GFA World Special Report #2 | Malaria – It’s Time to Buzz Off! New Vaccine Heralds a Game-Changing Development

May 16, 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 second part of a Special Report on Malaria – new vaccine heralds a game-changing development.

Tricking Mosquitoes With … ‘Toxic’ Beetroot Juice?

In the seemingly never-ending quest to wipe out malaria—responsible in 2019 for the deaths of more than 400,000 people worldwide, roughly equivalent to wiping out the entire population of Miami, Florida—scientists are experimenting continually with new ideas to combat “the enemy” … the pesky mosquito.^[17]

Perhaps one of the most unusual ideas involves “toxic” beetroot juice.

Researchers at Sweden’s Stockholm University have been preying on mosquitoes searching for their next tasty blood meal. They’ve shown that it’s possible to mimic a blood feast using beetroot juice laced with a “toxic” plant-based solution that kills mosquitoes but doesn’t harm other species, such as bees.^[18]

Until the malaria vaccine usage is widespread, there are still a number of simple but highly effective solutions to combat malaria. One is mosquito bed nets. Another in process, is toxic beetroot, which kills the female carriers.

According to an October 2021 report in ScienceDaily, the Swedish team tested four different ingredients in a beetroot juice cocktail. All the mosquitoes feeding on the “fake blood” died within a few hours.^[19]

“This mixture, [which] we call ‘pink juice,’ is a harmless … eco-friendly solution, but it is naturally toxic for female mosquitoes,” said Noushin Emami, a professor in the university’s Department of Molecular Biosciences.^[20] The Stockholm researchers hope to see their “feeding trap” tested in the field and eventually used alongside other effective mosquito control measures.

“There are a number of … approaches targeting mosquitoes … but I believe that there is a lot of potential in developing very simple but highly effective solutions,” Emami said. “We used beetroot in this study to demonstrate exactly this point.”^[21]

Molecular Attraction team. From left: Johan Paleovrachas, Noushin Emami, PhD, Aleksandra Gromnicka, Lech Ignatowicz, PhD. — Molecular Attraction team. From left: Johan Paleovrachas, Co-founder and Chairman, Noushin Emami, PhD, Co-founder and CSO, Aleksandra Gromnicka, Project Manager, Lech Ignatowicz, PhD, Co-founder and CEO. Photo by Molecular Attraction

Mosquito bite — People typically get malaria after being bitten by an infective female Anopheles mosquito.

Facing a Global Emergency

Despite recent breakthroughs and progress, malaria remains one of the biggest threats to children’s lives on the global stage. “Every two minutes, a child dies of malaria,” said UNICEF’s Stefan Swartling Peterson.^[22] According to the agency, nearly half of the world’s population is at risk. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says the mosquito is the most deadly creature in the world—killing more people each year than sharks, wolves, lions, crocodiles and snakes combined.^[23]

Alarming facts include the following: 8 out of 10 malaria deaths occur in only 15 countries—14 of them in Africa, plus India. Third largest killer of children under age 5, after pneumonia and diarrhea. 9 out of 10 malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Deaths of thousands of women and unborn children every year, are due to Malaria in pregancy. — Background Photo by Rod Waddington, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Quest to Become Malaria-Free

USAID malaria initiative in Uganda — USAID’s indoor residual spraying activity has protected almost 7 million Ugandans from malaria, and contributed to reducing malaria infection rates in targeted districts by 55 percent.

In a June 30, 2021 news release from the World Health Organization, it was stated that “Globally, 40 countries and territories have been granted a malaria-free certification from WHO—including, most recently, El Salvador (2021), Algeria (2019), Argentina (2019), Paraguay (2018), and Uzbekistan (2018).”^[25]

In June 2021—following a 70-year battle against malaria—China joined the coveted list of malaria-free countries. WHO described it as a “notable feat” for the world’s most populous nation.^[26]

In the 1940s, China reported 30 million cases of malaria each year.^[27] According to a CNN report, during the Vietnam War, more Chinese soldiers died from malaria than bullets in the mosquito-ridden jungles.^[28] China is the first country in more than 30 years in the Western Pacific region to rid itself of the disease.^[29]

Many nonprofits are on the frontlines, operating health clinics, providing medicine, and distributing lifesaving bed nets in even the most isolated places.

WHO credits China’s success in eradicating malaria to aggressive government action to wipe out mosquito breeding grounds, develop better antimalarial drugs and pioneer preventive measures. In the 1980s, China was one of the first countries to test insecticide-treated bed nets on a large scale—showing that widespread use of bed nets at night could significantly reduce mosquito bites and malaria cases.^[30]

China received a malaria free certification by WHO in 2021 — China has a long history of malaria, but it has now maintained zero indigenous malaria cases for four years running, down from an estimated 30 million cases and 300,000 deaths per year in the 1940s. This malaria free certification by WHO in 2021 is a significant life-saving achievement for China, showing the potential for real progress in the fight against malaria. Photo by WHO/C.McNab

The Battle On the Frontlines: Mosquito Nets

Science and facts tell part of the story. But the real-life impact of malaria is unfolding right now in the rural villages of sub-Saharan Africa, the teeming cities of Asia and the Amazon rainforests of South America.

Many global nonprofit organizations—including World Vision, Save the Children and GFA World—are on the frontlines, operating health clinics, providing medicine, and distributing lifesaving bed nets in even the most isolated places.

