The Scandal of Starvation in a World of Plenty: World Hunger’s Ugly Truths Revealed | Part 1

June 1, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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

GFA World Special Report #1 | Malaria – It’s Time to Buzz Off! New Vaccine Heralds a Game-Changing Development

May 13, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this first part of a Special Report on Malaria – new vaccine heralds a game-changing development.

It’s the “buzz” millions around the world have been waiting to hear—the news of a mosquito-busting breakthrough decades in the making.

Nurse Janet Wanyama prepares to vaccinate a child against malaria at the Malava County Hospital, Kakamega, Kenya. Photo by Gavi/2021/White Rhino Films-Lameck Orina

On Oct. 6, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that for the first time ever it was recommending the widespread use of a vaccine to protect children at risk of mosquito-borne malaria—one of the biggest killers of children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa.^[1]

In a news universe saturated by COVID-19 recently, this “historic” announcement struggled to make a splash in the mainstream media. But in the ongoing worldwide battle against life-threatening mosquito bites, this vaccine heralds a game-changing development in the fight against malaria.

“This is a historic moment,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Using this vaccine on top of existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.”^[2] Every year, more than 260,000 children under the age of 5 in sub-Saharan Africa die from the effects of malaria, according to WHO.^[3]

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. Photo by WHO, Regional Office for Africa

After years of stagnated progress in the fight against the disease in nations such as Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the breakthrough finally came with a trial vaccine known as RTS, S/AS01—not exactly a memorable name for such a landmark moment.

WHO endorsed widespread use of the four-dose vaccine in areas with “moderate to high P. falciparum malaria transmission,” following a pilot program that’s involved giving the shot to more than 900,000 children since 2019.^[4] P. falciparum is also the most prevalent strain in Africa.

“For centuries, malaria has stalked sub-Saharan Africa, causing immense personal suffering,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Africa Regional Director. “We have long hoped for an effective malaria vaccine, and now for the first time ever, we have such a vaccine.”^[5]

The breakthrough offers “a glimmer of hope” for the continent that “shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease,” Moeti said.^[6]

As of October 2021, more than 2.3 million shots-in-arms had been administered to children in the three-nation pilot program, covering parts of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Initial results indicated that more than two-thirds of children who were not sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets were protected by the vaccine. And the shot—more than 30 years in the making—reduced cases of severe and deadly malaria by 30 percent.^[7]

Madagascar malaria initiative campaign by government and USAID partnership — U.S.A. government via the President’s Malaria Initiative and USAID, donated $1.8 million in malaria commodities to the Ministry of Public Health that oversees Madagascar’s annual malaria campaign, including over 2 million rapid diagnostic tests and nearly 2 million doses of treatment for both normal and severe forms of malaria. The supplies were timely because Madagascar had seen a spike in malaria — in the first six months of 2020, over 1 million people there had been diagnosed with malaria and over 600 people died from the disease.

Malaria and Changing Temperatures

The encouraging news, at long last, of an effective vaccine against malaria comes just months after a study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine suggested rising worldwide temperatures could cause a dramatic increase in malaria cases.^[8]

Sick african child — Malaria and dengue fever may start having an even broader reach worldwide if temperatures continue to rise and extend the disease’s transmission season. Transferal will also happen faster as population density increases causing many more to become ill.

According to a report in The Lancet Planetary Health, the European study estimates 8.4 billion people could be at risk from malaria and dengue fever by the end of the century if rising temperatures were to go unchecked and the world’s population continues to ramp up.^[9]

While the year 2100 seems a long way off, the European researchers base their dire predictions on “worst-case scenario” effects of greenhouse gas emissions and population density producing warming temperatures of 3.7 degrees Celsius—about 6.6 degrees Fahrenheit.^[10]

Malaria could “gradually increase as a consequence of a warming climate in most tropical regions, especially highland areas,” said the report, citing countries potentially at risk as including Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela.^[11]

Encouraging news of an effective vaccine against malaria comes just months after a study suggests rising worldwide temperatures could cause a dramatic increase in malaria cases.

