story of how God touched their heart and adopted them into His family. Jagat’s own story also intersects with Dr. KP Yohannan Metropolitan, who envisioned the movement of national missions in Asia and founded Gospel for Asia (GFA) so many years ago.
Our God is in the transforming business. Gospel for Asia’s website and reports website are filled with stories of how God is using missionaries like Jagat to impact the lives of farmers, daily laborers, parents, widows and children. Those stories evoke praise for what God is doing, and they also testify of God’s mercy already poured out in the lives of so many. Praise the Lord today for what He has already done!
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We can sponsor girls (and boys) so they get educated through programs like GFA’s Bridge of Hope Program. And if $35 a month is too much for you (and it is for some compassionate people), invite your small group, Sunday School class, men’s softball league, neighborhood coffee-klatch or members of your extended family to pool funds.
Think about this question: Why do more people not see this inequality and neglect, not grieve for the 100 million missing women and girls who have experienced such hardships and take action to be part of the solution? Then read the book of Luke and think about the societal shift that begins with women’s encounters with Jesus.
Remind yourself of Christ’s question: “Do you see this woman?” Write it out on a card, and then use it as a bookmark in the books you read or paste it on your bathroom mirror. Write out a prayer, like the one I included in the beginning of this article, but adapt it to this horrific dilemma: Lord, what do You want me to do about the masses of women? And if you are not a praying person, send some discontented energy into the atmosphere any way you feel fit. Just don’t forget.
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