South Asia (MNN) — Despair crosses all borders, capturing people young and old, from every creed and caste. Yet hope remains.
“The main thing we do at Set Free is freedom appointments and helping people to find their freedom in Christ. We do that all over the world in a variety of settings,” Set Free’s Jason Taylor says.
Despair is readily apparent in a place like India. Millions of discarded kids fill orphanages to overflow, while petty crime and corruption crowd prison cells.
An army of volunteers, trained by Set Free, is helping people in both settings leave despair behind. Learn more here.
With more than half of India’s population living in poverty, many parents abandon their children instead of attempting to care for them, according to the International Learning Movement (ILM).
(Photo courtesy of Yash Sharma/Pexels)
“A big part of what we’re doing is training both church leaders and lay leaders to lead others through a freedom appointment,” Taylor says.
“We are taking the Steps to Freedom model and replicating that in as many languages as possible so that people can have it in their own language.”
A recent trip brought Taylor and his team face-to-face with some of the children helped by Set Free partners. The team’s arrival proved timely.
“Just before we got there, we heard that the well for this orphanage had literally gone dry,” Taylor says.
“We were able to help fund the redrilling of that well so the 1,300 kids could have clean water.”
Open doors
Meanwhile, another Gospel opportunity lies just across the border in Myanmar, home to the world’s longest-running civil war. Nearly 75 years of conflict between the government and armed ethnic groups have ingrained trauma into the national psyche.
After traveling to India, Taylor and others met with Free Burma Rangers in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to discuss a possible partnership. Watch a free documentary about the work of Free Burma Rangers here.
“They are going in and freeing the oppressed physically, so that they can ultimately be set free spiritually, but we have to get [people] to a safe place first before that scan actually take place,” Taylor explains.
Pray for discernment as believers in both groups seek God’s will. Pray that hurting souls will find freedom in Christ.
Pray also for a new opportunity in Pakistan. “There is a ministry there called The Lord’s Home; we’re looking to meet with their executive director in the coming weeks, and possibly take a trip there in early 2026,” Taylor says.
Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Kuntal Biswas/Pexels.
