Raina Miller of Mission India notes poverty is the root of India’s child labor problem: “India’s dealing with so much poverty that there are often times where we see cases of children being sent to work with their parents out of total desperation. So there are some parents who would love to give their kids an education, but if they’re not going to have dinner tonight, then they feel like the option is to send their child to work instead, just to make sure that kids aren’t going to bed hungry.”

Children can find themselves in a variety of jobs, such as selling balloons, working in tea stalls, or picking through trash to find things they can sell.

“This was the Bible club,” says Miller. “This was who the Bible club was reaching.”

Mission India’s Bible Clubs include singing, prayer, scripture memorization, and discipleship. They also offer holistic support, teaching children the importance of bathing, wearing clean clothes, and brushing their hair. Ultimately, as these children grow through the club, it can impact their entire families.

Atul

Atul is one of these Children. His father was a daily wage laborer who mixed cement in brickyards, and their family lived in a home made of bricks and tin sheets with water pooling on the floors any time it rained.

“If his dad couldn’t find work that day, the kids went to bed hungry that night, and as you can imagine, if you’re desperately hungry, it’s really hard to focus at school,” says Miller. “So Atul began skipping school. Pretty soon he was working alongside his parents and became a child laborer.”

When Atul found the Bible club, he discovered he was not alone—and so much more.

“All these kids struggled with poverty and fear and hunger, and yet at the Bible club, they could find joy, and they had each other, and they had community, and it was a place where they could just be kids again, unlike in their day-to-day lives. So Atul really grew and thrived in that environment.”

His confidence grew, he began helping to teach his little sister and others in the club, and he has been attending his regular school more frequently. Now, he wants to become a teacher, so he can help other children. When someone asked Atul what had caused this change in him, he told them it was because he went to the Children’s Bible Club every day, describing it as “another school that’s filled with love and laughter.”

Pray that Atul and his family, who have already experienced growth through the Bible club, would fully accept the salvation of Jesus.

As the school year is coming to a close, the year-long Bible clubs will also be wrapping up—however, more will start in the fall.

“We would love to welcome as many of India’s child laborers and other kids as possible to join year-long Bible clubs and to have an experience like Atul did,” says Miller. “A $24 gift would reach another child like Atul with Christ-centered love, Bible-based lessons, and a space to just be a kid and receive discipleship from a caring Christian leader.”

You can donate to the Children’s Bible Clubs at missionindia.org/single-gift-donation/?referral=MNN2605.

Header photo courtesy of Mission India.

“FARM’s basic and fundamental goal is to strengthen the global church, and we want to do that by focusing on our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in, you know, places of physical poverty,” explains Scott Clifton.

(Photo courtesy of FARMS International)

FARMS works through local churches to provide loans, technical support for income generating projects, and spiritual training for families. Loans are repaid to a revolving fund, and recipients agree to tithe to their local church. However, there are three criteria that need to be met in order for an organization to qualify for a loan:

• Global church—There must be a spiritual emphasis and biblical principles, acknowledging individuals’ roles as a stewards, not owners, and upholding the value of a local community that is seeking God together.
• Local ownership—The project must be sustainable and genuinely desired by the local leaders and participants. It is their program; FARMS is just helping them to create it.
• Livelihood development—The project must include humanitarian elements.

“We can see, if we remove any one of them, how that has the potential to negatively impact our ultimate goal,” says Clifton. “If we took out the church and we had a great organization focused on local ownership and really helping people develop their livelihoods, then that could be great in a lot of ways, but we have to wrestle with, you know, what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul? So then you think about if there isn’t local ownership, we have to be really careful, because we might be contributing to harmful dependency, which is actually going to increase the need later on. And the third thing, if you take livelihood development out of the picture, we have to wrestle with the words of James, and he says faith without works is dead. What good does it do to pray for someone without taking any sort of action to help them, you know, overcome their physical barriers that they’re experiencing? So when those three things intersect, that’s really where FARMS sees ourself participating in the context of development and ministry around the world.”