What’s more, researchers also predict changes to weather patterns could cause a “northward shift” of the malaria-epidemic belt into North America, northern and central Europe and northern Asia if temperatures heat up, placing populations in the developed and largely malaria-free nations of the West at risk.^[12]

But researchers also acknowledge their study faces limitations because they’re unable to predict advances in vaccines and drugs, or future mutations in malaria parasites.^[13]

Malaria ‘Cat and Mouse’

A 1125X photomicrograph magnification of a Giemsa stained, thin film blood smear, revealing a mature, Plasmodium malariae schizont.

Meanwhile, researchers at Texas Biomedical Research Institute are playing a game of “cat and mouse” with malaria parasites—trying to catch parasites in the act of mutating into different strains.^[14]

Scientists at the San Antonio facility have been studying five different malaria parasite species that infect people, probing how certain parasites mutate as they hide in the liver, where they can lie dormant for months—only to strike later with a vengeance.^[15] While such studies of new mutations are in the early stages, it’s hoped they’ll eventually help researchers understand how malaria parasites develop resistance to drugs and evade the body’s immune system. It could also pave the way for new malaria treatments in the future.^[16]

Although this man’s house in West Bengal is not properly protected, at least he has a mosquito net that will protect him from harm while sleeping at night, since most of the people in this area suffer from malaria caused by mosquito bites.

These mosquito net recipients were very glad that GFA World distributed bed nets to them as most are from very poor families, working the tea gardens to make less than two hundred rupees a day.

A primary health care center volunteer from Hantapara Tea Garden in West Bengal hands over a mosquito net to an elderly lady in need, during a GFA World bed net distrubution.

These children from West Bengal are happy as their family received a mosquito net from GFA World. Most kids in this region come from families whose parents are daily-wage laborers living on very limited incomes which preclude them from being able to buy things like mosquito nets.

Now this entire family of four can safely sleep inside the large-sized mosquito net they were provided by GFA World in West Bengal, India.

What can we do about mosquito-driven scourges? »

One simple way to fight mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, is to consider giving a needy family a simple Mosquito Net. For only $10, Gospel for Asia’s field partners can distribute one of these effective nets to an at-risk family in Asia and provide them with safety from insects during the day and at night.

About GFA World

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

Read the rest of this GFA World Special Report: Malaria – It’s Time to Buzz Off! New Vaccine Heralds a Game-Changing Development — Part 2

Learn more about how generosity can change lives. Through GFA World (Gospel for Asia) and its Christmas Gift Catalog, gifts like pigs, bicycles and sewing machines break the cycle of poverty and show Christ’s love to impoverished families in Asia. One gift can have a far-reaching impact, touching families and rippling out to transform entire communities.

Learn more how to save families from the sickening agony or death from malaria through the gift of Mosquito Nets that offer protection from the sting of an infected mosquito and help to give their owner a restful nights sleep.

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

Read what 27 Christian Leaders are affirming about Gospel for Asia.

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

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

May 9, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

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

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

Kids at Risk of Sexual Exploitation

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

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

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

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

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

UNICEF’s report highlights the following highly disturbing facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Children at Risk of Slavery

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

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

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

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

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

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

Real-life Cinderellas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But there is hope.

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

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

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

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

Redeeming Children in Crisis

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

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

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

As Mother Teresa is quoted as saying:

Mother Teresa holding a child — Mother Teresa
Photo by Wikimedia

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

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

About GFA World

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

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

May 4, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Children at Risk of Starvation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About GFA World

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

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

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

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

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

May 2, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About GFA World

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

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

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

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

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

A Revolution Resulting in Transformation: National Workers — Part 2

April 4, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like GFA World Canada, to assist the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this first part of a Special Report on the unstoppable compassion force of national missionary workers.

Sisters of Compassion, women national missionary workers, praying for a poor widow — These Sisters of Compassion are praying for this poor widow who lost her husband to a tiger attack. They often find practical ways to assist people who are desperate for help, hope and encouragement, showing the love of Christ throughout the process.

Looking ‘Inside’ for Lasting Solutions

When Helping Hurts book cover — With more than 450,000 copies in print, When Helping Hurts is a paradigm-forming contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation. Photo by Moody Publishers

Instead of looking to the West, many humanitarian and missions groups are looking “inside,” turning their attention to the vast pool of dedicated and talented workers within the nations in which they serve. They’re convinced that national workers are the key to lasting transformation.

