WILLS POINT, TX — A U.S.-based global mission agency says several of its partner churches were left “broken” by a devastating earthquake that struck remote Western Nepal Nov. 3, killing more than 150 people.
“We have also lost cherished members of our church family in this heart-wrenching tragedy,” said K.P. Yohannan (Metropolitan Yohan), founder of Texas-based GFA World (www.gfa.org). “Our prayers are with all the affected families, and we share in their grief during this most challenging time.”
GFA WORLD, LOCAL CHURCHES RUSH TO AID NEPAL QUAKE SURVIVORS: Local church teams in remote Western Nepal are desperately trying to reach villages flattened by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake last Friday night that killed more than 150 people and left thousands without shelter. GFA World (www.gfa.org) is asking for prayer and support.
According to news reports, the magnitude 6.4 quake flattened mud-and-brick homes in the rugged Jajarkot and West Rukum districts, about 300 miles west of the capital, Kathmandu. It hit just before midnight local time when most people were in bed. Tremors were felt as far away as Delhi.
GFA World reported three churches were badly affected, and in one village three church members were killed.
One Nepalese church leader told the mission organization that local Christians were “broken” by the loss of life and many severe injuries.
Local Church Members Rush to Aid Survivors
“Just like when a quake rocked Nepal in 2015, our teams immediately mobilized. Local church members are actively involved in rescue and relief efforts in the region, with thousands of people in need of food, blankets and tents after their homes were destroyed,” said Yohannan.
Because many affected villages are in remote areas impassable by vehicles, church workers have to use motorbikes to reach them, a local church leader told GFA World. The organization supports national missionaries and helps millions of the poorest people in Africa and Asia.
Within hours, one church team reached a devastated village and began distributing food.
It’s estimated in some areas up to 90% of the simple mud-and-brick dwellings collapsed.
Yohannan urged Christians to pray for those suffering and those who’ve lost loved ones in Nepal. “Let our faith guide us in extending God’s love, aid, and hope to the people of Nepal,” he said. “Together, we can help them heal.”
About GFA World (formerly Gospel for Asia)
GFA World is a leading faith-based global mission agency, helping national missionaries bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Africa and Asia, 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 hundreds of villages and remote communities, over 40,000 clean water wells drilled since 2007, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 150,000 needy families, and teaching to provide hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through broadcast ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit the Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.
GFA World’s Compassion Services is bringing Christ’s love to the suffering and needy in very practical ways. GFA-supported missionaries and volunteers assist survivors of natural disasters by providing food, water, medical care, clothing and even shelter. Teams also minister to slum dwellers and leprosy patients in some of Asia’s major cities. And all is done with a clear Gospel witness.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founded by K.P. Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, discussing the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015, the devastation and tragedy it dealt, and the Gospel for Asia (GFA World) workers that brought relief, help and hope to the victims.
On April 25, 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, taking around 9,000 lives, injuring more than 23,000 people, and damaging or destroying more than 700,000 homes.[1] The disaster caused widespread devastation.
One village hit hard by this tragedy was in desperate need of food and supplies. Nearly all the houses had been destroyed. The residents’ belongings, food, clothes and livestock—all essential to their livelihood—were buried, destroyed or damaged. To make matters worse, the road into the village was blocked by a landslide, making it nearly impossible for the villagers to access outside food or materials. They were in dire need of help and hope.
Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor Manja knew the desperate needs of his fellow villagers and yearned to help them in their time of need. He organized a relief distribution in cooperation with the local church. The distribution workers distributed 11,352 pounds of rice and 378 pounds of salt to the disaster victims, which they received with gratitude and joy.
“Thank you for your support to us in our need,” said 54-year-old recipient Radamés. “We are very happy to see you. Though we are not familiar with one another, you remembered us and helped us. Thank you again.”
Balandis, another recipient, also expressed his gratitude to the relief team.
“Many, many thanks to you,” Balandis said. “This is the best work. To help the needy people is holier work than any other work. I am [grateful] to you all.”
The relief team also assisted Gaerwn, the oldest surviving villager, and their kindness touched his heart.
“Thank you so much for supporting us,” Gaerwn said. “[Others] forgot us; you remembered us. May God bless you in each of your steps in life!”
Through the work and ministry of Pastor Manja and the local church, these village residents were able to experience God’s love and care for them in their time of need. Though they felt forgotten after the tragedy of the earthquake, they were encouraged and uplifted by the support of the relief team, which brought both the help and the hope they so greatly needed.
Partner with GFA World and continue to help bring relief in the face of disasters like flooding and COVID-19.
*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia World stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.
Learn more about the need for Disaster Relief Work, Gospel for Asia’s “Compassion Services” with relief teams who love the Lord who are focused to help victims of natural disasters find a firm foundation.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World) founded by KP Yohannan, has been the model for numerous charities like Gospel for Asia Canada, to help the poor and deprived worldwide, issued this 2nd part of a Special Report update on the state of Modern Day Slavery amid the COVID 19 pandemic.
Chief Superintendent Linda Jones, divisional police commander, welcomes three new officers who will begin policing the streets of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland very soon. Photo by Dumfries Galloway Police Division, Facebook
A recent Google search for “crime in the time of a virus human trafficking” found multiple results. One report from Asia documents that seasoned traffickers are busy distributing COVID relief materials and essential food items, and using this activity to identify vulnerable families and possible victims. A report by the UN indicates that the COVID crisis is putting human trafficking victims at risk of further exploitation.
In Scotland, police have warned that with many urban businesses closed, traffickers could be turning their sights on more rural areas.
INTERPOL, the international police agency, says the pandemic “has not blunted the determination of organized crime groups to prey on the vulnerable and make a profit from these crimes, which all too often cost the victims their lives.”
Rather, organized crime groups have increased the prices they charge those they are promising to get across borders illegally to find work and heightened the risks involved by trying to find unguarded entry points.
