Mission India’s indigenous partners teach Adult Literacy Classes to men and women throughout India. These year-long classes primarily provide a fifth-grade education level in reading, writing, and math. Attendees also learn about important topics like finance, hygiene, nutrition, and small business development.

But that’s not all. Bartholomew* with Mission India says, “The whole goal really is to introduce individuals to the love of Jesus and showcase who He is and what He’s done for them — but also help these adults go from really no education at all and get them over to a fifth-grade education level at the end of that year.

An Adult Literacy Class with Mission India. (Photo courtesy of Mission India via Facebook)

“In John 10:10, Jesus says, ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ At Mission India, we focus on a holistic change of those we serve just like Jesus did so that people in India can look forward to eternity and live life to the full here on Earth. This integrated impact is seen in all of our programs, but especially in our Adult Literacy Classes.”

Nazila is a wife and mother in India who recently attended an Adult Literacy Class. Growing up, Nazila never received a formal education — something that is, unfortunately, not uncommon for girls and women in India.

“She didn’t really know the basics of how to keep her family healthy [with] food and hygiene,” Bartholomew says. “Nutrition was an issue and her children were malnourished and always sick. She knew something was wrong, but she didn’t know what and how to adjust that.”

Once Nazila joined an Adult Literacy Class, her world opened up with her new literacy skills! She also learned about health and nutrition through the class.

“She started to plant a garden at her house and started eating vegetables and feeding her vegetables to her children. Over time, her kids became healthier, which was fantastic and she was so excited.”

A lack of rain in Nazila’s community presented a horticultural challenge, but she got creative and began using kitchen wastewater to continue growing her garden.

“She’s not only helping feed her family, but she’s helping supply vegetables to her community.”

(Photo courtesy of Mission India)

As Nazila learned how to plant and grow a garden, the Gospel seed was planted in her heart. But as the Apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3:7, only God can make it grow.

Bartholomew says, “She still hasn’t received Jesus as her Savior yet, but she’s learning about it and is very inquisitive about who He is and what He’s done for her. So we are, as a team, praying for her to understand and come to know Jesus and accept Him as her Savior. But we’re just so excited to see Nazila’s life change on the physical side as relates to education and nutrition for her family.”

Please be “praying that the partner leading that class and living in this community can continue to invest in Nazila and continually share the love of Jesus each and every opportunity they get.”

You can support an Adult Literacy Class student like Nazila for a full year! The cost, amazingly, is just $40.

Give to Mission India’s Adult Literacy Classes here!

*Last name omitted for security.

Brian Dennett says an AMG International team is on the ground in the area, helping Afghan refugees resettle after fleeing the Taliban. “They called out to us for help yesterday, explaining that in much of their area, they’ve got water as high as five feet deep. It’s continuing to rise. Many people in the area have lost crops just in the last 10 days as a result. I know some of our facilities there are currently underwater.”

The team has been working near Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, to welcome the refugees and help them resettle. The rain only makes the situation more complicated for these people, who had hoped to find safety and security in Pakistan.

Photo courtesy of AMG International.

How to help

It’s the worst flooding for the region in 10 years, and the rain hasn’t slowed down yet. Sewage systems overflowing puts people even more at risk.

Dennett talks about the humanitarian needs in the region. “With the loss of crops, there is a desperate need for food and hygiene supplies. They really need our help, and also our prayers that they will be able to get through this time.”

You can help AMG be the hands and feet of Jesus in this region. Donate at amghelp.org. Dennett says, “We are looking to help immediately 400 families with food and hygiene supplies right in that area.”

Pray the rain would end, and that the waters would recede. Ask God to rest His presence and comfort on refugees into the area and those who have lost homes or loved ones in the flooding.

The header photo shows flooding in the area. Photo courtesy of AMG international. 

In some parts of the world, the confusion isn’t just about the science of COVID-19. In the Middle East and North Africa, people are asking spiritual questions about God’s role in the pandemic. Rex Rogers, President of SAT-7 North America, reports that “People have asked questions like, ‘Does God hate us? Is He trying to punish us? Is He trying to kill us, to wipe us out?’ You know, those kind of fears and a lot of superstitions that rear their head.”