It’s an opinion shared by development specialist Steve Corbett and economics professor Brian Fikkert, co-authors of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself.

“God has blessed many of these indigenous workers with amazing talents and strong passions,” they write. “They often minister long term in environments that would be a deep challenge for even the most impassioned outsider. Furthermore, these indigenous workers’ understanding of local cultures and languages makes them far more effective than the outsiders could typically be, either in the short or long term.”

“Moreover, these indigenous workers usually do this work at salaries that are far below mainstream North American standards,” they said. Corbett and Fikkert continue to discuss how one highly respected organization equips and manages national workers across Africa at a total annual cost of $1,540—a total that, according to the authors, includes the worker’s salary, bicycle, backpack, shirt and bedroll.

These are facts that the Church in the West needs to accept, they say: “The North American Church needs to more deeply appreciate the fact that Christians at home and abroad are ministering within their own nations, people groups, and communities at a large and growing rate, particularly in the [developing world]”.

The ‘T’ Word: ‘Transforming’ Communities

A church in Nepal — Often the area church leaders visit their churches in Nepal to encourage and teach the believers and assist them with practical ways to show the love of Jesus to their communities, like providing health care, clean water, food or medical assistance.

“Transformation” is a buzzword widely used in humanitarian, community development and missions circles, and it means different things to different people. Generally, it refers to a rebirth of a community, a revival of health, wellness, vitality, prosperity and hope. For faith-based organizations, everything is wrapped in God’s love. It’s the goal of all workers who follow Jesus—foreign and native—to bring transformation.

But what does transformation really look like?

Global CHE Network builds what it calls “transformational” movements within thousands of villages and communities across more than 130 countries by equipping and training national workers to spread health, good news and the love of God.

The organization tells the following story. In a small town in the Philippines, the jail sits empty, and the local attorney had to relocate because he didn’t have any clients to defend. The streets are spotless with barely a scrap of litter in sight, and the town sign reads: “Welcome to Bingawan, a Christian Community.”

It wasn’t always like this in Bingawan. The town used to have its share of trouble, crime and vice. But when the local people—impacted by Christ’s love and a revival of hope—decided to make changes in their own lives, the entire town underwent a profound transformation. Gambling joints closed, crime plummeted and the guards at the local jail found themselves staring at empty cells, according to Global CHE workers.

Asian missionary worker shares the love of Christ to his community — This Asian missionary’s goal is to show the love of Christ with every family in his community, by meeting practical needs each person has for help, hope and encouragement.

Other humanitarian agencies also tap into the strengths and connectivity of national workers, putting already-established local networks into action in the pursuit of lasting transformation.

Care Groups in a village — Care Groups are formed with 10-15 community members who build trust, share information, support one another, and then pass on what they’ve learned to others in their village with the end goal of helping their entire community. This approach has reached over 1.4 billion homes in 28 countries bringing awareness, health, and open doors for the hope of Christ.
Photo by World Relief

One inspired approach, known as the Care Group Model, has revolutionized the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished villagers in Asia and Africa.

Launched by World Relief, the Care Group Model tackles community problems at the grassroots level and operates in the heart of the community by training groups of local volunteers to confront the most serious health threats.

These volunteers, which are nearly all women, each share their newfound knowledge with 10–15 of their neighbors, spreading lifesaving know-how in the most effective way: mother to mother.

In one area, surveys revealed Care Groups:

Reduced the number of malnourished children by 45 percent.
Improved access to trained birth attendants, saving lives.
Increased the number of household latrines.
Significantly expanded the use of bed nets to prevent malaria.

The proven impact of the Care Group model, which is sustained and fully operated by national workers, is phenomenal. Across regions containing hundreds of villages, the local volunteers achieve “saturation coverage,” meaning every household is reached.

Thoeun, a local health educator in Cambodia, says if a child fell sick, villagers often suspected supernatural causes and looked to supernatural remedies. Growing up in the culture, Thoeun understands the way the villagers think. But the Care Group introduced her to a new way of thinking about health—and showed her the love of God. The combination of education, care and good news changed her life, she says, and since then she’s encouraged hundreds of others.

“The local people wonder why we’re so positive and friendly. … They ask us why,” Thoeun says, explaining it opens the door to tell them about God’s love.