A case in point: In March, 64 male migrants were found dead in a shipping container loaded on the back of a truck trying to cross from Malawi into Mozambique. They are believed to have suffocated. Fourteen others survived.
Such large-scale operations—and tragedies—are not limited to less developed nations. At least nine people died, and more were hospitalized, in San Antonio, Texas, in 2017 after around 100 people were crammed into a tractor-trailer smuggling them into the country from South America.
In England, 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in a refrigerated truck linked to a European smuggling network in May.
And sometimes those in positions of influence are found to be perpetrators. Mohammad Shahid Islam, a member of Parliament in Bangladesh, was arrested in Kuwait in June as part of a human trafficking network. He allegedly charged Bangladeshis almost US$10,000 for a job in the Middle Eastern country.
Paul Petersen, a former county official in Arkansas, pleaded guilty in June to human smuggling and fraud charges related to paying women from the Marshall Islands to come to the United States to put their babies up for adoption.
In some parts of the world, it’s not only individual leaders but large government entities that actively participate in human trafficking. In this year’s TIP report, the State Department named 10 countries it said have engaged in “government-sponsored forced labor.” Among the claims was an Afghan government “policy or pattern” of recruiting child soldiers and sexually enslaving boys in government compounds, a practice known as “bacha bazi.”
The U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report affirms that traffickers are denying nearly 25 million people their fundamental right to freedom, by preying on the most vulnerable people, and forcing them to live enslaved lives and toil for their exploiter’s profit. The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic have magnified this problem. Photo by U.S. Department of State
Awareness Training Vitally Needed
While much human trafficking goes on underground, it also often hides in plain sight, such as in domestic workers serving wealthy families, fruit pickers, car wash cleaners and even athletes. For example, in the world of aspiring young athletes, the promise of riches and unscrupulous agents has driven exploitation. According to the U.S. State Department report, “Within Europe’s soccer industry alone, it is estimated there are 15,000 human trafficking victims each year.”
It was how a routine traffic stop in Florida led to the arrest of six men who “orchestrated an extensive human trafficking ring.” Following a vehicle reported stolen in Ohio, deputies arrested the driver and his female passenger, whose behavior made them suspect she was under coercion. Eventually, she trusted the officers enough to reveal what she was caught up in.
“The bottom line is that traffickers have not shut down … traffickers are continuing to exploit people. And as vulnerable people become more vulnerable due to COVID, it’s making it easier and easier for traffickers to operate.”
Such alertness isn’t just needed from first responders like police and EMS providers who, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, are “well-suited to help counter human trafficking” because of how they come into contact with people. People working in hotels, bars or sporting events should also be trained to discern the signs of human trafficking because of the high level of interaction with others. The Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association, for example, has arranged for awareness training for all its members.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, first responders like police, EMS providers, or this Italian Red Cross worker in Macerata, Italy, are “well-suited to help counter human trafficking” because of how they come into contact with people. Likewise, workers in hotels, bars or sporting events should also be trained to discern the signs of human trafficking because of their high level of interaction with others.
The Power of Faith-based Action
Charting the progress that has been made in fighting human trafficking over the past 20 years by governments and other agencies, the latest TIP report notes the important part played by faith-based groups like Gospel for Asia (GFA World). They are “powerful and necessary forces,” it says.
This photo is a small glimpse of the red-light district where Pastor Dhinanath ministers. This row of houses has multiple rooms, which are usually rented by pimps for ongoing prostitution. For safety concerns, we cannot identify anyone working this row of rooms, or share its location in South Asia.
“Unlike governments, faith-based organizations are not limited by jurisdiction, election cycles, or political will.”
“They reach across international borders,” the report says, “spanning continents with a powerful network of followers with tremendous reach—from remote villages to capital cities and the seats of power.”
They also aim to break the cycle by providing vocational training and tools that can provide an income and keep people from getting trapped in perpetual debt.
Another way they help is by caring for children whose parents are forced to work all day.
“While these parents are engaged in their daily work, their children are left unattended,” says Kien, who works at one of Gospel for Asia’s Bridge of Hope community centers that opened its doors to the youngsters. “They have no parental guidance or supervision whatsoever. … They are let loose, and they become very unruly. They do not obey or listen to others. This is a big need here to teach their children.”
The staff at this Bridge of Hope Project Center in Sri Lanka individually help the children out in their after school learning, provide a safe environment to study, supply a hot meal every day, and give them encouragement, love and hope for a brighter future.
At the center, children get a hot meal and schooling and experience genuine love and care from staff.
“I feel very happy and joyful because of the work that we are doing among them,” says Kien. “These children will get a new life; they will become new persons as we teach them. I feel very glad and happy to think where these children will be in the future because of the investment we have made in their lives while here at the center.”
While bright spots like Gospel for Asia (GFA World) exist, a recent report by PBS says that COVID is making it harder for many worthy NGOs to survive, suggesting that only 24 percent of anti-trafficking organizations would be able to remain fully operational without extra funding in the next 12 months.
Gospel for Asia (GFA World) is a leading faith-based mission agency, helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially to those who have yet to hear about the love of God. In GFA’s latest yearly report, this included more than 70,000 sponsored children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. For all the latest news, visit our Press Room at https://press.gfa.org/news.
Read the rest of Gospel for Asia’s Special Report: Modern Day Slavery Speeds up Under Cover of COVID-19 – Growing during pandemic: People vulnerable to exploitation —Part 1
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA) – Discussing the GFA-supported Compassion Services teams comprised of national workers and missionaries, and their commitment to bring disaster relief to where it’s most needed.
Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Compassion Services teams grew in the wake of natural disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, that pummeled areas where Gospel for Asia-supported workers were ministering. National workers had always responded in times of crisis, but as the ministry grew—and disasters seemed to increase in ferocity—the need for coordinated relief effort took form.
Present the Moment After Tragedy
In the hours following a cataclysmic event such as a tsunami, cyclone or earthquake, stunned silence punctuated with grief-soaked sobs hangs heavy in the air. Compassion Services teams—often the first to arrive—bring provisions for survivors and listen to those who endured such horrific experiences.