This can mean saying no to organizations, like it did for an opportunity FARMS was pursuing in Honduras.

“We had an initial trip last November, and we went in with some ideas. When we highlight local ownership, the idea is that we’re not forcing a solution, but it’s actually desired by people who are there, and it fits within livelihood development as well,” describes Clifton. “So when we went there, we had an idea of ‘We’re going to start a loan program for a group of farmers.’ But then we gathered farmers around and we listened—we just asked some basic questions and got some answers, and realized that if we were to start a revolving loan program, they were not ready for it. We would have been setting them up for failure, because they wouldn’t have ever been able to repay those loans. Yet it would have been really hard to say no to, you know, a source of funds. And so we realized that it wasn’t the right time for that, but we could do an agricultural training where we could introduce them to some methods, like farming God’s way.”

Joe & Pat Richter with one of the FARMS project holders in Thailand. (Photo, caption courtesy of FARMS International)

FARMS partnered with Equipping Farmers International to conduct the training this month. FARMS is also developing a new program in Southeast Asia, based around a program they’ve seen success with in Thailand.

“This program in Thailand has been going for about 30 years, and they’ve been asking the last year to start another one in this neighboring country, and so we have the opportunity to do that. We’re actually doing that as a matching fund, where we provide some of the funds, and that program in Thailand is also going to provide some of the funds.”

Meanwhile, they’ve hired a regional coordinator based out of Zambia, with experience in agricultural and small business training, to help FARMS expand their work in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also have relationships and programs in the Caribbean, throughout central-eastern Africa, in the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka, among other countries.

You can support FARM’s mission by partnering with them financially. Go to farmsinternational.com to learn more.

Header photo courtesy of FARMS International.

Executive Director Scott Clifton says his team was “on hold” after meeting local farmers. “The things they identified that would be helpful were outside of what FARMS as an organization could do,” he begins.

“Someone said, ‘I could really use a piece of equipment.’ Another person said, ‘I need transportation.’ Other people said that water was really an issue. There wasn’t one project that would help everybody.”

But the Lord didn’t keep FARMS International waiting for long. A week after returning from the discovery trip, Clifton learned about a program called “Farming God’s Way.”

“I was able to attend a workshop and realize very quickly that this is the thing that could help many people in Honduras.”

(Photo courtesy Gabriel Jimenez/Unsplash)

The training pairs God’s principles for living with business and agricultural practice. Learn more here.

“It’s a simple method. It’s repeatable. You don’t need to buy all these outside tools and equipment or specialized anything. It’s working with what people already have,” Clifton summarizes.

Next steps

To get involved, connect with FARMS International here. “If anything mentioned piques someone’s interest, then please reach out. I’d love to have a conversation,” Clifton says.

Pray for wisdom as FARMS prepares to introduce this method to Christian farmers in Honduras.

“It’s new to us, so there’ll be learning involved. There are also costs involved, between travelling and the food and lodging,” Clifton says.

Pray that planning and logistics come together smoothly to support the training workshops.

“It’ll be about a week long, and then there’ll need to be some follow-up, and we’ll need to put monitoring and evaluation in place – simple measures that allow us to see if it really is having an impact, and what that impact is, and then we go from there,” Clifton explains.

“Once it’s established, then there’d be other opportunities down the line [such as] introducing a cash crop or maybe having more of a business case where a revolving loan program could work.”

Header image is a representative stock photo depicting a farmer harvesting carrots in Honduras. Photo courtesy of Chente Colindres/Pexels.

As Iran’s economic crisis deepens, authorities have imposed harsh measures that deplete what little savings citizens have left.

Nazanin Baghestani from Heart4Iran recalls a heartbreaking call from one mother. Her son was accused of stealing fifty dollars and fined five thousand dollars for his release.

“This mom was crying, and she said, This is injustice, and where do I get that money from?” adds Baghestani.

These steep fines are one way the government refills its coffers.