Plus, living conditions make traditional preventive measures difficult for locals in the Middle East. “In the Middle East, you have 50% of the world’s refugees in that region. And that’s probably 40-45 million people, half of them children, and many of them are in refugee camps. Well, how do you social distance in a refugee camp in Jordan or Turkey or Lebanon? It’s very difficult, if not impossible.”

SAT-7 is developing focused programming to address these challenging medical and spiritual questions. They’re airing broadcasts in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish for adults and kids.

Photo courtesy of SAT-7

“We try to share with them biblical theology and biblical teaching about who God is: a God of love, and justice and holiness and righteousness who loves them,” Rogers says. “And through Christ, they have salvation.”

God’s not unaware of the pandemic or its affect, and it’s important to remind kids that God has the power to bring good out of a terrible crisis.

The program provides practical advice, too. SAT-7 brings medical experts onto the program to discuss hand-washing and other hygiene awareness topics so kids and adults alike can stay safe and healthy.

The bottom line: SAT-7 is “trying to speak to refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as others, to encourage them and give them practical advice on how to respond to what is a ravaging virus and disease until such a time as we can get our way past it.”

If you want to support SAT-7 directly, you can find a link to their website right here.

Header photo courtesy of SAT-7

The Rohingya people are a stateless minority from Myanmar who fled ethnic violence. Many of them ended up in Bangladesh. While the repatriation process was postponed, most have no desire to return to Myanmar.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

The Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh is now the largest in the world with over one million people. But it is not in a great spot.

Gary Edmonds with Food for the Hungry explains, “They have…created these what are called ‘spontaneous settlements’. In other words, they find some open land [and] they find some places where they try to create a little bit of shelter, get some food, water, [and] sanitation conditions. But it so happens that where they have settled is also in a highly vulnerable floodplain.”

The monsoon rain in the refugee camp brings the dangers of collapsing buildings and tents, floods, landslides, and waterborne diseases. Bangladesh’s monsoon season typically lasts from June to October. The first weekend of monsoon season in early June saw 15 inches of rain and winds roaring in at 43 miles per hour.

“With the rains as well as these very, very concentrated living environments, you’ve got a situation where malaria, cholera, diphtheria — waterborne illnesses — are likely to be spread, and spread rapidly.”

Food for the Hungry is trying to get ahead of the problem in the Rohingya refugee camp, along with fellow ministry partners.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“We have been a part with Medical Teams International of building health clinics…and then educating the people and training healthcare workers to allow them to navigate this kind of a season. [The problem is] you just can’t get to the health clinics right now. Roads are literally washed out. There is no way of transport.”

Part of the solution is to train local Rohingya people in disease prevention and sanitation so they can teach others in the camps. Footbridges will also hopefully be built over flooded roads and gullies so people can still get across.

Tangible aid is also still needed. “We try to equip them as best we can with boots and rain slickers and garments and so forth…. The second side of it is to get clean water and to get food to these people. That’s what Food for the Hungry is working at as well right now.”

As Edmonds puts it, “A hard place has simply just become harder for us to work and operate in. But nevertheless, it doesn’t inhibit us in a sense and it doesn’t create a situation where we’re simply just trying to wait it out.”

As believers, there are multiple things we can do to respond to the Rohingya crisis. But one thing we can’t do as a Church is nothing.

Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. (Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“This is the kind of thing that breaks God’s heart as a father who has created these people in His image. Therefore, might it break our heart in such a way that it will lead us to respond, and respond appropriately [at] this time in history. I think this is one of the crucial ways that we can be witnesses to the love and the grace of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ.”

Edmonds suggests, “First of all, search, go on the web, get yourself educated. Many, many people are not educated about the Rohingya people and the crisis and all that is happening. This is viewed as likely one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies of history — more than one million people who are stateless people.”

Additionally, Father’s Day was earlier this week. With this focus recently on our minds, Edmonds says we can pray that the Rohingya people would come to know their Heavenly Father.