These relief workers quickly erect emergency shelters and distribute food rations. Along with provisions for basic needs, survivors are given comfort and hope.
Kalei, a mother and grandmother who survived 2013’s Cyclone Phailin, which ravaged the coastal shore of Odisha, India, escaped the storm with nothing but the clothes on her body. Her family’s mud hut was washed away by torrential rain, along with all their possessions. Compassion Services came to her village with groceries and clothing to help the immediate need.
Then there were the side-by-side earthquakes in Nepal during the Spring of 2015. It was the worst disaster in the nation’s history. The 7.8 and 7.3 magnitude earthquakes, occurring two weeks apart, toppled cities and villages across the rugged landscape of the nation, whose northern border runs through the Himalayan Mountain range.
With a wide reach of established pastors and national workers in the country, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported disaster-relief teams partnered with the government of Nepal to search for survivors and rescue people stranded in the mountains.
Committed to Long-term Rebuilding
Fast forward one year: Displaced victims of the Nepal earthquakes returned to their villages and schools. Compassion Services teams switched from food rations to household items and school supplies. Simple items like mugs, buckets and salt brought relief and hope. Villagers who did not have the means to replace what the earthquake stole rejoiced at gifts of warm blankets and coats.
In 2013, the receding flood waters from Cyclone Phailin revealed the full impact of the storm. Homes and farms that were completely washed away left hundreds of thousands of people like Kalei without permanent shelter or a means to support themselves. National workers surveyed the damage and committed to the long-term rebuilding needed in decimated villages.
Christmas gift distribution programs provided survivors with sewing machines, carpentry tools and livestock—the means to build a new source of income. Plans developed to rebuild more than 1,000 homes—houses made of brick and cement and able to weather future storms.
Kalei stood at the door of her newly constructed brick-and-cement home with tears in her eyes.
“We were not able to build a house [for ourselves, especially one] made of bricks and cement,” Kalei said. “We are so thankful to our God for his mercy and to our church for their help.”
In August 2018, floodwaters deluged the South Indian state of Kerala. Across the state, roads became rivers, and hundreds of thousands of people were stranded on rooftops, searching for higher ground.
Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported workers—filling the ranks of Compassion Services teams—cruised flooded streets in boats, rescuing those surrounded by rising waters. In the boat, team members gave bottled water and food to passengers and took them to emergency shelters.
“Because we have brothers and sisters living and serving in Kerala, we will be with these flood survivors for the long haul,” said Dr. K.P Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia (GFA).
Offering hope and help in the name of Jesus during great suffering is the heart of Gospel for Asia-supported ministry. Compassion Services teams are present in the tragic moments following catastrophe with the love of Christ to help survivors journey into joy.
*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by KP Yohannan, issued this Special Report update on the desperate plight of widows in both affluent and developing nations.
After two decades of fighting to eliminate the U.S. military’s “widow’s tax,” Cathy Milford finally succeeded, but she won’t benefit from that change for another three years. That’s how long it will take until she receives full survivor benefits instead of only partial. Though the U.S. Congress passed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the bill only phases out the tax by 2023.
Cathy Milford successfully fought to eliminate the U.S. military’s “widow’s tax”. Photo by Doug Jones, Medium
“This is just an awful thing to do,” Milford said at a Capitol Hill rally in May 2019, recalling her 25 years of pushing for repeal; her late husband, Harry, suffered a fatal aneurysm soon after retiring from the U.S. Coast Guard. “Every time I talk about this, I have to dig my husband up and bury him all over again.”
The dispute revolved around awards given to survivors of veterans who die of service-related causes (the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation program, or DIC) and a separate, life insurance-type program known as the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP). While individuals who qualified for either have received full payouts, those getting income from both saw SBP funds reduced by one dollar for every DIC dollar since 1972. The difference of up to $1,000 a month affects 67,000 surviving spouses.
“This problem goes back decades, but this year we finally solved it once and for all,” said Maine senator Susan Collins after the bill’s passage in December 2019.
That securing additional benefits for military survivors took such a protracted fight symbolizes the plight of widows worldwide. Whether husband-less females in Nigeria who have been branded “witches,” women in Asia blamed for their husbands’ deaths and other calamities, or those in South Africa who can lose inheritance rights when in-laws object, the world’s 258 million widows often face an uphill battle.
Women who lose a spouse can face difficult and complicated problems even in affluent societies, as the U.S. military widows’ battle illustrates.
Nearly one in 10 lives in extreme poverty, says the United Nations (UN). While widows have specific needs, their voices are often missing from policies affecting them.
“In some Asian cultures, when a woman’s husband dies, she is often stripped of her dignity, her worth and her human rights,” says K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia (GFA). “Many of these widows are deprived of their home, their property and their possessions—leaving them destitute. Lacking the ability to earn a living, and with no access to savings or credit, millions of widows all across Asia fight every day for their survival, all the while shunned and shamed.”
As the military widows’ battle illustrates, women can face problems even in affluent societies. Another example of the slighting of American widows surfaced in a 2018 report. The Social Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reviewed cases of dual eligibility, where a widow can receive her benefit or a deceased spouse’s. The OIG found that 82 percent of the time the Social Security Administration failed to follow its own procedures for spelling out maximum benefit options.
According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Loomba Foundation’s most recent World Widows Report:
The United States ranks third in the world for the most widowed women with more than 14 million.
Forty-nine percent earn less than $25,000 a year, meaning “widowhood is often a ticket to poverty.”
In practical numbers:
More than 740,000 widows are unable to provide food, shelter and basic necessities for themselves.
Secondary losses often crush widows, who subsequently may lose homes, jobs, insurance or credit.
In giving 100 stress points for losing a spouse, the Holmes and Rahe Social Readjustment Scale ranks loss of a spouse at No. 1. Other losses can push a widow’s stress level near 300 points, meaning an 80 percent chance of serious illness.