Dr. K.P. Yohannan, GFA Founder — Dr. K.P. Yohannan, Gospel for Asia (GFA) Founder

“Some of their communities are in such deep trouble fighting this disease, our workers were dealing with thousands of cases,” said Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founder K.P. Yohannan. In one malaria-prone area of Asia, workers climbed a mountain on foot to reach a remote, mountaintop community caught in a malaria death cycle, Yohannan said. “The people of this community, extremely isolated … didn’t know how to prevent or treat malaria.”

GFA World national missionaries traversing mountainous terrains to deliver supplies and provisions to villages in need. — Sikkim: Because of mountainous terrain in many parts of India, Gospel for Asia (GFA World) teams often hand carry critical provisions, like mosquito nets, on their backs while climbing mountains to reach the villages in need of supplies.

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) missionaries—driven by the belief that every human life is precious to God—distributed some 200 mosquito bed nets they’d carried up the mountain, as well as malaria medicine, and showed the local people how to protect themselves and halt the deadly wave.

“From the day they brought the medicine and nets, not a single person in that community died of malaria,” Yohannan said. “What does this tell us? In remote, malaria-ridden places across Asia, a mosquito net can change an entire community.”

Motherless daughters received a mosquito net from GFA World gift distribution — West Bengal 1-4-22: These four motherless sisters were very happy to receive a bed net for their family to keep them safe from mosquito bites and other insects. The oldest daughter works to make ends meet, but earns less than 100 rupees a day.

One Less Thing to Fear

Living in an area with high rates of malaria, Bahman and his wife, Salli, were terrified they’d lose their two young daughters to the disease. They knew a mosquito net—costing about $10—would be a potential lifesaver. But they were too poor to afford one.

Increasing their fear, one of their daughters had been paralyzed for three years. If she contracted malaria, would she survive?

That’s when a local Gospel for Asia (GFA) missionary realized the dilemma facing the couple and their neighbors. He took action—and 100 families, including Bahman’s, were given bed nets. “You helped us by providing a piece of mosquito net in our lives, though you never knew us before,” Bahman said. “We are touched with your love.”

GFA WOrld mosquito net distribution — West Bengal 8-17-16: Gospel for Asia (GFA World) national missionary, and helpers, and the local village head, distributed some eight hundred mosquito nets to local villagers from economically poor and underprivileged backgrounds.

Making It Personal Makes a Difference

Father from India received a life-saving mosquit net — For $10, about the cost of morning coffee, you can gift a life-saving mosquito net to an Asian parent, like this father in West Bengal, India, who earns just $3/day, and cannot afford to buy one himself. He can then safeguard his loved ones from harmful mosquito bites that carry vector-borne diseases like malaria. His family will be forever grateful to you.

For many of us born and raised in a malaria-free country, malaria is not something we worry about. It’s a “tropical disease” that’s a long way from affecting our lives. Mosquito bites are an itchy annoyance—that’s all.

This was certainly true for me—until the day I watched malaria’s deadly fever grip my African friends in Uganda. That’s when it became personal for me. They were suffering on the edge of death because they couldn’t afford a basic bed net or antimalarial tablets that cost just a few dollars—things that were readily available, and that I took for granted.

For $10, you can place a life-saving bed net into the hands of a family at risk, a family—like Bahman’s—who will be forever grateful. So far, GFA World’s national missionaries have given out more than 1.3 million mosquito nets. They’d love to hand out millions more.

China has shown us it’s possible to obliterate malaria from the world’s most populated country. And now—with an effective vaccine—the end is finally in sight around the globe. If we all work together, we can see malaria eradicated everywhere.

One shot … one bed net … one child at a time.

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 1

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.

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? »

About GFA World

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

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]

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

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

About GFA World

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Gospel for Asia Event Invites Gen Z, Millennials to ‘Give Up Gadgets, Rediscover God’

May 6, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – GFA World (Gospel for Asia) — Under 30s are being invited to “detox from their phones and gadgets” in order to “experience God in solitude and silence” and discover his purpose for their lives.

Stressed generation will experience Christ at GFA World's first ever Set Apart 2022 retreat, say Francis Chan, K.P. Yohannan, George Verwer — **‘STRESSED’ GEN Z, MILLENNIALS INVITED TO ‘GIVE UP GADGETS FOR A WEEK, REDISCOVER GOD:’** Under 30s are being invited to “*detox from their phones and gadgets*” in order to “experience God” and discover his purpose for their lives. Popular speaker Francis Chan and mission pioneers K.P. Yohannan and George Verwer will headline GFA World’s first-ever Set Apart 2022 retreat (*http://www.gfa.org/press/SetApart) June 20-26 at the organization’s campus near Dallas, Texas.*

Popular speaker Francis Chan and mission pioneers K.P. Yohannan (Metropolitan Yohan) and George Verwer will headline GFA World’s first-ever Set Apart 2022 retreat (http://www.gfa.org/press/SetApart) June 20-26 – an event that will invite 18-30 year olds to “exchange the constant pinging of their phones for a week of enjoying God’s presence in life-transforming solitude and silence.”

Immersed in a manic media culture, 18-30 year olds – a group fast disappearing from America’s churches – desperately need to “experience the living Christ” in quiet, says Chan, author of the bestselling book Crazy Love and a hugely popular speaker with 67,000 Twitter followers.