“God the Father has actually fashioned, created these people. They are handmade people by the Father of Heaven. He loves them,…He knows them by name, He knows their gifts and their skills and their abilities. So pray that God would intervene.

“Then lastly, if you are inclined, if you are looking at this, we would love for people to give. This is one of those kinds of crisis areas. We do get some grants from larger groups, UN bodies, and so forth, but we need to constantly supplement that for our staff. Private donations, people who give, churches who give are the instrumental way for us to actually respond.”

Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis fund!

(Header photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

Tomorrow, April 7th, is World Health Day and provides an opportunity to spotlight these health and hygiene needs around the world.

While there are many organizations with health programs, Food for the Hungry (FH) combines health and hygiene education with the Gospel in around 20 different countries! One way is through their Cascade Groups.

(Photo and header photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

In a Cascade Group, a staff member with FH teaches 10 mothers in an impoverished community about good health and hygiene practices. The topics cover handwashing, water purification, personal hygiene, breastfeeding, and nutrition.

FH’s Beth Allen explains, “It’s a way of taking messages into the community about caring for children and improving the lives of children where mothers in the community are working together to make life better for their children.”

After those 10 mothers have completed their learning in the Cascade Group, they each go and teach 10 more mothers in a new Cascade Group, who go to teach other moms, and so on.

“The Cascade Groups are important to us because, the way they work, they allow us to move a community toward graduation. That’s one of Food for the Hungry’s key concepts is that we’re going into a community but we will only be there for usually seven to ten years, and then the community will move on [by] its own,” says Allen.

“You can see it multiplies very quickly as far as the number of people in the community who not only have the information and the messaging, but then are ready to teach it to each other and hold each other accountable for what they’ve learned. It works really well.”

In communities with Cascade Groups, the mothers often see results very quickly in the health and growth of their young children.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Allen shares, “I remember one conversation with a Bolivian mother…who brought me her children. She had three or four children and we were talking and doing an interview. She pointed to the baby and said, ‘This baby is already two inches longer or taller than his older brother was at his age.’ She could see it in the child and that’s pretty amazing where they can see the results of their activity very, very quickly.”

In Allen’s own travels with the ministry, she has discovered that women and mothers in rural communities tend to feel very isolated. “There isn’t necessarily a lot of information transfer going on about good ways to raise your children. They don’t have the blogs with the moms that we have here to trade information. So one of the things this group does is it brings the women together so they’re not trying to be good parents in isolation. They have some backup to try to put new ideas into practice.

“I sat with one mother in Bolivia at one point who, when I asked her about the teaching we were doing in health and nutrition, she began to cry as I was talking with her about the importance of it. I said, ‘What is it that’s so important to you?’ And she said, ‘Well, I didn’t have a single friend in this community until you guys came in and you had me working with the other mothers here. Now I have friends. Now I have people who can help me out. Now I don’t feel so alone in this parenting thing.’ Because parenting is hard; I don’t care what continent you are on — parenting is hard. So she was just so grateful for that.”

But the biggest impact in these Cascade Groups comes when the leaders connect health and hygiene with the value God places on the lives of these mothers and their families.

“One of the messages we talk about to the mothers is that God created us to love one another, and that’s really powerful for a lot of women. One of them is that just the thought that God would have a relationship with them or a desire for their lives. It’s very powerful to walk into a group of moms and say, ‘God has a desire for your life, that you would show love for your children and that your children need you. That is a God-given gift to you.’ [It’s] very, very important for them and it’s very freeing. It’s something that makes them feel valued.”

While the Cascade Groups tend to focus on mothers, Allen says FH’s ministry involves the fathers and the whole family. And when mothers and fathers are effectively caring for the health of their children, it also inspires them to get involved in other community outreaches.

Allen saw this firsthand with a group of mothers in Peru. “Not only were they doing things with the health of their children, but then because of the bonds they formed and because of just the joy of seeing that their kids actually responded, they started to do things like forming up together so they could work better with the government [and] to do things like build schools in their community.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

You can directly support Cascade Groups with FH by sponsoring a child! “That monthly sponsorship is how we are able to be able to put this program in motion…all over the world,” Allen explains.