Three Sisters of Compassion from Gospel for Asia (GFA World) were photographed for this disheartened widow who had recently lost her husband to a tiger attack — a common occurrence in the Sundarbans of West Bengal, India.
Worldwide Problem
Problems for widows exist worldwide. According to the World Bank, it is especially bad in much of Africa, where marriage is the sole basis for women’s access to social and economic rights, which often vanish after widowhood or divorce. 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.
Widows: Invisible & Excluded – Asli Demirguc-Kunt Photo by Worldbank.org
“In the face of divorce or widowhood, women often struggle with serious economic hardship,” said Asli Demirguc-Kunt, director of research at the World Bank.
For example, women frequently inherit nothing when a marriage ends. They can be shut out of labor markets, own fewer productive assets and bear more responsibility for caring for children or the elderly.
“Just as widows are often hidden from view in their own communities, the absence of data limits broader public awareness of the issue,” said the story “Invisible and Excluded.” “Quantifying the prevalence of widowhood and divorce requires information on both current widows and divorcees as well as the marital history of currently married women, and this is only available in 20 countries.”
Nearly one in 10 lives in extreme poverty, says the United Nations. While widows have specific needs, their voices are often missing from policies affecting them.
Such disregard can cut deeply, which one 49-year-old Nigerian discovered after her husband committed suicide in 2014. Four months after his death, Christiana came across his bones after searching through forests for three days. Afterward, his relatives summoned her and questioned her intensely, seeking evidence her husband did not die because of her witchcraft.
“They said that I killed my husband,” she told freelance reporter Orji Sunday, “and declared me a witch.” Sunday went on to chronicle how numerous Nigerian widows face similar challenges rooted in cultural practices. Many traditions force women to take an oath to prove her innocence when her husband dies.
“Others confine the widow in place for [a] specific mourning period and others shave her hair, yet others insist that the widow drink the water with which her late husband was washed. Some are given to the brother of the deceased,” Sunday wrote. “Legislation protecting widows is lacking in many states in the country, and in regions where the laws exist implementation is far from convincing.”
The earthquakes in Nepal left this woman as a widow with young kids. Like many others in her nation, she doesn’t know how to start her life again.
Similar stories appear well beyond Africa. In Nepal, a middle-aged woman was blamed for her husband’s death in 2014. Five years later, people in her village accused her of causing the death of a buffalo and beat and tortured her.
“This is a representative example of how a widow is mistreated and traumatized in the country, how widows are looked down upon and treated as inauspicious,” wrote Prakriti Sapkota in a 2019 report. “Widows are among the most vulnerable categories of people in the country. The social stigma attached to them deprive them of their basic human rights and freedom of speech. They are [the] prey of physical and sexual assaults and harassments, accused of various sexual misdeeds and are socially marginalized.”
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.
WILLS POINT, TX – Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan – Discussing Gospel for Asia Disaster Relief, the chaos and disaster the 7.8 magnitude Earthquake brought in Nepal in 2015, and the unflinching practical love through relief work and education through Bridge of Hope.
“A
ll the believers began to scream and weep. I told them not to be afraid and also not to run outside,” said Pastor Pahil.
The Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor thought their village, surrounded by hills, was experiencing a landslide. But when the shaking continued, he began to understand the reality of the situation.
Pastor Pahil and his congregation of believers were worshiping together when the first earthquake struck the country of Nepal on April 25, 2015. The frightened believers huddled together inside their simple church building, which was made of tin sheets and wood. Even nonbelievers ran inside the doors of the church, hoping to find safety. Pastor Pahil encouraged the people to pray as they waited for the chaos to end. Eventually it did—but not without overwhelming loss.
Rumors and Anxiety
The earthquake registered as a 7.8 in magnitude and was the worst earthquake to hit Nepal in decades, resulting in devastation for much of the central regions of the nation. It took its toll on nearly all of the homes in Pastor Pahil’s village, causing cracks in the walls and shifts in the foundations. Four homes belonging to believers and two school buildings were destroyed. Six people died and 17 more were injured.
Many in Pastor Pahil’s village lived in fear after the first earthquake subsided. Rumors spread among them that the world was coming to an end and that another earthquake would finish the job. Pahil encouraged the people with Scripture verses, such as ones in Matthew 24, to calm their anxieties.
“[The earthquake] is just the sign of the last days. It is not the last day,” Pahil told them.
He assured them of God’s goodness and that He is the protector of His people.
When people in Pastor Pahil’s village started to fear the possibility of another earthquake, Pahil encouraged them with the Word of God.
As multiple smaller tremors continued to trouble the nation almost daily for the next few weeks, Pastor Pahil and many of the villagers moved temporarily to the grounds of a nearby hospital. There, in safety, the people became accustomed to the frequent, ground-shaking tremors. When another large earthquake hit the nation on May 12, they were unalarmed. The constant unrest and instability had become the most consistent part of the villagers’ lives.
Gospel for Asia Disaster Relief Work Begins
Eventually the aftershocks died down. As people moved back to their villages and tried to pick up the pieces of their lives, Pastor Pahil and the congregation reached out to their neighbors through prayer and encouragement.
Compassion Services teams were able to provide Gospel for Asia (GFA) disaster relief, administering food, shelter and other items to the earthquake victims. Pastor Pahil and the believers also did what they could to help the many in need.
As the villagers began to make a new start, Pastor Pahil and the other believers ministered to those in need by providing food and shelter.
“We got more opportunities to meet, encourage and share [Christ’s love] with them,” Pahil said. People from the surrounding areas traveled to Pastor Pahil’s village in search of safety as well. Many of them had been forced out of their own communities by landslides triggered by the quakes. The believers shared their clothing, food and shelter with those around them. As time passed, people slowly began to rebuild their lives, yet the definite need for schooling still remained.