Nearly two-thirds of 18-29 year olds who grew up in the U.S. going to church have dropped out, according to faith-based research group Barna, citing boredom and a feeling that God is “missing.”

Escaping the Craziness

“Some of you, your minds are going so fast,” Chan said. “You are on that phone, you are on all these gadgets, and it’s so important that you learn to just be silent so your soul can create a bond with God.”

Set Apart 2022 is a chance for young people to “detox from all their gadgets for a week and truly connect with God,” says Yohannan, founder of GFA World, a faith-based global mission agency working among the poor in Asia and Africa.

He hopes young people coming to the one-of-a-kind retreat at the organization’s campus near Dallas, Texas, will have their lives transformed. “I see this week of young people gathering here as the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series, where their eyes are opened at last to see the real world of Christ and His incredible invitation to find true meaning in life.”

Yohannan and Chan will be joined by Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization, one of the world’s biggest evangelical mission organizations.

People can learn more about the event at http://www.gfa.org/press/SetApart.

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 more blogs on Christian Ministry and GFA World on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.

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

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

Source: GFA World Digital Media News Room, Event Invites Gen Z, Millennials to ‘Give Up Gadgets, Rediscover God’

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.

Don’t Drink the Water! (Unless You Know What’s in It) — Part 2

April 29, 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 the second part of a Special Report update on the ongoing global water crisis, highlighting tap water safety problems in the USA, and clean water challenges in Asia.

While the U.S. Struggles with Contaminated Tap Water,
Millions in Asia Remain Without Access to Any Clean,
Safe Drinking Water

In Asia, when water is scarce and miles must be traversed in order to attain it, then carry or haul it, pure and clean community wells become nearly miraculous when they are engineered and maintained.

One organization helping with this situation is Gospel for Asia (GFA), which has installed more than 30,000 clean water borehole wells in villages across South Asia, including 4,856 in 2019 alone. Gospel for Asia (GFA) estimates that its clean water projects, consisting of wells in communities and BioSand water filters for families, are providing clean water to more than 37.5 million people to date. Yet the need is so great, much more has to be done.

Mother carrying water home with her children. — This mother in South Asia needed almost ten pots of water each day for domestic purposes, so she walked a two-mile round trip several times a day to fetch water from the only well close to this village. After school, her sons helped her fetch water too. This well was the only source of water for the entire village of more than 200 people, until a Jesus Well was built within their town.

The Impact of a “Jesus Well” on One Community

Women drawing clean water from Jesus Well — This Jesus Well is in constant use, serving up to 300 people a day!

I love the story from the Gospel for Asia archives about the life-changing impact of the “Jesus Wells” they help provide. Jesus Wells are most often sponsored by donors and installed in communities where access to clean water is difficult or non-existent.

A group of villagers huddled around a large hole, peering into the darkness. Feathers. Again. They let out a groan—not in grief over the dead chicken, although it was a loss for someone’s flock, but because it meant their well was contaminated. They gathered buckets and emptied the well late into the night. All that precious water wasted because of one little hen.

This well and a small pond had the job of providing water for this village, but they frequently failed their task. In summertime, the well and pond dried up and had to be dug deeper. When the heavy rains came, water filled the pond again, but it was accompanied by leaves, garbage and cow manure. The families in this community needed water, but using dirty water exposed them to bouts of typhoid, diarrhea and other dangerous waterborne illnesses. Something had to change—but none of them could fix their deadly problem.

In Asia, when water is scarce, and miles must be traversed in order to attain it, then carry or haul it, pure and clean community wells become nearly miraculous when they are engineered and maintained.

The community’s water crisis began changing when Aarnav, one of the young men in the village, met a GFA-supported pastor, Saadhik, serving in a nearby area. Aarnav built a strong relationship with Pastor Saadhik and joined his congregation regularly to worship the Lord. Pastor Saadhik visited Aarnav’s family frequently to encourage them in the Lord. During one of those visits, the pastor learned of the village’s extreme need for water.

Although countless other communities in Aarnav’s nation face water shortages every year, Pastor Saadhik felt a special burden for Aarnav’s village. His compassion grew into a commitment to pray for the community’s need—for several years.

Little girls taking a bath using clean water from Jesus Wells. — Seeing the need for safe, clean water, Gospel for Asia (GFA) installed three Jesus Wells to supply this village in Asia with pure water for drinking, cleaning and washing their hands.

After four years of faithful intercession, Pastor Saadhik’s prayers were answered. Thanks to the generosity of people around the world, GFA-supported workers arranged for Aarnav’s village to receive a Jesus Well at no cost to the community. Sitting atop enclosed pipes that dive deep into the low water table, the bore well now gushes clean water all year long.

Aarnav’s community finally has the change they needed! Overjoyed, around 100 people fetch their water from the Jesus Well instead of the compromised pond or open well. It doesn’t matter how many chickens or cows gather around the Jesus Well; nothing can contaminate their water anymore.

Let’s support organizations like Gospel for Asia (GFA) that are bringing thousands of bore wells that supply life-giving water to people—water that is available in little villages and crowded slum communities and not miles down some dusty or muddy road. What a gift clean water is, and what a gift to make it available to thirsty people worldwide.