To sponsor a child with FH, click here!

And, Allen urges, “[Be] praying for those moms! For many of the people listening to this, you’re a mother or you know of moms who are struggling to make it, just struggling to get through each day, and this kind of program really helps. So be praying for those moms worldwide who really want something better for their children.”

It’s a day that resonates with India Partners, a ministry whose vision is an India rich with hope, justice, and compassion.

Donna Glass of India Partners explains that one of their partners on the ground works in a lot of rural villages that have little to no access to clean water. The people they work with can often be marginalized for a few reasons.

She says, “They might live in a village that they don’t get any government support because they’re internally displaced people so they’re not people native to that particular state. And they might have been living there for 10 to 15 years, and yet their only access to water might be a hand pump that usually, almost always, dries up in during the summertime. And it’s also very laborious to bring water up from a water pump.”

And when the well dries up, they’ll go looking for water elsewhere. Often times alternative waters sources are also contaminated because of animal or human waste.

“So, not only are they having difficulty accessing the water. The water many of them do get ahold of actually ends up making them sick. And so, they lose work time because they’re ill. They lose money because they have to pay to go to the doctor and transportation and medicine.”

It’s just another contributing factor to their impoverished state.

Bringing water to villages

India Partners works with their partner on the ground to bring wells into the village that can go deeper to cope with the dry season and that have a motor to bring the water up. This means people don’t have to travel to get water.

Take Paalagumpu for existence. This village has been around for about 25 years, Glass says.

“Most of the people who work there are agricultural day laborers. Agriculture work isn’t necessarily available 365 days of the year. So, there’s about five months out of the year [where] they don’t have any work to earn anything.”

Paalagumpu (Photo courtesy of India Partners)

The village of thatched roofs and dusty paths has a single hand pump.

“In the summertime it becomes non-functional.  And they have to walk up to two kilometers each way to bring water from the nearby village… This population is closer to 400 people, and half of them are children. And their nutrition is low because of the lack of funding. They don’t have education or healthcare available to them, mostly due to their economic condition.”

Even when there might be opportunities for children to go to school, many of the children have to help out the household, whether it’s helping to collect water or watching their younger siblings while their parents work.

But it’s not just the children who are negatively impacted by the lack of clean water. The elderly also struggle.

In Paalagumpu there’s a man named Babu Rao. While he’s only 55, he’s considered elderly in this population.

“When you’re living in poverty… your body starts aging faster than it would here in the United States,” Glass explains.

So even when the hand pump is working, it presents a significant physical challenge to people who are older. They have to bend over to operate it and pump over and over again just to get a bucket of water.

In the summertime, it’s even worse. Not only do they have to travel a long way to get water, but then they have to carry heavy buckets or jars back home. It makes things considerably more difficult for people like Babu Rao.

Babu Rao (Photo courtesy of India Partners)

“Having a well right there in their village that can operate year-round is really of great need for their village and for him and for others like him in their village.”

India Partners is working to raise funds in order to install a new well in this village. With the motor-operated well, the village will also learn about water hygiene through a program called Water Access Sanitation and Hygiene Training.

“We talk about what is clean water. We talk about how diseases are transmitted through dirty water. Through animals,” Glass explains.

Even when there is clean water, there’s a risk of disease spreading through public water sources if people are using the same cup or not washing their hands.

And while Paalagumpu’s needs are so great, it’s just one of many villages in India in need of access to clean water. This World Water Day, consider contributing to an India rich with hope, justice, and compassion by giving the gift of water.

While a well costs several thousands of dollars to install, the cost usually breaks down to about $53 per family. The well will last as a clean water source for years to come.

To give, click here.

“They’re not educated on hygiene. They don’t relate to the fact that their own waste material spreads disease,” Dehart says.