An Iranian woman stands at an overlook with a panoramic view of Tehran, Iran (Photo, caption courtesy of IMB CC 4.0)

“Of money, like 80% of all the government finance goes to the nuclear weapon, goes to war against Israel, weapons,” Baghestani explains.

She says less than ten percent of resources reach ordinary citizens. The result is food stortage, shuttered businesses, and failing banks. Since the United Nations reinstated sanctions in October, pressure on the population has only increased.

Yet amid the hardship, stories of hope continue to emerge.

One single mother who couldn’t afford school supplies for her son called the hotline for prayer.

“Two weeks later,” recalls Baghestani, “she called and said, My son’s classmate’s father just came and helped him. He came and gave him the books he needed.”

This act became pivotal in her faith journey. She had believed Jesus was only a prophet, but seeing such a quick answer to prayer changed her heart. “And she said, I always believed in Jesus, but now I believe He is alive — and He really listens,” adds Baghestani.

Kurdistan Province, Iran (photo courtesy of Peyvand Pezeshki via Pexels)

While there are many inspiring stories, fear of government discovery keeps many testimonies hidden.

“I’m sure God is at work in people’s lives and, you know, providing for them here and there,” Baghestani shares. “But unfortunately, we don’t always hear the testimonies because people are afraid to call.”

Pray that the hope of Christ will shine through Iran’s financial despair — in every family and community. Visit Heart4Iran to see how they find ways to encourage Iranians despite the crisis.

Header photo: Man in Mazandaran Province, Iran (photo courtesy of Lumière Rezaie via Unsplash).

Caleb with FARMS oversees seven to eight of these programs throughout Southeast Asia. He says, “We do microloans. So we allow people to take small loans so it’s manageable – not overwhelming – and we try and empower them so that they can build their own business and grow it themselves. This allows them to do their ministry work too and help their churches out and the communities around them.”

Natural Disasters and Persecution

These loans are interest-free and allow families to work their way out of poverty with dignity. FARMS has implemented this system in places all over the world, including some hard-to-reach places.

“This year, we’ve had flooding,” Caleb says. “So, some of the programs, their fields were flooded out; they lost all their rice for the year. And these situations are hard, and we try to walk along with the leaders and pray with them and help find solutions with them. But these are real challenges that we face on a day-to-day basis.”

In addition to natural challenges, many of the families that FARMS works with face significant persecution for their faith in Christ.

(Photo courtesy of FARMS International)

“We work in a lot of closed countries at the moment, and so therefore there’s a lot of persecution. And even just this past year, we had a friend was martyred. So there’s challenges like that that come out of it, especially in the Christian community. At the moment, there’s countries at war inside themselves, and this has caused major issues with the program. And so we, all we can do is really encourage them, pray with them, be there to listen and be a helping hand.”

Caleb asks that the Church be praying for FARMS and its partners. He encourages people to pray that locals will not be discouraged by persecution. Pray also that FARMS would know the best way to encourage these persecuted brothers and sisters.

“Pray for their mentality, that they can have a mentality of Christ. And that there’s abundance in God — that they don’t have to live in that poverty mentality.”

Multiplying the Impact

Even with the pain and suffering caused by persecution, the Church is being built up. FARMS is currently hoping to establish a holistic, natural farming ecosystem in a closed Southeast Asian country.

A generous donor has provided a $5,000 matching gift to help fund the project. Every dollar given, up to a total of $5,000, will be doubled by the donor. The end goal of $10,000 for this initiative will continue FARMS work of providing microloans to help Christians achieve economic stability.

If you would like to help FARMS with this new project, you can give securely here. You MUST write “Purpose: Matching Gift Project” in the donation notes.

Please pray that God would provide the needed funds to begin this work.

Header photo courtesy of FARMS International

Raina Miller with Mission India says, “When parents have significant struggles with things like if they’re abusive, they’re alcoholics, or even if they’re just really struggling through poverty, that affects everything, and it really affects the kids. And the opposite is true too. So when these parents get to know Jesus, it completely changes the whole household.” 