Give Towards Clean Water Projects

Learn how to provide life-saving water through Jesus Wells and BioSand water filters, and help support ongoing maintenance of these clean water projects.

Woman drawing clean water from Jesus Well. — Until a Jesus Well was installed in her village, this woman in South Asia often struggled to find safe, pure drinking water. Previously, she had to walk two kilometers round trip to the river near her village, to get unsafe, dirty water.

Jesus Compares Himself to Fountains of Water

Perhaps, even more remarkable, Christ used water (let us assume it was pure, clean and healthy water) as a metaphor for His own life-giving capability.

“Jesus answered and said to her: ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life’” (John 4:13–14).

Little girl drinking clean water from Jesus Well — Even young children were happy to have a Jesus Well installed to get clean, safe water in their own village. Now they don’t have to walk to the distant well several times a day carrying heavy water pots.

Several summers back, my family attended the Iowa State Fair with my brother and his wife (who live in Des Moines). I’ve rarely bought tickets to popular music concerts—David and I are more the Chicago Symphony Orchestra types—but this summer, we did sit in the grandstands to hear a live concert featuring Carrie Underwood. Carrie, an avowed Christian, basically gave a gospel-music concert, with most of the people in the audience singing along to the lyrics they obviously knew by heart.

One of her songs that has stuck with me since that summer was “Something in the Water,” with water baptism being the theme:

No way out, no one to come and save me
Wasting a life that the Good Lord gave me
Then somebody said what I’m saying to you […] They said, “Just a little faith, it’ll all get better”
So I followed that preacher man down to the river
And now I’m changed
And now I’m stronger
There must’ve been something in the water
Oh, there must’ve been something in the water

Yep, even the orchids know what kind of water they need and flourish when it is supplied. Humans are the same.

How wonderful that local churches all across Asia use clean water to meet physical need and employ the powerful life-giving metaphor for the One who supplies those He loves with everything they need spiritually. “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will never thirst . . .” Believe me, there are no toxins or poisons, no arsenic or radium in this spiritual gift.

There is no lead in this Living Water. This, indeed, is the water we all need to thrive.

Give Towards Clean Water Projects

Learn how to provide life-saving water through Jesus Wells and BioSand water filters, and help support ongoing maintenance of these clean water projects.

Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Don’t Drink the Water! (Unless You Know What’s in It) — Part 2

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Read another Special Report from Gospel for Asia on Solving the World Water Crisis … for Good — Lasting Solutions Can Defeat an Age-old Problem

Learn more by reading this special report from Gospel for Asia: Mosquito-Driven Scourge Touches Even Developed Nations — Malaria Alone Claims 400,000 Lives Per Year

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

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

Don’t Drink the Water! (Unless You Know What’s in It) — Part 1

April 27, 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 the first part of a Special Report update on the ongoing global water crisis, highlighting tap water safety problems in the USA, and clean water challenges in Asia.

In my original special report for Gospel for Asia (GFA) titled The Global Water Crisis, I explored worldwide solutions to humanity’s need for pure, safe water. This update explores tap water safety concerns in the United States and what to do about those, plus clean water solutions in Asia and practical ways you can help.

Photo of Orchids — Like my orchids, people around the globe are affected adversely by the water they consume.

“The orchids are really doing well this year,” commented my husband, David, who usually doesn’t notice these sorts of things. Every year, I yield to temptation and purchase a few orchids in November around Thanksgiving time, hoping they will last through the Christmas season, maybe even longer. Greenhouses, I am told, cultivate orchids all year round.

Generally, I choose orchids with the most buds on them, calculating that there is some energy for growth hiding in these promises of future blooms. My scheme, however, generally degenerates in a wilting kind of reality. The bulbs dry up, turn to tissue-like paper and fall into the potting soil.

This year, however, I affirmed my husband’s comments with some surprise. Even in January, the orchids seemed still to be doing really well. The butterfly-like blooms were all strong, white and crisp. There was no browning around the edges nor had any died. I’d trimmed back some dried-up roots, but that wasn’t too different from previous years. What seemed to be making the difference was that I had changed the water I used to keep the plants fresh.

I had stopped using tap water and used bottles of distilled water instead. This idea was stimulated when I observed an older gentleman loading up the trunk of his car with at least 20 to 30 gallon-size bottles of water.

“You’re going to do more than just drink the water, I hope?” I said as I moved past him toward the grocery store.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “My wife is having trouble growing orchids, so we’re going to try distilled water for a while.”

“I have trouble growing orchids,” I called back. “Maybe I’ll pick up some bottles.”

Like my orchids, people around the globe are affected adversely by the water they consume. On one continent, dirty water pollutes whole communities. On another, tap water contaminates our kitchens.

Which, indeed, I did and have been using that to water my plants every week since, with the results that even my husband noticed and commented on how well the orchids were doing.

Distilled water, for those who don’t know, has been boiled in a vat, leaving impurities behind. This process removes harmful microbes (and also beneficial minerals such as calcium and magnesium). The steam eventually re-condenses, leaving a liquid behind that apparently helps my orchids thrive.

Most people will not deny this truism: Certain kinds of life thrive with certain kinds of water. Of course, this applies to human well-being as well as to plant health.

Like my orchids, people around the globe are affected adversely by the water they consume. On one continent, dirty water pollutes whole communities. On another, tap water contaminates our kitchens.