Hygiene problems are nothing new in Haiti. “I once had a world traveler tell me that no matter what island he stopped at, he could tell which islands were settled originally by the French,” Dehart says. She explained that few French settlements set a precedent for hygiene, and the problems simply haven’t gone away.

(Photo courtesy of For Haiti With Love)

In 2010, things took a turn for the worse when locals claimed United Nations representatives sparked a cholera epidemic in Haiti. “The locals all have pictures of the UN dumping the contents of their porta potties right into the main rivers,” and the resulting outbreak is still leaving a mark on the health of the Haitian people.

But Haiti’s hygiene history might be about to change.

It started with a new house. Donors to For Haiti with Love had provided a new home for a young man in Haiti, Dehart explains. “Being in his new home, he was really aware of the sanitation issues that were going on in the neighborhood around him.”

He came up with a plan for a community latrine and hygiene education programs to implement in a nearby village. Now, the project is almost complete.

“It takes a lot of patience and a lot of education to get them to use a latrine rather than going on the ground or going in a plastic bag and just throwing it wherever it lands.” But the added education and training gives the For Haiti with Love teams more chances to introduce local villagers to the truth of the Gospel.

(Photo courtesy of For Haiti with Love)

And the mind behind the first latrine isn’t finished. “He wants to make this a continuing project so that we can educate and clean up one area at a time,” Dehart shares. He has already started collecting funds to build a second latrine in another nearby village.

Each cement and steel structure costs $3,500, which is why For Haiti with Love needs your support and prayer. “Truly, God blesses those who give to the poor, so we would ask that they would include For Haiti with Love in their giving projects and we will do our best to spread the Gospel and hygiene with it.”

(Photo courtesy: India Partners)

Water even became an issue of foreign policy for India last week. Prime Minister Modi is considering changes to India’s water supply to neighboring Pakistan.

The battle for clean water is finally over for two remote villages, thanks to India Partners and their in-country cohort.

“Water was reached because a (local) politician was reached, who stepped forward to provide the water,” shares India Partners’ Donna Glass. “…and the people are crediting God for bringing the water, finally, to their village.”

Fixing India’s clean water crisis

Through indigenous partner ministries, India Partners works to provide clean, safe water for remote villages. According to the ministry, 128 million people in the country lack access to safe water.

India Partners aims to alleviate this need by digging wells in remote villages. Not only does this provide safe drinking water, the well’s central location in a village eliminates time-consuming walks.

In one village, “water is so scarce that they are walking up to two kilometers (1.2 miles) for fresh water,” Glass says. “[Villagers] are not able to go to work because they’re having to get water.”

(Photo credit: India Partners)

Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that India holds the most people without access to clean water.

Approximately five percent of India’s 1.25 billion people lack clean water — that’s over a tenth of the world’s 650 million people without clean water access.

Sanitation is another key concern. According to World Bank, approximately 21 percent of all communicable diseases in India are related to unsafe drinking water.

India Partners addresses both needs in their Safe Water program. While the wells provide clean water, India Partners’ community health and hygiene trainings teach villagers about hand washing, basic hygienic practices, the importance of washing their food, etc.

Glass says it’s important “not just to have water, but to know that you’re keeping it clean and safe.”

More importantly, the trainings are an opportunity to present the Gospel. “All of the lessons taught [are] taught in reference to the Bible,” Glass explains.

While it opens doors for God’s Word, bringing clean water to a remote village isn’t always easy, or simple. But, sometimes God works in mysterious ways.

A well incites change

On a recent installation, teams tried and failed three times to dig a well for a remote village.

“It was so heartbreaking,” notes Glass. “But here was God working, even though it seemed like the enemy was present in this village, preventing this work from being done. God was still there, and placed a burden on this politician’s heart.”

The politician was a local authority who had promised to bring clean water to the village on several occasions. However, at each turn, he failed to deliver on his promises.

(Photo courtesy India Partners)

“The politician saw that these Christians were coming in and trying to do something that he should’ve been doing all along,” Glass explains. “To further his own career, he stepped up [and is providing clean water for the village].”