One of Mission India’s main ministries is its children’s Bible clubs. Jada, daughter of a daily wage laborer, began attending one of these clubs seeking support with her education. Jada struggled not just because of her socioeconomic status but faces discrimination because of her family’s ethnic group.

“She joined a Children’s Bible club, and she was just curious about it at first, and just wondered what it was all about. And she really enjoyed the Bible based skits, Christ-centered songs with fun motions and dance moves, and things like that. And she was really drawn in by the Bible verses that were shared and the stories she heard about Jesus. So the Bible club leader was really encouraging, taught her about loving God and God’s purpose for her life, and that she mattered, and she ended up receiving Jesus as her Savior. And all of that led to more confidence that translated at home.”

Jada’s dad, however, became sick. Miller says, “Jada had just learned about Jesus and that he could heal, so she actually prayed in Jesus’ name for her father’s healing, and he was healed.” 

This miraculous healing not only opened Jada’s eyes even more to Jesus but led her entire family to Christ. 

Jada and her family find God. (Photo courtesy of Mission India)

“Although life might still be difficult in some ways, they have hope that they didn’t have before this, because a little girl trusted Jesus to heal her dad, and now she’s got parents who are able to lead the family in a Christ-centered way,” says Miller.

Miller said that God revealed himself to Jada through the Bible Club, and this story can be a reminder to believers. 

“What do you do with a miraculous story like this in your own faith?” asks Miller. “What are you not trusting God for that you could? What could he be doing in a miraculous way that this feels far-fetched? This is a young girl, probably 9 or 10 years old, and she trusted God to heal her dad, and her whole household is changed because of it, so there’s a great personal takeaway for each of us to remember: God still does miracles today, and that they’re worth asking for.

Mission India invites people to come alongside their ministry with their new monthly giving program, Pathfinders. The monthly contribution of $36 will provide 18 kids with Bible Club for a year. Learn more about how you can be involved by visiting their website.

Please pray for Jada, her family, and others with stories like hers. Pray that God would move in the hearts of children attending Bible Clubs and that His name would be magnified in families touched by Mission India.

Header photo courtesy of Mission India. 

Tragically, those who often pay the price in these conflicts are ordinary people. At least 67 people have been killed in U.S. airstrikes, according to casualty numbers released by the Houthis.

Hope is already hard to find in Yemen. The past decade of civil war between the government and Houthis has created one of the worst humanitarian crises today. More than half of the people in Yemen need urgent aid; more than 80% live under the poverty line.

“The people in Yemen are noble people. Their heritage, their history, is so rich — yet they have had the misfortune of dealing with certain crisis over the years, famine and other challenges. So the level of hopelessness, again, has been on the rise,” says Mike Ansari with Heart4Iran.

(Children in Yemen courtesy of Irwan Zahuri via Pexels)

Yet God is building His Church in Yemen. 

“That deep-seated hopelessness results in your heart being more open, and that openness [it] is creating is allowing them to be able to see the light of Jesus,” says Ansari. 

“Within the Middle East, people are having dreams and visions, or somebody is telling them, ‘Look, I had this experience. I had an encounter with Jesus. My life is richer. Would you like to try it?’ That’s how we’re seeing people of Yemen, within certain communities, gravitate more towards Christianity.”

Ansari calls Yemen’s growing underground church “a promising beacon within the Arab world.” They are no strangers to persecution — believers there have reached out to ministries like Heart4Iran; they say they look up to Iran’s underground church in Iran.

Discipleship is a pressing need. In both Iran and Yemen, discipleship “takes place, first of all, through God’s grace, and second of all, through face to face, trusted communication,” says Ansari.

Then, because of lack of physical and community resources, “Many of them (persecuted believers across the world) are resorting to connecting on social media, on following satellite TV programs and/or try[ing] to download Bibles and connect with people outside of these regions that could basically mentor them.”