Bridge of Hope Provides a Future
With both school buildings destroyed and classes out of session, children were left with no way to continue their education. When Pastor Pahil recognized the need, he helped establish a Bridge of Hope center in the village. The center provided many children with tutoring, school supplies, uniforms and nutritious meals.
Two young boys, Sejun and Badal, joined the center. After the earthquake, Sejun and Badal had traveled with their families to Pastor Pahil’s village with nothing but the clothes on their backs. All of their belongings had been destroyed in a landslide. Everyone in their village was forced to relocate.
Sejun and Badal’s families lost nearly everything in the earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015, but Bridge of Hope helped give them a fresh start.
As the boys attended the center, the kindness and compassion of the Bridge of Hope staff greatly impacted the families’ lives. Soon Sejun’s and Badal’s families began to realize Christ’s compassion toward them. They are grateful for the help they received from the Body of Christ, especially after having lost much of their livelihoods in the earthquake.
Practical Love Offers Hope in Trial
Though the earthquake’s destruction was catastrophic, Pastor Pahil has an optimistic outlook on the situation. He’s seen the people in his village respond to God’s love and faithfulness in the midst of trial and tragedy. Through the believers’ tangible example of Christ’s love in their relief work, six villagers have decided to follow the Lord.
“The villagers’ attitude toward Christians . . . has been totally changed since the earthquake,” Pastor Pahil says. “Now they take us positively.”
Much of the damage caused by the earthquake in Nepal is long-lasting, but our workers are continuing to help as the nation recovers.
God has shown His goodness in the aftermath of this tragedy, and He will continue to bring people to Himself as the nation recovers. Though the first earthquake to strike Nepal in 2015 occurred years ago, our workers are still on the ground helping communities and individuals rebuild.
*Names of people and places may have been changed for privacy and security reasons. Images are Gospel for Asia stock photos used for representation purposes and are not the actual person/location, unless otherwise noted.
Wills Point, Texas – Gospel for Asia (GFA) Special Report – Discussing the plight of widows worldwide as they face tragedy, discrimination, and suffering.
Accounts of the humiliations, insults and indignations suffered by widows worldwide would make anyone cringe.
Gulika, a widow in Asia, experienced helplessness after the people in her village turned their backs on her after her husband’s death.
A woman in Nigeria was harassed by her brother-in-law asking for documents of her house before her husband’s body even left for the funeral home—and then insisted she had to leave.
Another Nigerian woman’s husband lay in a hospital bed when her sister-in-law demanded a huge amount of money from their bank account. When the wife refused, her in-law swore she would regret it.
“Three days after, my husband died, his family descended on me, took his cars away and emptied the house.”
In connection with last year’s International Widows Day, CNN spotlighted the cases of seven widows, ranging from a woman in Nepal to a widow in India to the spouse of a U.S. serviceman killed 12 years ago in Iraq. Their stories varied, but they faced the same plight: difficulties with grief and loneliness, forms of ostracism, financial struggles and hopelessness.
Santu Kamari Maharjan of Nepal struggled greatly because she was a widow, until Women for Human Rights helped her and 14 other women start an agriculture business. (photo credit Womankind Worldwide via CNN.com)
The widow in Nepal, Santu Kamari Maharjan, then 55, had lost her husband to kidney failure years before. With young children to support, she had to work in people’s fields to clothe and feed them. (She had to sell her own field to pay for her husband’s medical treatment.) Her sisters-in-law would taunt her. As difficult as that was, then a serious earthquake in 2015 left her with no income—until the nonprofit Women for Human Rights helped her and 14 other women to build a bamboo shelter to start an agriculture business.
Grace Njeri Mwichigi, whose husband died in tribal violence in Kenya in 2007. (photo credit Matt Maxwell via CNN.com)
Grace Njeri Mwichigi became a widow after her husband was killed during tribal clashes in Kenya in 2007. The following months brought stress, confusion and fear, with much of the neglect and humiliation coming from family members. Purita Carlos of the Philippines lost her husband to lung cancer, which meant her fourth-grade son had to stop attending school while they stayed in Manila so she could learn how to earn a living.
“Being a widow is not easy, It is very sad, and the pain of missing your husband is always there. I don’t want to go through the same experience again. That is why I would not ever remarry. It is enough that I have my son.”
– Purita Carlos in an interview with CNN [1]
In other media coverage, headlines alone give an indication of the situation facing so many widows:
Agonies of widows hit by
harsh Nigerian traditions [3]
Stories of survival: Widows of
India’s farmer suicides [4]
USA: Social Security underpays
thousands of widows and widowers [4]
Kenya: Where becoming a widow is
the worst thing that can happen to you [6]
Widows Are at the Bottom of the Pile
Of the estimated 285 million widows in the developing world, more than 115 million live in abject poverty. [7] Eighty six million have suffered physical abuse, according to Cherie Blair, president of the UK-based Loomba Foundation, established in 1997 to empower widows and educate their children. In addition, 1.5 million children whose mothers have been widowed will die before they turn 5 years old. Considering the average widow has three children and six other family members, the wider impact affects more than a billion people, about one-seventh of the world’s population.
As president of the Loomba Foundation, Cherie Blair is on a mission to empower widows and educate their children. (Photo credit foreignoffice on Flickr)
“Their plight is one of the most important, yet under-reported, human-rights issues facing the world today,” says Blair. “Much has been made, and rightly so, of gender inequality, but widows have truly been at the bottom of the pile—visible and invisible—for too long. For many women, becoming a widow does not just mean the heartache of losing a husband, but often losing everything else as well.” [8]
Gospel for Asia reported on one widow named Gulika and her plight. [9] While Gulika didn’t live an extravagant lifestyle, her husband, Manan, earned an adequate income working as a tailor. That all changed the day Manan hurried across some railroad tracks, unaware of the train just around the bend.
The sorrow of losing her husband was compounded by the reaction of others in her village in Asia. Believing Gulika was cursed, many feared that even passing by her on the street could bring them bad luck. Not surprisingly, Gulika fell into emotional despair. Still, she had to uphold her duties as a daughter-in-law, including retrieving water for the family. The nearest source was an old well a third of a mile walk from home.