It’s yet another example of how God can use anyone to accomplish His will. What about you?

“$53 provides water for a family [and] financial help is always a great blessing for the people in India. Knowing that people across the world care enough to give of their own resources to change their lives for all time.”

Provide safe water for a family in India here.

(Image courtesy of Compassion)

But one thing you may not know about Compassion International is what they do beyond sponsorship–from water and sanitation programs to disaster relief and HIV/AIDs efforts.

Herbert Ehresman, Program Director for Complementary Interventions, says the focus is always the wider context of the care of the child.

“Our distinctives are Christ-centered, Church-based, and Child-focused. So while we don’t do broad community development, we do serve and support that local church, but that local church then does reach out into their community.

“For example, if a church community needs clean water or they lack sanitation and latrines, or let’s say the student has now grown into a beautiful young teen or adolescent and they have an opportunity to go to vocational school or even university: that’s where funding over and above the $38 a month becomes important.” Ehresman says both sponsors and donors then invest in the additional grass-roots programs that are identified by the partner churches themselves.

(Image courtesy of Compassion)

The health and safety of children are always at the forefront of every need that’s identified by the local churches serving the nearly 2 million Compassion children worldwide.

With the global celebration of World Water Day, Ehresman says water is priority for Compassion’s complementary intervention efforts; but water is not a stand-alone. “Clean water is only partially effective; there’s also the sanitation side which is latrine and waste disposal. Some of the communities we work in– particularly some places in Africa and India–still practice open defecation. Flies feed on the feces, and then if [those flies] get in your food or even land on open containers of water, it will spread disease. So there is a cycle of clean water, waste disposal, and a hygiene component that are embedded into Compassion’s curriculum.” WaSH — which stands for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene — all work together in Compassion’s complementary intervention model.

“For us in Africa, the programmatic issue is not simply about water or sanitation/toilets, but water and sanitation/hygiene. It is a false developmental dichotomy to focus on one while neglecting the other elements. Often times, the sanitation/hygiene aspect gets lost when the conversation is limited to water only.” – Sidney Muisyo, Compassion Africa Regional Vice President

While sponsorship is predominately featured on its website, Ehresman says there are other ways to get involved with Compassion’s work worldwide on this World Water Day. “Right next to the tab that says ‘Sponsor a Child’ is also a button that says ‘Ways to Donate,’ and that will open up more ways to give to more project-based work, be it clean water [or] educational opportunities.”

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a community called Dumni has been continuing the work started by FH five years ago, including various savings and care programs. Since 2010, when the community was graduated from the program, locals have been able to sustain and expand each program within the community

(Photo Courtesy Food for the Hungry)

Currently there are 43 active savings groups that were started by FH. Savings groups work like banks for the impoverished members of the community. At each meeting, members contribute small amounts of money to the main fund. They can also take out small loans at low interest rates, and at the end of the year the funds are divided up among the members.

However, savings aren’t the only way FH continues to impact the community. Before the organization intervened, women weren’t able to get involved in most aspects of community life. Most women were confined to their homes and never met together or contributed financially to their families. Now, that’s changed dramatically.

(Photo Courtesy Food for the Hungry)

Many of the community’s women found a new confidence to speak up. Now they’re leading savings groups, speaking to huge groups, and trying to promote the welfare of their families and their communities.

Not only are women fighting such injustices as discrimination and child marriage, they are learning new skill sets to use in their very own businesses. Women can use skills FH taught them like sewing, as well as borrow money from the savings groups for tools like a sewing machine, to kick off their own small businesses to help support their families.

Finally, women are being noticed within the community for their independence and positive impact. They’re becoming active members of society in surprising new ways.

FH also taught communication, hygiene, youth education, and women empowerment through the eight years they were there. Issues like community communication, public restrooms, children skipping school, and child marriages were constantly being fought.

As new challenges arise, a newly-united community is ready to take them on, thanks to the lasting impact of Food for the Hungry’s message. They are working hard to fulfill FH’s goal of working with churches, families, and communities to overcome poverty by living a healthy relationship with God and His creation.