While different faith-based and humanitarian groups have made a big impact on communities by recognizing the strengths, commitment and drive of local workers, perhaps no agency has done more than Gospel for Asia (GFA World). Its national missionaries have transformed lives in more than 12,000 parishes across Asia, in nations such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

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‘Native Shockwave’

When GFA World’s K.P. Yohannan launched his best-selling book Revolution in World Missions in the mid-1980s, its groundbreaking message sent shockwaves through churches, missions agencies and humanitarian organizations that were used to operating according to the traditional norms of Western missions endeavors.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet — From the villages of India to the shores of North America missionary statesman KP Yohannan’s passion is contagious!

Yohannan’s vision helped turn the traditional Western “missions sending model” upside down, instead advocating for people in the West to support and train national workers already in place. Yohannan claimed local workers were better suited to do the work of transforming communities across Asia. They already lived at the same level as the local people: working alongside them, living among them in the villages and slums, dressing the same, speaking the same language, eating the same food, drinking from the same well.

Jager is one such worker. Trained and supported by Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Jager ventured to villages in a difficult area of South Asia, determined to show people the love of God. Jager and his wife lived in a one-room mud house, like the local people, and cooked their food on an open fire.

National workers, Yohannan reasoned, understood the local culture and customs, were more easily accepted and could go where outsiders were not able or permitted to travel.

In effect, Yohannan’s dream is to see thousands of community-transforming national workers across Africa and Asia, equipped with the training and resources to break extreme poverty and offer hope to those in despair, all in the name of Christ.

National missionary workers home fellowship — Many national workers live in one room homes like this one which can double up as a location for fellowship and thanksgiving where a local pastor can encourage the villagers in the Lord.

“Filled to overflowing with the love of God, these national workers are passionate to share that love with everyone they meet,” Yohannan said. “Ultimately, the only true lasting transformation can happen through Christ who brings hope for this life and the life to come.” Yohannan continues, “While we must care for the hungry and suffering, we must not forget to share the authentic message of redemption through Christ. The holy Scriptures tell us in Mark 8:36 ‘What shall it profit a man if gains the whole world and loses his soul.’”.

A criticism sometimes leveled at national workers in developing nations is that they lack quality, formal training. The inference is they’re not up to “Western standards” of education and knowledge. But groups like Gospel for Asia (GFA World) don’t expect national workers to operate on passion and enthusiasm alone. Each worker undergoes extensive, in-depth training and preparation for their role of service.

Following a three-year period of intense training, these courageous national missionaries set off into “uncharted territory” where often no missions or humanitarian agency has gone before, bringing clean drinking water through “Jesus Wells” to the remotest villages, launching child sponsorship programs for children who never dreamed they’d be able to go to school, and fighting poverty with vocational training, sewing machines and fishing nets.

Missionary Pastor Ravid shares his compelling story of how he continued to show God’s love and meet practical needs within his community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

Give to Support National Missionaries »

If this special report has touched your heart and you would like to help national workers show Jesus’ love by meeting practical needs, then make a generous one time or monthly gift to support a national missionary in Asia or Africa.

Read the rest of this Gospel for Asia – Transforming Communities (GFA World) Special Report: National Workers: Unstoppable Compassion Force — Part 1, Part 3

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, National Missionary Workers, and World Missions on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

GFA’s Statement About Coronavirus

Learn more by reading this Special Report from Gospel for Asia on the Lord’s work in 2020 through GFA and the partnerships worldwide while following Him in His work in 16 nations, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

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.

National Workers: Unstoppable Compassion Force — Part 1

March 7, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

GFA World (Gospel for Asia) issued this Special Report on the unstoppable compassion force of national missionary workers. — To help a village on top of a Himalayan mountain, this Gospel for Asia (GFA) national worker rode a bus for hours, then hiked uphill for three hours more, to show the love of Jesus by meeting their practical needs.

A young Asian woman wearing a white robe and head covering cradles an elderly woman’s feet that are horribly deformed by leprosy and gently washes them in a bowl of water.

The old woman can scarcely believe someone is touching her, caring for her, loving her. Most people would recoil from this woman and avoid the leprosy colony where she lives. The colony is a place of disease, disfigurement and disability. Its residents are used to being treated as outcasts by others and viewed as cursed. They are used to their deformed bodies being seen as objects of ugliness.