Group of women drawing clean water from Jesus Well. — Photo left: Clean water from the local Jesus Well is used for drinking, cooking and hand washing, while water from other local wells is used for washing vessels, clothes or bathing. || Photo right: A mother in South Asia carries her son and a pail of fresh, clean drinking water form the local Jesus Well in town.

Despite the Safe Drinking Water Act,
3,000 Areas in the U.S. Have Lead-Contaminated Water

President Clinton signs the amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act as children and others watch. — On August 6, 1996, President Clinton signed amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act to implement comprehensive public health protection from the source to the tap.
Photo by US Environmental Protection Agency

To ensure water safety, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was originally passed by the U.S. Congress in 1974 to protect public health by establishing regulations about drinking water. According to a paper issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, “The law was amended in 1986 and 1996 and requires many actions to protect drinking water and its sources—rivers, lakes, reservoirs, springs, and ground water wells. … SDWA authorizes the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) to set national health-based standards for drinking water to protect against both naturally occurring and man-made contaminants that may be found in drinking water.”

Unfortunately, today, much of the water supply in the United States, despite the SDWA, is at risk. The Environmental Protection Agency urges that drinking water safety cannot be taken for granted: “There are a number of threats to drinking water: improperly disposed of chemicals, animal wastes, pesticides, human threats, wastes injected underground, and naturally occurring substances can all contaminate drinking water. Likewise, drinking water that is not properly treated or disinfected, or which travels through an improperly maintained distribution system, may also pose a health risk.”

Some 3,000 areas of the United States recently recorded
lead-poisoning rates at least double to those in Flint
during the peak of that city’s contamination crisis.

The most notable example of U.S. water source contamination, which captured the attention of much of the nation, was from Flint, Michigan, where analysis revealed that the town’s drinking water was lead-contaminated and was poisoning much of the citizenry of that community. However, even more shocking was the discovery that Reuters, the international news agency, reported: “Nearly 3,000 areas [of the country had] recently recorded lead-poisoning rates at least double those in Flint during the peak of that city’s contamination crisis. And more than 1,100 of these communities had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher.”

Flint's drinking water pipes showing different kinds of iron corrosion and rust — Insightful pictures examining Flint’s drinking water pipes, showing different kinds of iron corrosion and rust.
Photo by Min Tang and Kelsey Pieper

How Lead Poisoning Affects the Human Body

Hilary Godwin, a chemist at Northwestern University near Chicago, studies the chemistry of lead poisoning on the human body. Photo by National Institute of General Medical Sciences

How does lead poison the human body? The World Health Organization (WHO) released a paper titled “Lead poisoning and health,” which listed the key facts:

Lead is a cumulative toxicant that affects multiple body systems and is particularly harmful to young children.
Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver, kidney and bones. It is stored in the teeth and bones, where it accumulates over time. Human exposure is usually assessed through the measurement of lead in blood.
Lead in bone is released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing fetus.
There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.
Lead exposure is preventable.

The symptoms of lead poisoning are varied and alarming as WHO warns. These include behavioral changes because brain development is affected: reduced attention span, increased antisocial incidents and failing educational achievement. Anemia, hyperactivity, toxicity to the reproductive organs, blood-pressure-level impacts and renal impairment are some of the signs of lead exposure. Experts believe neurological and behavioral effects are irreversible.

Consequently, not only is the former statement a truism—certain kinds of life thrive with certain kinds of water—but we can logically agree with the experts that polluted water is not the optimum nutrient for mankind. Poisoned water creates life-diminishing conditions for most and particularly for the developing brains and neurological systems of the young.

Reasons for Unsafe Water Supplies in the United States

Workers laying new water pipes — Effective lead‐and‐copper sampling plans allow water utilities to make critical corrosion‐control and water quality improvement decisions to protect public health.
Photo by American Water Works Association

If there is no acceptable level of lead in drinking water, the question must be posed: Why are so many municipalities, homeowners and schools still finding lead in their systems today?

An article by Rachel Layne in MoneyWatch concludes: “One reason may be aging infrastructure and the cost to replace old water pipes and lead solder used in household plumbing. Drinking water is delivered via 1 million miles of pipes across the U.S., much of them laid in the early- to mid-20th century with a lifespan of 75 to 100 years.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that those pipes are being replaced at an average rate of 0.5 percent a year.

“At that pace,” Layne notes, “it would take roughly two centuries to renew the whole system at a cost of around $1 trillion, according to one estimate by the American Water Works Association.”

In fact, as many as 63 million people—nearly one-fifth of the United States—were exposed to potentially unsafe water more than once during the past decade, according to a News21 investigation of 680,000 water-quality and monitoring violations as reported by the EPA.

That finding highlights “how six decades of industrial dumping, farming pollution and water plant and distribution pipe deterioration have taken a toll on local water systems.” According to this report, many local water-treatment plants are not equipped or can’t afford to strain out contaminants. In addition, much of the corroding water-distribution systems are susceptible to lead contamination, leaks in the lines, and consequent bacterial growth due to the instability of this aging infrastructure.

What Can One Concerned Citizen Do?

So, what is to be done? At this point, it behooves a water-drinking citizenry to act responsibly.