Like this woman, Gulika walked long distances to gather water for her in-laws.
Collecting water was a grueling chore, and not just because of the lengthy walk. Women and girls feared going out alone because of the potential danger of men taking advantage of their vulnerability. Some days, Gulika faced harassment from her neighbors, and she didn’t always come home with enough water.
Gulika’s story has a happy ending: A Gospel for Asia-supported pastor arranged for a new water well to be drilled in front of her home.
Widows Do Not Often See Relief from Their Suffering
Too often, however, widows don’t see relief from their suffering. So many women in various parts of the world have lost their husbands that the term “island of widows” has been applied to locations in Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and India.
Some of these women’s husbands have died from unknown chronic kidney disease (CKDu). First diagnosed among sugarcane workers in Chichigalapa, Nicaragua, it more recently spread to a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh, India. In a village of less than 3,000 people, at least 126 women have become widows by CKDu ailments, which have stricken farmers, coconut grove workers and fishermen. [10]
There are other concentrations of widows linked to a variety of causes. The city of Vrindavan in northern India, known as a holy city because of its numerous temples, has been labeled “the city of widows.” That’s because an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 widows live in the area, almost one-fourth or one-third of the city’s population of 63,000. [11]
A “tiger widow” with her three children; a man works in a forest where tiger attacks happen often.
The Sunderbans, a cluster of islands stretching from India to Bangladesh, contain several villages that are home to “Tiger Widows,” women whose spouses have been killed by tigers.
“They think we are evil,” said one woman who lost her husband to a wild animal. “People blame us for the death of our husbands.” [12]
Widows Worldwide Face Tragedy, Discrimination: Part 2 | Part 3
You know that awkward moment when you’re stopped at a red light, and you can feel the presence right outside your window. You study the road in front of you, trying, unconvincingly, to look casual and nonchalant. Before, when you slowed down for this stop light, you saw the panhandler standing at the corner. You knew you were going to end up idling right next to him. You quickly think to yourself, What do I do? Do you smile and look away? Do you give him money? What are the chances it won’t go straight to the liquor store till? His sign says he has a family. Does he really? Will they see a cent of any money you give him? What about if you give him a gospel tract? Isn’t that really his greatest need: Jesus?
I have often wrestled through these questions and settled on one of the actions above, but never with complete satisfaction that it was the best way to help or exactly what Jesus would have done.
Usually, when Jesus was approached by the needy, disabled or downcast, He met their immediate physical needs, often through healing. But He also fed people, just because they were hungry. In fact, He told us that when we meet the immediate physical needs of people in front of us, we are ministering to Him directly.
“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” —Matthew 25:34–40
Our field partners in Asia see the same kind of desperate needs that we read about in the gospels. People affected by leprosy. People without access or means for medical treatment. Families too poor to send their kids to school or even feed them. There are so many natural disasters in rural Asian countries that don’t have the infrastructure to respond.
Relief packets, distributed by Gospel for Asia-supported Compassion Services workers, being helicoptered into remote locations in Nepal following the catastrophic earthquakes in 2015.
Gospel for Asia-supported Compassion Services teams are there to meet people’s real-time, immediate needs. Things like medical checkups and flood relief. These are vehicles for people to experience the real love and compassion of Jesus. Jesus sees their need. He sees their plight. He is not deaf to their cries, they reach His throne in heaven.
Compassion Services is where heaven touches earth. Washing a leprosy patient’s wounds gives physical representation to the spiritual reality of God’s cleansing forgiveness. Rebuilding the home of a family who lost everything in an earthquake speaks of an eternal home that cannot be destroyed.
When we reach out to the immediate physical needs of those around us in the name of Jesus, He ministers to them through us. We become the very hands and feet of Jesus on earth.
This is Rayna, a 125-year-old woman who received a blanket.
In a tiny farming village in Asia, two Sisters of Compassion met 125-year-old, Rayna, a poor widow who has lived her whole life in this village. The sisters made weekly visits to Rayna to hear her stories culled from 125 years of love and heartache and to pray for her. They noticed the torn and smelly blanket she used for warmth and realized she and her family couldn’t even afford a new blanket, because they used all their income on daily survival. There was no money left for improving their lives. The sisters were able to provide a new, warm blanket for Rayna through a gift distribution.
“During night time, I feel cold because there were no warm clothes in my house, and I struggled a lot,” Rayna said. “I could not afford to buy a blanket to protect me. But thank you very much for giving this blanket.”
Gospel for Asia partners work right in the middle of some of the most difficult plights of human need. Our partners work in 44 leprosy colonies in Asia, where leprosy still has a life-long stigma. As people affected with leprosy are often cast out of society, they gather in groups or “colonies” for safety. Our partners are busy ministering to these outcasts by cleansing their wounds, getting them medical attention, and providing livelihoods, such as goats, through GFA’s Christmas Gift Catalog so they have a sustainable means of living. We even have an onsite cobbler at one of the colonies to provide custom shoes for those with feet too disfigured to wear normal shoes.
Our field partners also work in slums spread across Asia, providing toilets and blankets to those who do not have access to these items of basic human need. We host medical camps in slums, leper colonies and poor rural areas that have no access to any sort of health care. Often in these areas, people’s only resource for medical care are traditional practices that spread more disease than cure.
After the decimating series of earthquakes in Nepal in 2015, coordinated relief efforts came from many Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported partners in Indian states. Supplies of clothing, food and medicine were assembled to meet immediate needs. Building supplies were collected to help with reconstruction. Even school supplies were provided for thousands of children that lost everything. In times of crisis, when warning is impossible, Gospel for Asia (GFA)-supported Compassion Services are poised to respond immediately and remain for the long haul.