Geeta, Sisters of Compassion, cleans and bandages the wounds of a leprosy patient — Geeta (pictured), a Sister of Compassion, works in a leprosy colony where 30 families live. Many of the residents are unable to work, so the Sisters visit regularly to encourage them, clean their wounds, cut their hair and trim their nails, give them baths, wash their clothes, clean their houses and cook for those who are unable to do so themselves.

But to the young woman dressed in white, these feet are beautiful.

She and her companions, known as Sisters of Compassion, come here regularly to clean wounds, cut hair and trim nails. They see beauty amid the truncated limbs and deeply scarred bodies that few are willing to look upon, let alone touch.

As locals and neighbors, the Sisters fully understand the culture and customs into which they pour their compassion. They appreciate and respect the historical and religious traditions, speak the local language and know the nuances of the dialect. And they’re specially trained in leprosy wound care and family counseling.

To all this, they add the unspoken language of Christ’s love.

“We do all this because of the love of God,” says Geeta, one of the Sisters trained to care for people with leprosy.

No one else could have the impact these women are having on their own people, often their own neighbors. Their roots of love go deep, and their branches of compassion reach into places where no one else goes.

While their long white robes, known as saris, might appear like unusual attire to Western eyes, the significance in South Asia is huge. The Sisters’ simple handspun uniform mirrors the traditional sari once worn by the lowliest of servants in Asia. It says to the old woman whose body has been disfigured with leprosy: “I am here to serve you. I see your worth.”

Mungeli Das, a leprosy patient — People like Mungeli Das (above) receive help from the Sisters of Compassion. Says Geeta: “If we didn’t help them, no one would have served them or taken care of them … they would die without any hope. Whether it’s a literacy class or cleaning their wounds, we do all of this because of the love of God.”

Mungeli Das, who contracted leprosy as a little girl more than 50 years ago, was treated for five years, then cured. Because of the deformity left by the disease, the leprosy colony has been her home for decades. She clings to the help and hope that the Sisters of Compassion bring her. The Sisters follow the example of Jesus who, according to the gospels, touched and healed those, like Mungeli, with leprosy.

“Before the Sisters came, there was no one to help trim our hair, cut our nails or help us clean our houses and encourage us,” Mungeli says. “The Sisters help us by cleaning our wounds, and they make us happy and encouraged [us] all the time.”

In places where outsiders, foreigners and foreign mission workers are prohibited or restricted, national workers and national missionaries have much more opportunity to serve. These women and men are welcomed and considered trustworthy counselors and friends of the community.

Outsiders may come and go. But national missionaries, such as GFA World’s Sisters of Compassion, stand the test of time.

“Each woman who serves as a Sister of Compassion is full of sacrificial love, just like Jesus,” explains Gospel for Asia (GFA World). “They do the most unglamorous things, such as bathing someone … or feeding people who’ve been affected by leprosy [and] no longer have any fingers [to] feed themselves.”

Sisters of Compassion teaching practical skills to struggling women — Teaching practical skills to help struggling women make a living is just one of the many things Sisters of Compassion do as they serve their communities. In all they do, these national missionaries demonstrate the love of Jesus for the poor and impoverished.

Unsung Heroes of the Frontline

While Western workers often venture to far-flung places and do amazing things, it’s the unsung heroes of the frontline—the local, indigenous people—who consistently make the greatest impact and bring true transformation to their own communities.

In the past, missions trailblazers like William Carey from England in the 1700s, and C.T. Studd in the late 1850s and early 1900s, paved the way for swarms of foreign missionaries and humanitarian workers, mostly from Western countries.

But the tide has changed.

National workers are the “new pioneers” of the 21^st century, and they’re proving to be an unstoppable compassion force.

Beauty of Local Mission Workers

On a worldwide scale, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC), there were 430,000 foreign mission workers overseas in 2021, compared with 13.2 million national workers (local citizens).

John Allen Chau, American Missionary — John Allen Chau was an American missionary killed by the Sentinelese, a self-isolated people, after illegally travelling to North Sentinel Island in an effort to preach to them.

That means national mission workers—those serving within their own culture and nation—now outnumber foreign workers by more than 30 to 1.

The CSGC predicts the number of national mission workers globally will explode to 17 million by 2050, while the number of foreign workers will increase to 600,000.