My husband and I live in an unincorporated area of a western Chicago suburb, and we have lived here for more than 40 years. Our water is pumped from our own well, which I have assumed to be “safe” water. However, after research conducted for this article, I realized I was relying too much on what might turn out to be unfounded assumptions, so I ordered a complete water-testing kit. When the kit comes, we can test our own water from the tap to determine what minerals exist in this liquid and whether or not there are contaminants. Then we will make plans—perhaps to install filters on certain faucets. If needed, that will require additional Internet research.

A citizen, concerned about his or her municipality’s water supply, can look up reports online as to the status of local sources. The mayor’s office of our little town of 27,000 has published a comprehensive “state of the water” report, which was mailed to all the addresses in our community; that report is also published on the Internet and identifies any possible trouble spots or any deep water reservoirs that may be problematic. If there are problems with our local water supply, then I have at least informed myself as to their existence. Our mayor also invites citizens who have questions, concerns or suggestions to meet with him once a month; questions about the safety of water supplies can be brought up in such a forum.

The point of this is:

Do not remain ignorant about your community’s water supplies, which most of us drink so casually without considering the quality of its content. (Remember my orchids.)

The following instances should give us all a heads-up warning:

In Waukesha, Wisconsin, 18 miles west of Milwaukee, decades of radium contamination from the city’s underground aquifer prompted officials to draft a proposal to draw water from Lake Michigan for its 71,000 residents. The Great Water Alliance, a $200-million project, is expected to be completed by 2023.
Thousands of rural towns have the most problems because communities often lack the expertise and resources to provide safe drinking water.
In several Southwestern states, 2 million people received groundwater tainted with arsenic, radium or fluoride from their local water systems, with many exposed to these chemicals for years before hundreds of small, low-income communities could afford to filter them out. Some still haven’t cleaned up their water.

Ever wondered what’s causing those puzzling health problems—headaches, stomach troubles, your kids’ irascibility and/or inability to pay attention in class? Maybe there’s something in the water. Check it out.

Healthy water—clear, clean and pure—is one of the great gifts of the Creator to the inhabitants of earth. However, as part of our God-given mandate as caretakers of this remarkable planet, we need to be responsible to guard our water sources, its supply and delivery systems, and to not take for granted what pumps from our wells or flows from our kitchen taps. We have all too often—I certainly am a guilty party—been sloppy stewards of our creation.

Despite the safe water, we assume, we are drinking, we need to be responsible and check out municipal reports or order water-testing kits to make sure. The Environmental Protection Agency has a paper online titled “Ground Water Rule: A Quick Reference Guide” (it’s a dense and comprehensive two pages of analytics, but helpful). If you feel better after changing the water you’ve been drinking, then drink more of the new supply. Health gurus insist that hydrating our bodies is a key principle to achieving better health and more productive daily function.

Give Towards Clean Water Projects

Learn how to provide life-saving water through Jesus Wells and BioSand water filters, and help support ongoing maintenance of these clean water projects.

Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Don’t Drink the Water! (Unless You Know What’s in It) — Part 2

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

Read another Special Report from Gospel for Asia on Solving the World Water Crisis … for Good — Lasting Solutions Can Defeat an Age-old Problem

Learn more by reading this special report from Gospel for Asia: Mosquito-Driven Scourge Touches Even Developed Nations — Malaria Alone Claims 400,000 Lives Per Year

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

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

New Gospel for Asia Report: ‘Time for Malaria to Buzz Off’

April 25, 2022 By GFA Staff Writer

WILLS POINT, TX – Global humanitarian agency GFA World (Gospel for Asia) founded by KP Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, suggests in a new report, a long-anticipated vaccine breakthrough could mean the end is in sight for one of the world’s most deadly disease.Mosquito-borne malaria is responsible for more than 400,000 deaths worldwide annually, roughly equivalent to wiping out the population of Miami every year, says the report Malaria, It’s Time to Buzz Off! (https://www.gfa.org/press/malaria/)

Mosquito-borne malaria is responsible for more than 400,000 deaths worldwide annually, says GFA World report Malaria, It's Time to Buzz Off! — **TIME FOR MALARIA TO BUZZ OFF:** Mosquito-borne malaria kills a child somewhere every 2 minutes. GFA World’s (www.gfa.org) new report Malaria, It’s Time to Buzz Off! (https://www.gfa.org/press/malaria/) – released for World Malaria Day, April 25 – spotlights the new vaccine that could help finally eradicate the disease worldwide.

The report – coinciding with World Malaria Day, April 25 – says the disease that’s rampant in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia kills a child somewhere every 2 minutes, making the tiny mosquito more deadly than “sharks, wolves, lions, crocodiles and snakes combined.”

But now that could change with the first-ever approval of a vaccine for widespread use by the World Health Organization (WHO). Calling it “the ‘buzz’ millions around the world have been waiting to hear,” the report describes the new 4-dose vaccine as a “game-changing development.”

By last October, 2.3 million shots-in-arms were administered to children in the 3-nation vaccine trial covering parts of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in Africa. The vaccine – 30-plus years in the making – reduced cases of severe and deadly malaria by 30%, notes the report.

Malaria and Changing Climate

The encouraging news, at long last, of an effective vaccine comes after a study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine suggested changing temperatures could eventually cause a dramatic increase in malaria cases.

A staggering 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,” the report cites scientists as predicting.