Jesus made time for the needy around Him. Even when He was busy, on His way somewhere, a desperate woman who reached out to Him was not turned away, but healed (Mark 5:21-34). Men would cry out to Him from the side of the road, and Jesus paused to listen and minister to their physical needs (Matthew 20:29-34). Often this led to spiritual transformation as well.
By touching people’s lives by meeting immediate physical needs, the door is open for deeper healing as well.
Bottled water and a gospel tract for those standing in 100-degree weather.
You remember the panhandler at the intersection? This is my someone-asking-for-help-while-I’m-busy-on-my-way-somewhere moment. How will I respond? Once I had kids and knew that these four little people were watching my life, I determined to come up with a way to reach out to panhandlers. I was done looking the other way and feeling embarrassed, not knowing what to do. So I put together a plastic bin that sits in my van, right between the two front seats filled with bottles of water. Each water bottle has a gospel tract rubber-banded around the outside. Tucked into the gospel tract is $1. My kids and I pray over the gospel tracts and write a warm note of encouragement before we wrap them around the water bottles. Now that we live in Texas, bottled water is perfect. When we lived in Washington State, it was cans of soup.
There are so many ways that Jesus continues to minister to the needs of people around the world. And He does it through the small and big acts we carry out every day. When we, as the Body of Christ, show up in a recently flooded village where all the crudely constructed homes have been washed away, Jesus is there. When we give a bottled water to someone standing on a street corner in 100-degree weather, Jesus is there. We are the literal hands and feet of Jesus reaching out in our local communities and across the globe, meeting people’s immediate physical and spiritual needs. Being the conduit for heaven to touch earth.
=====
Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.
On April 29, 2017, deadly tornados struck just a few miles away from Gospel for Asia’s U.S. headquarters in Wills Point, Texas. The GFA campus lost power for three days, but we were deeply grateful to be otherwise untouched by the twisters. However, our neighboring communities were reeling from the devastation. Homes had been torn off their foundations; a car dealership was in shambles—and so were many lives.
Local churches stepped up and organized groups of people to help clear rubble from broken homes and salvage whatever belongings could be found. Gospel for Asia (GFA) staff members quickly partnered with those churches and found ways to help serve the affected communities.
Gospel for Asia staff member helps clean up homes after a tornado devastated a nearby community.
I went with one group of helpers to a neighborhood that would have been sheltered in a beautiful wood just days prior. But now the trees were splintered, and logs and branches sprawled across lawns, cars, pools and bedrooms. The furry of the storm was difficult to fathom.
I talked with tearful home owners who had to start afresh overnight. I walked through pastures and retrieved photographs, clothing, books and even a portion of a social security card.
In a storm, suddenly everything in a person’s life is laid bare and exposed.
It was a sobering experience. Tragedy had struck, but in the midst of it, I heard beautiful stories of God’s protection over the residents of the homes I helped clear away.
One father told me he arrived at a shelter just after his living room door flew through his house, crossing the hallway he had just used. At another site, a family member told me how the house had been lifted off its foundation, and the wife flew out and landed a few hundred feet away—she survived, as did her husband. Both these families were Christ followers, and they testified that God worked miracles in the midst of their storm.
As Daniel Yohannan, vice president of Gospel for Asia, wrote, gratitude works wonders in our hearts, no matter what our circumstances.
There was such love being poured out from stranger to stranger. Prayers were offered, hugs were shared, meals were provided, sweat and labor was spent tearing out soaked drywall and removing glass, stones and trees from roofless homes.
Why were strangers so eager to help? Because of compassion. And for those who belonged to neighboring churches, it was because of Christ’s compassion.
When the horrific earthquakes in Nepal in 2015 killed more than 8,000 people in four nations, GFA-supported Compassion Services teams mobilized right away to organize relief work, rescue victims and care for the grieving. They stayed to help long after the news of the earthquake left the media.
A Gospel for Asia-supported Compassion Services team provides aid to villagers in Nepal after two earthquakes shook the country.
Like the local churches in Texas who helped their tornado-victim neighbors, these workers in Nepal ministered God’s love and mercy to people in their time of great need.
More recently, episodes of flooding in Assam, India, during 2017 and other severe floods in Sri Lanka prompted Compassion Services teams to rally together to aid their communities. Although many of the relief workers were affected by the flooding as well, they set aside their own needs and worked together to bring food and shelter to many villages.
I love these Compassion Services teams. They are used by God to save lives and bring hope into desperate situations, yet they themselves are simple human beings. They may be local pastors, students in a seminary, Sunday School teachers or Bridge of Hope staff. But when disaster strikes, they become vessels of peace and comfort during a fierce storm.
Disaster relief is one of the four ministries supported through Gospel for Asia’s Compassion Services fund. The other areas of ministry—Leprosy Ministry, Slum Ministry and Medical Ministry—hold a similar purpose: giving those who are in need the chance to experience God’s provision and care.
Do you have a story you’d like to share of experiencing a natural disaster or helping provide relief and help to those in need? Please share those stories with us in the comments below!
=====
Click here, to read more blogs on Patheos from Gospel for Asia.
Do you remember what happened in your life on May 2, 2000? It was a Tuesday. It might not have been a significant day to you, but for Manja, a father of two in Nepal, that day changed his life and his family forever.
That was the day Manja landed in jail under false accusations of murder.
It started when Manja, a Gospel for Asia-supported missionary, joined a group of friends for an afternoon of fishing. Along the river, they discovered a body. They informed the police and filed a report. Everything seemed to be finished—until one month later when Manja was accused of committing the crime.
This is Manja. His Bible was his most treasured possession while in prison.
A Prisoner Missionary
Months of accusations, falsified evidence, betrayal, abuse and drawn out legal proceedings followed. Then the bars closed behind Manja with a sentence of 20 years imprisonment.
“When my husband was arrested and imprisoned for 20 years,” Rati, Manja’s wife shares, “it was as if my whole world had crumbled down.”
Manja and Rati were devastated by the verdict. But in the months and years to follow, they had a choice to make: Would they cling to God’s promises and believe in His goodness, or would they allow anger, bitterness and self-pity to control their hearts?