To be sure, Western Christians are still drawn to overseas missions in large numbers. But the exporting of expatriates to distant foreign fields can come at a high cost, potentially hindering progress.

In extreme cases, the quest of well-meaning foreigners with a zeal to exercise their faith and do good can end in tragedy, as in the headline-making case of a U.S. mission worker in 2018.

While attempting to make contact with the “unreached” indigenous people of North Sentinel Island, an isolated island in the Bay of Bengal, it’s believed David Allen Chau was speared to death. As of the date this article was published, his body had not been recovered.

Chau’s death was tragic and highlights the very real dangers facing non-nationals in remote areas. But it’s not only the safety of foreigners that’s an issue. It’s also the cost in dollars of sending Western workers and keeping them in their overseas assignment.

Pie chart representation of national mission workers vastly outnumbering foreign mission workers by more than 30:1 — Statistics from Center for the Study of Global Christianity, “Status of Global Christianity, 2021, in the Context of 1900–2050.”

Counting the Cost of Foreign Workers vs National Workers

Missions Fest International, an annual global missions conference, spotlighted the financial cost of “sending” a Western mission worker compared with the cost of supporting a national worker in a provocative article on its website titled “Should We Stop Sending Missionaries?”

Julian Lukins with Stephen Kaziro of the Church of Uganda — Author Julian Lukins, pictured in Kampala, Uganda, with archdeacon Stephen Kaziro of the Church of Uganda who oversees dozens of village churches, including several that also act as local health clinics in the rural Namutumba district.

While stating there’s still a great need and important role for foreign workers in many parts of the world, the article points out it typically costs more than $50,000 a year to support a Western family in a developing nation such as Africa and Asia—an annual sum that could help support more than 50 national workers, the article says. For example, based on my personal experience in Uganda, an American family of four living in Africa might pay $1,000 a month for expat health insurance coverage that includes emergency medical evacuation. Because of security issues, they might have to live in a secure compound at high rent and pay hundreds of dollars every month for guards 24/7. Legal paperwork and visas can cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars every year.

Run the numbers and it’s perhaps no surprise, then, that national workers—willing and able to live far simpler and free of immigration restrictions—are increasingly seen as a wise investment.

More than 140 organizations “are now built on the premise of gathering and sending money [to support national workers], not people,” the article says.

A national missionary worker teaches a group of children how to read — In a village where not one person could read or write, this missionary is showing the love of God by teaching children how to read.

While short-term overseas missions trips still play a huge role in the West, the merit and value of supporting local, native workers over the long haul has become widely embraced as the most effective approach in the quest for the “holy grail” of missions: to bring long-term, total transformation to impoverished communities.

Certainly, over the past couple of decades, it’s become a trend in Western nations for people, especially young people in their 20s, to travel to places in Africa, Asia or South America to volunteer in orphanages, children’s homes and the like.

Photos of young Westerners cuddling babies and surrounded by excited children in Africa and Asia have flooded social media and reinforced the so-called “white savior” label, often unfairly attached to compassionate individuals from the U.S., Canada, U.K. and other wealthy countries who simply want to make a difference in the world.

But now, it seems, this missions phenomenon—undoubtedly impacted further by COVID-19 travel restrictions—could be in decline.

An article in The Atlantic put it like this: “Among the new generation of Western Christian missionaries, the so-called ‘white savior complex’—a term for the mentality of relatively rich Westerners who set off to ‘save’ people of color in poorer countries but sometimes do more harm than good—is slowly fading.”

Give to Support National Missionaries »

Read the rest of this Gospel for Asia – Transforming Communities (GFA World) Special Report: National Workers: Unstoppable Compassion Force — Part 2, Part 3

About GFA World

Read more blogs on GFA World, National Missionary Workers, and World Missions on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

GFA’s Statement About Coronavirus

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.

Mosquito Net Gifted by Gospel for Asia Saves Mother from Deadly Encounter

December 17, 2021 By GFA Staff Writer

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 – Discussing Karinya and her family, the devastation brought about by illness, loss and poverty, and the GFA World gift distribution of a mosquito net that brought relief and hope.

Discussing Karinya and her family, the loss and poverty, and the GFA World gift distribution of a mosquito net that brought relief and hope. — A thin net like this one was the only barrier between Karinya and her son and a deadly snake.