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,” the report goes on, “placing populations in the developed and largely malaria-free nations of the West at risk.”

Malaria Missionaries

Organizations like Gospel for Asia (GFA World) fight malaria in even the most remote locations, such as the mountains of South Asia. Driven by their belief that “every life is precious to God,” the agency’s local missionaries climbed a mountain on foot to deliver lifesaving mosquito bed nets and malaria medicine to isolated villagers.

“From the day they brought the medicine and nets, not a single person in that community died of malaria,” said Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founder K.P. Yohannan (Metropolitan Yohan), whose organization’s local missionaries have given out more than 1.3 million mosquito nets in communities across Asia. “This truly shows people that God cares about them.”

China: A Malaria Success Story

Last year, after a 70-year battle against the disease, China was declared malaria-free – the first country in the Western Pacific region in more than 3 decades to rid itself of the disease. During the Vietnam War, “more Chinese soldiers died from malaria than bullets in the mosquito-ridden jungles,” the report says.

“China has shown us it’s possible to obliterate malaria from the world’s most populated country,” the report continues. “And now, with an effective vaccine, the end is finally in sight around the globe.”

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.

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

Source: GFA World Digital Media News Room, ‘Time for Malaria to Buzz Off’ Says New GFA World Report

Widows Face Uphill Battle After Losing Spouses – Part 2

April 22, 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 this final part of the GFA Special Report update on the desperate plight of widows in both affluent and developing nations.

Photo collage of desperate widows — Widows like these from across South Asia need assistance to alleviate their difficult circumstances.

Persistent Superstitions

Many might think such marginalization only happened in centuries past, but these recent stories illustrate that ancient cultural customs, superstitions and prejudices persist. According to the Global Fund for Widows, not only do many nations prevent widows from inheriting her rightful assets when her husband dies, some allow women to become part of his estate.

A widow with her son and his family — This widow is living with her son, and his family in West Bengal India. Her husband was killed by a tiger while working. Some widows even witness those attacks and experience post-traumatic stress disorder while grieving.

Such realities emphasize the need for International Widows Day, 15 years after the Loomba Foundation established the first observance to draw attention to widows’ experiences and galvanize more public support.

They are “stigmatized, shunned and shamed” the UN says. “And many of these abuses go unnoticed, even normalized. International Widows Day is an opportunity for action towards achieving full rights and recognition for widows.”

Then there are the problems caused by war and other conflicts. To examine this, the UNHCR—the UN Refugee Agency—dispatched a reporter to Mosul, Iraq, near the end of the government’s three-year-long, on-and-off battle to overcome militant extremists.

The agency examined the impact of fighting, which continued long after the battle ended. Among the victims were Asmaa Mahmood, captured along with her husband and their two young daughters. Two weeks after their capture and separation, Asmaa learned her husband had been killed. As would be expected, she suffered from shock, psychological trauma and grief.

Policy reforms that can help address disadvantages to widows, the World Bank says, are regarding property ownership, inheritance rights, registration of customary marriages and widows’ pensions.

More than 900,000 fled after the final military operation began to retake the city in late 2016. At one camp operated by the UNHCR and its partners, female-headed households made up more than a quarter of the total: 1,250 out of 4,463 families.

Widows like 25-year-old Asmaa faced desperate straits. She hadn’t even told her children of their father’s death after arriving at the refugee camp, evading the truth by telling her girls he had been working and would soon return.

“I am so exhausted worrying about the future of my children,” she said. “Now I have no one to rely on. All I want is to provide a good living for my two daughters. I don’t worry about myself. I just don’t want my daughters to feel any different from other girls who have a father.”

GFA Sisters of compassion serve these desperate widows in slum — These widows living in the slums of Mumbai gather together for support, prayer and practical assistance from the local pastors and Sisters of Compassion serving with Gospel for Asia (GFA World).

Given such earth-shaking situations, the 2019 release of a widow-linked television series may seem like a trifling thing. Yet, despite the six-hour series being primarily an adventure tale, the airing of The Widow on Amazon Prime shows a symbolic consciousness of the situation.

Co-produced by Amazon and Britain’s ITV, the eight episodes drew a critical review in the influential The Atlantic magazine. Yet reviewer Sophie Gilbert noted star Kate Beckinsale gave the main character a “confidence in her action scenes that’s intermittently thrilling.” In real life, widows’ courage is indeed something to behold. While a TV mini-series highlights their plight before viewers, widows require real substantive action by governments, NGOs and individuals like you and me to help them survive financially and emotionally, even as they suffer through their grief.

Quiet Help

While International Widows Day places a spotlight on the problems facing widows, much of the work being done to alleviate their suffering and deprivation occurs in quiet ways.

GFA had 32 teams working across South Asia where 22 percent of widows worldwide live

In 2018, Gospel for Asia (GFA) had 32 teams working across South Asia, where 22 percent of the global population of widows lives, to address widows’ specific needs.

In Asian cultures, many widows are seen as a curse and may be shunned by society, including close relatives.

The following facts show a sampling of what desperate widows face in this part of the world:

Widows are often forcibly evicted from their homes and extended families by the husband’s family after his death.

Widows are often erroneously accused of having caused the deaths of their husbands.

Since widows’ education level is typically much lower, 19 million of them live in extreme poverty, earning less than $2 a day.