Both chose to put their faith in God.
Rati strengthened herself in the Lord and stepped up to shoulder the responsibilities of her imprisoned husband, raising their two children and continuing Manja’s ministry—even though she had never been to school in her life and was illiterate.
“I always underestimated myself,” Rati said, “but God encouraged me through many of the leaders, and they said that God could use me to accomplish His purposes.”
Gospel for Asia’s field partners came alongside Rati, helping her and encouraging her in any way they could as she braced herself for 20 years without her husband. She learned to read and even attended Bible college, while her husband, Manja, lived an exemplary life in his prison cell, honoring his Savior through his heart of forgiveness toward those who imprisoned him.
What Happened Inside the Walls
Manja gained strength whenever he knelt and prayed by the toilet, the only place he could be alone. He found opportunities to share God’s love with many inmates. As the new resident of the toughest “neighborhood” in his country, Manja brought something to the prison that no one expected: love.
Even while he faced emotional and physical hardships, Manja relied on his faith, something the other prisoners did not have.
“The inmates questioned me, ‘How could your God let this happen to you while you served Him?’ ” Manja remembers. “I told them that though injustice was served to me here, God knows me and my situation. He definitely has a better tomorrow.”
Prisoners started gravitating toward his unswerving faith.
“Even though we are imprisoned as criminals,” Manja told them, “God hears our prayers.” And God did hear. One of Manja’s fellow inmates asked for prayer for his wife, who was ill. From within their cell, they prayed, and they soon heard that she had been healed.
Slowly, Manja’s time with the Lord became small gatherings of five, then 10, then 15 believers. And as his trustworthy reputation grew, officials gave him responsibilities—and with them, the chance to minister to more of the inmates. His good behavior also shortened his sentence by one month every year.
“I was assigned to count the prisoners in their cells every evening,” he says. “I was in charge of 150 prisoners. With different temperaments and attitudes, there were many prisoners who fought. But I mediated with love, and they never raised a finger against me.”
Manja remained faithful and ministered to the inmates within his prison. He is pictured here at his release with a young man who found Christ through his prison ministry.
He even had opportunities to work in the prison school and hospital. There, he met hundreds of men who were paying the price for their crimes. The news of Jesus’ love and forgiveness meant that in prison, these men found a pardon that set them freer than if they had been released.
“Even though I was in jail, God worked in me and through me!” Manja rejoices.
He was also well-known as someone who would listen and help with many problems, and this even helped protect his life.
“In 2006, there was a revolt within the prison,” Manja remembers.
While the world read of Nepal’s dethroned king and the new democracy, prisoners decided that their jail terms should be forgiven.
“Revolting prisoners fought each other; they would come at night and smash the heads of other prisoners sleeping next to me,” he recalls.
But God protected His servant, and Manja was never injured.
Prayers from Around the World
Throughout Brother Manja’s journey of arrest and imprisonment, Gospel for Asia staff around the world, supporters and prayer partners faithfully prayed for him and his family.
One staff member from Gospel for Asia U.S. office recalls, “One thing I’ll never forget about those years is the incredible number of faithful believers, from all corners of the nation, that would ask me how [Manja] was doing. Even during periods where his situation wasn’t prominent in our news, so many individuals continued to consistently pray and even fast for him and his family.”
Manja and Rati later testified of the effect of those global prayers.
“While I was in prison,” Manja shared, “guests used to visit me once in a while. Our Metropolitan, Dr. KP Yohannan, Auntie Gisela [K.P.’s wife] . . . they came to visit me and hug me and tell me that I am not alone, there are believers in several places, several countries that are praying for me. … Because of their prayers, my family and me, we were safe in God’s hands. … Because of their prayer, I was able to live a life of sincerity and faithfulness in the prison.”
Rati said, “It was only because of prayers of Christians around the world that I was able to do ministry and helped my children grow in a godly manner.”
Overwhelming joy and thankfulness to God was exhibited by Manja’s family upon his release. His son was only 5 years old and his daughter was 2 years old when he was arrested.
Freedom
At last, hopeful news came. A number of prisoners’ sentences were being reduced by half, and Manja would soon be free. After nine years behind bars, Manja walked out of the prison a free man.
Almost in disbelief, Rati laid traditional flower garlands around her husband’s neck to honor him and welcome him home. Manja embraced his son, who had grown taller than him. At home, everyone celebrated, catching up on more than nine years apart. His daughter, 2 years old when he was jailed, made tea for her daddy.
After all that happened, Manja looked forward to continuing his ministry on both sides of the prison door. He wanted to make sure the believers still in confinement weren’t left alone.
“Had I lost hope, my life would have been ruined,” he explained. “I did not allow anything to quench the fire of hope.”
Nearly a decade has passed since Manja was released, and he continues to share the hope he has in Christ that sustained him through years of injustice. During Nepal’s devastating earthquakes in 2015, he and other Gospel for Asia-supported workers actively provided relief supplies and prayed for survivors. His story is not finished yet.
Keep Praying
I chose to share Brother Manja’s story with you today because it is a major testimony of answered prayer in Gospel for Asia history. His story shows the determination of those who are following Christ and serving in Asia. It shows the power of love and united prayer.
On the day Manja was arrested, I would have been at a Gospel for Asia Tuesday night prayer meeting with other Gospel for Asia staff and their families. It was probably a good day for me—it was even my birthday—but that day was a day of grief for his family. Yet God was with both of us. He can rejoice with those who rejoice while also comforting those who mourn.
I remember praying for Manja later and other imprisoned missionaries. I remember the shock of hearing, after already praying so much for his release, that Manja’s trial had finally taken place and he had a 20-year sentence. We kept praying. It seemed he would be released, and then our hopes were dashed. Again and again. For years. Then suddenly we heard he was free! All those years of prayer were answered. It honestly felt strange to no longer need to pray for his release, it had been part of my life for so long.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In