When their eldest son, Slavomir, was diagnosed with epilepsy, life changed drastically for Karinya and Dalibor. The parents devoted their time and finances to keeping their son alive. However, after years of battling the illness—and a period of peace from seizures—epilepsy eventually claimed Slavomir’s life.

Karinya and Dalibor were devastated. The grief was all-consuming, and the various medical bills they had accumulated only added to their anxiety and left them financially devastated.

A New Challenge

During Slavomir’s illness, Karinya and her family had met Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor Bedrich, who spent many hours praying and fasting for Slavomir’s healing. He rejoiced with the family when healing came; he welcomed Karinya to the local fellowship of believers; and he mourned Slavomir’s passing after the young man experienced three years of healing. Pastor Bedrich had watched the family’s resources dwindle as they did everything they could to nurse their son back to health.

Now, 14 years after Slavomir’s death, the compassionate pastor prayed for the family as they continued to face another challenge: poverty. With their financial resources drained, the family of six could not afford even a single mosquito net, a basic necessity to protect themselves from the region’s pests and the illnesses and diseases mosquitos carry.

Pastor Bedrich prayed fervently for a solution for the family’s need. The answer came in the form of an idea. He decided to organize a mosquito net distribution for their village.

Through the distribution, 630 people, including Karinya and her family, received the gift of a mosquito net. Though it seemed such a simple gift, it provided great relief from the annoyance of the buzzing creatures and peace of mind with the layer of protection from the disease-carrying insects.

Saved by a Thin Net

For Karinya’s family, the gift came at the perfect time. The very next night, Karinya and her son slept under the net’s covering. Around 11 p.m., Karinya woke to use the bathroom. Before she got out of bed, however, she spotted a large snake lying next to her bed. Amazingly, nothing lay between Karinya and a deadly snake bite except the thin mosquito net.

Alarmed, she quickly alerted her husband, hoping the mosquito net continued to deter the snake’s attack until Dalibor could remove the threatening reptile. The entire family soon awoke in a rush of activity. Karinya and her son waited with bated breath as the rest of the family killed the looming snake.

“If I had not received this mosquito net, me and my son would have lost our lives last night,” Karinya stated.

Though their challenges have been many, Karinya is grateful for the assistance of the church in helping provide for her family’s needs. She is especially grateful for the blessing of the thin netting that helped save her and her son’s lives.

Read how the gift of a bicycle opened the door for Pastor Lanzo to befriend a man who lived six miles away.

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

Source: Gospel for Asia Field Reports & Updates, Mosquito Net Saves Mother from Deadly Encounter

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

Mother Receives Skills and Tools to Feed Her Family from GFA World Sewing Course

November 12, 2021 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide – Discussing Salestia, a mother who struggled with her family against poverty, the blessing and confidence brought by GFA World Sewing Course and the gift of a sewing machine.

Discussing Salestia, her family in poverty, the blessing and confidence brought by GFA World Sewing Course and the gift of a sewing machine. — Tailoring classes like this one helped empower Salestia (not pictured) to provide for her family.

A skill cannot be properly utilized if the tools to use it are absent. So why did Salestia continue taking the tailoring course? She didn’t own a sewing machine; she and her husband could not afford one. What was the point of finishing the classes?

A Mother’s Fight for Her Family

Both Salestia and her husband, Shandon, worked as daily laborers in their rural village. Their earnings barely covered their living expenses and their four children’s school fees. On top of financial constraints, Shandon spent a good portion of their money on drinking excessively. Salestia appeared to be the only one who cared for her family’s future—not even Salestia’s close relatives offered any help.

One day, Salestia heard about a course where anyone could learn how to sew and provide for themselves. Organized by Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers, the free course was designed to help impoverished families better their circumstances by offering them teachable skills—like sewing. Salestia resolved to not let her family fall deeper into poverty, so she put her name down for the program.

Salestia joined several others in their shared journey of learning valuable tailoring skills. She absorbed each lesson and followed her teachers’ every action, stitching every thread just as they illustrated. As the months progressed and Salestia approached the course’s end, an anxious thought interrupted her joy of finally having the skills to better provide for her family: She had the knowledge, but she didn’t have a sewing machine.