Remarriage by widows in this part of the world is low, so street begging or prostitution often becomes a way of life for younger widows.

Many widows are left to care for their children with little help from relatives.

And sometimes children are forcibly removed from their moms.

When not removed, children from low-income families often have to enter the labor force to support their widowed mothers and other siblings.

Consider these practical examples of the impact of widowhood on real people in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and other parts of South Asia—home to 57.8 million widows. There’s Riya, who at 57 became shrouded by the shame of widowhood when her husband died from an unknown illness. Overwhelmed by sorrow and guilt, for three years she struggled to leave her bed.

Then there is Prema, the mother of two young children who suddenly found herself widowed and without a source of income.

And Amey, who struggled to overcome nearly insurmountable odds when riots touched her small village and those responsible tried to extort a fortune from her husband, a dry-fish vendor. When he refused, they killed him in his home. That left Amey with four children to raise by herself, forcing her to sell their belongings in a desperate struggle for survival. When she ran out of money and revived her husband’s business, her success sparked jealousy from other merchants, who harassed her and even tried to kill her.

Amey and family — I had to go through lots of problems after my husband passed away,” Amey (above) recalled. “To protect my children, I had to sell my belongings … Our economic situation went from bad to worse … I was mentally drained …”

In each case, help from Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers brought light and hope and shared how much God loved and cared for them. Thanks to a Gospel for Asia (GFA) initiative teaching women to develop skills and become self-supporting, Prema learned how to sew and received a sewing machine to help her generate income. After a neighbor invited Amey to attend church, she and her daughters found the inspiration and support to start a new spice business.

“I have no words to thank my Lord Jesus for the miracles that He has done in my life,” Amey says. “I am so thankful He has saved me and also protected me in order to be the strength for my daughters. Now we are living with God’s grace, and our lives have been blessed immensely.”

Besides income-generating gifts, Gospel for Asia (GFA) supplies widows with clothing and other essentials, comfort, encouragement and the vital link of prayer support. Gospel for Asia (GFA) also maintains a website, www.mygfa.org, that equips those who want to conduct grassroots fundraising campaigns. Those funds help the poor, including widows, and equip missionaries in the most difficult areas of Asia—where millions have yet to experience His love.

“The Bible says that true religion is to care for orphans and widows in their distress,” Dr. Yohannan says. “The challenge facing the Church around the world today is to not just read the Bible, but follow its teachings.”

These teachings apply the same today as they did thousands of years ago.

If you would like to do something now to help widows around the world, please consider one, or more, of the following ideas:

Raise awareness of the plight of widows by sharing this article with your friends and family via social media, email or a link on your blog.

Interview a GFA World representative on this topic for your podcast or radio show. To facilitate that idea, email pressrelations@gfa.org.

Make a donation to help widows in Asia through a gift to GFA World.

Identify a widow that you know personally and invite her to lunch or dinner, with the goal to understand her and her needs better. Act on what you learn to make a difference for that one person.

Give to Help Widows

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

About Gospel for Asia

Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially to those who have yet to hear about the love of God. In GFA’s latest yearly report, this included more than 70,000 sponsored children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://press.gfa.org/news.

Learn more about the Sisters of Compassion – those who are specially trained woman missionary with a deep burden for showing Christ’s love by physically serving the needy, underprivileged and poor.

Learn more about GFA programs to address the desperate desperate plight of widows by helping women through Vocational Training, Sewing Machines and Literacy Training.

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

Ending Violence Against Women — Using Programs and Education to Prevent Discrimination
An Imaginative Exercise in Empathetic Fear — Think About Living in a Community with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

This Special Report originally appeared on gfa.org.

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

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

Tricking Mosquitoes With … ‘Toxic’ Beetroot Juice?

Facing a Global Emergency

Quest to Become Malaria-Free

The Battle On the Frontlines: Mosquito Nets

One Less Thing to Fear

Making It Personal Makes a Difference

About GFA World

Malaria and Changing Temperatures

Malaria ‘Cat and Mouse’

About GFA World

Kids at Risk of Sexual Exploitation

Children at Risk of Slavery

Real-life Cinderellas

Redeeming Children in Crisis

About GFA World

Escaping the Craziness

About GFA World

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

Children at Risk of Starvation

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

About GFA World

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

About GFA World

While the U.S. Struggles with Contaminated Tap Water, Millions in Asia Remain Without Access to Any Clean, Safe Drinking Water

The Impact of a “Jesus Well” on One Community

Give Towards Clean Water Projects

Jesus Compares Himself to Fountains of Water

Give Towards Clean Water Projects

Despite the Safe Drinking Water Act, 3,000 Areas in the U.S. Have Lead-Contaminated Water

How Lead Poisoning Affects the Human Body

Reasons for Unsafe Water Supplies in the United States

What Can One Concerned Citizen Do?

The point of this is:

Give Towards Clean Water Projects

Malaria and Changing Climate

Malaria Missionaries

China: A Malaria Success Story

About GFA World

Persistent Superstitions

Quiet Help

The following facts show a sampling of what desperate widows face in this part of the world:

Give to Help Widows

While the U.S. Struggles with Contaminated Tap Water,
Millions in Asia Remain Without Access to Any Clean,
Safe Drinking Water

Despite the Safe Drinking Water Act,
3,000 Areas in the U.S. Have Lead-Contaminated Water