A Surprise Gift

The funds for a sewing machine had continued to remain out of Salestia’s reach. She didn’t know how she would continue sewing without a machine. Were the classes all for nothing?

To her surprise, the Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers had anticipated this need. Upon her completion of the course, Salestia received her very own sewing machine! The workers made sure Salestia not only had the knowledge, but she also had tools to use that knowledge.

“I learned tailoring for free of cost,” Salestia said. “And now I got a new machine. … Now I have confidence to run my family.”

Because of the workers, Salestia could continue to send her children to school and feed and clothe them. With her new sewing machine, Salestia was fully equipped to earn money for her family.

Learn how you can provide sewing machines to help prevent families like Salestia’s from getting into deeper poverty.

Source: Gospel for Asia Field Reports & Updates, Mother Receives Skills, Tools to Feed Her Family

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

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

A Weary Man’s Prayers Were Answered When He Received a Bicycle from a Gospel for Asia Gift Distribution

November 1, 2021 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founded by K.P. Yohannan, whose heart to love and help the poor has inspired numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to serve the deprived and downcast worldwide – Discussing Abid, his struggle against poverty for his family, and the answered prayer of a bicycle received from a GFA World gift distribution.

Discussing Abid, his struggle against poverty for his family, & the answered prayer of a bicycle received from a GFA World gift distribution. — Abid (not pictured) celebrates the gift of a bicycle, which significantly cut down his travel time to work and afforded him more time with his family.

Day in and day out, Abid walked a long path to work to provide for his wife and their six children. Nearly five miles to work and another five miles home, it took him hours to walk the distance. In between this trek, Abid worked hard for a small daily wage, but he frequently arrived late to work and faced reprimands from his boss.

The disapproving comments from his boss weighed on Abid. The 46-year-old man, known for his smiling face, would return home completely exhausted and agitated by his boss’s scolding.

By the time Abid’s family saw him at the end of the day, he had no energy left and was easily irritated, creating discord at home. When Abid didn’t collapse from exhaustion as soon as he crossed the threshold, he complained about the pain in his body, weary from the hours-long commute.

On Sundays, church was also a lengthy distance from Abid’s home. He often arrived late there as well, his steps slow from fatigue. Soon, Abid stopped attending the worship services altogether.

He was tired of being late everywhere he went, and he was tired of being tired.

Enough Is Enough

What could Abid do? He knew he couldn’t afford to purchase a different mode of transportation or a bus ticket, but something had to change.

Abid decided to pray about his situation. He asked God for a bicycle so he could make it to work and church on time.

Meanwhile, Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor Bahari heard about Abid’s difficult commute. He learned of the toll it took on Abid’s body, his family relationships and even his ability to attend Sunday services. Pastor Bahari felt compassion for Abid’s struggles and decided to submit Abid’s name to receive a gift from a GFA gift distribution. Pastor Bahari excitedly presented the two-wheeled treasure to Abid, who received the bicycle with great thankfulness and a joyful heart.

God had answered Abid’s prayers! He was now the proud owner of a new bicycle, just as he had requested.

“I have a big family,” Abid explained. “I get money from the daily [wage] work and buy provision for home. Due to that, I could not buy [a bicycle]. But I thank the church for understanding my need and providing me a good cycle. Now I am on time to work and even for church. Thank you very much.”

The gift of a bicycle has truly changed Abid’s life. With a shortened commute, the bicycle affords him more time with his family and more energy to enjoy their time together. He has no trouble getting to work, and his boss is pleased Abid arrives on time. In addition, Abid now regularly attends church, and he helps family members and neighbors by using his bike to run errands.

Across the globe, countries annually celebrate World Bicycle Day on June 3rd. For Abid, every day he mounts his bike is a good day to thank God for the life-changing gift of the bicycle.

Read Kagiso’s story about a gratefully received gift of tin.

Source: Gospel for Asia Field Reports & Updates, Mother Receives Skills, Tools to Feed Her Family

Learn more how to demonstrate God’s love through the gift of a Bicycle — to Missionaries, school children, farmers and daily laborers. Through these gifts, people experience Christ’s love.

Learn more about the GFA World national workers who carry a burning desire for people to know the love of God. Through their prayers, dedication and sacrificial love, thousands of men and women have found new life in Christ.

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