Find your place in the story

(Photo courtesy of Heart4Iran)

Gospel ministries in Yemen and across the Middle East, North Africa need your support in this work. That’s why Ansari invites you to prayerfully research and partner with one of them. 

“We do have a bit of legwork that we [each] need to do to validate from these ministries and organizations the ones that we feel represent our heart goal,” Ansari says. “But we do need to be more missional in America to understand that God is still on the move.”

He continues, “Jesus is on the move. We need to open up our eyes and see that He’s calling us to partner with Him and go across the world to the different regions, and baptize people in the name of Jesus. That is the Great Commission that every single one of us [was] called to take part in.

“So let us come together, explore amazing opportunities in difficult regions in [the] Middle East, partner with other organizations and spread the gospel.”

You can start by learning more about Heart4Iran here.

Header image is a representative stock photo of a boy in Yemen courtesy of Nazar Alareqe via Pexels.

Despite ongoing government efforts to “Sinicize” Christianity, the Chinese Church continues to hold fast to its identity. However, this resilience requires intentional effort. One crucial way to sustain and strengthen the Church is by equipping local leaders through training centers. These centers serve as hubs where ministers can teach, preach, and disciple — ensuring that sound Biblical teaching continues to spread. One such center is currently being built in the northern hills of China.

However, establishing a Christian training center in this region is no small task. Local believers must navigate three major challenges. Kurt Rovenstine from Bibles for China explains: “They do face a lot of obstacles in trying to share the Gospel in a place that, number one, is communist, number two, is very Muslim and very traditional, and number three is resource challenged.”

These three challenges — communism, Islam, and poverty — create a difficult environment for ministry. Each presents unique obstacles and misunderstandings about God, making the need for solid Biblical training all the more urgent.

Woman sitting behind the desk (Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

Despite these difficulties, local workers are pressing forward. They are constructing the center as part of a registered church in northern China, with a clear mission: to equip and empower local leaders for effective ministry. This is where Bibles for China plays a crucial role, supplying much-needed materials to support their training. So far, the ministry has helped fund the education of lay ministers who will return to rural areas to guide believers in their home churches.

“We really love the opportunity that the Lord has opened to us to support them in providing some study Bibles and things like that, to the students that come to this Training Center,” says Kurt.

However, the challenges extend beyond equipping adults. A key struggle for trained believers is raising their children with Biblical knowledge. State restrictions prohibit bringing children to church, holding Sunday school, or organizing structured faith programs.

“You can’t bring them in,” Kurt explains. “You can’t have Sunday school, you can’t have intentional programs. So it has to be informal and just part of relationships.” That’s why Christians are encouraged to nurture their faith within their families, passing down Biblical stories through parents, grandparents, and uncles. This way, children grow up grounded in the Word and ready to join the Church with spiritual maturity.

Pray for the smooth construction of the training center and for wisdom in preparing the training programs. Visit Bibles for China’s website to learn more about the training centers and how you can support their mission!

Header photo courtesy of Unsplash.

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says he recently visited an area of Northern Nigeria that is almost exclusively Muslim. In addition to the lack of Gospel saturation, the poverty is striking.  He says, “When you come you feel the depravity of the people’s lives. You see poverty in every direction. You see villages that people are suffering just for daily necessities, drought conditions, and yet God is moving in power in this place.”

Two Villages Turn to God

God’s work has been especially evident in two villages in the area. Despite political and social turbulence a team was able to complete a water project in one village. This opportunity opened the door to sharing the Gospel with the village chief. As a result, he and his whole village turned to the Lord in repentance and faith.

As if that were not extraordinary enough, God miraculously healed a man with epilepsy in a second village.

(Image courtesy of OCHA on Wikimedia Commons)

Kelley says, “It caught the attention of all of the leaders in the area, particularly the witch doctor, who had tried many times to heal this individual, but to no avail. But God healed him through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now both of these villages in northern Nigeria, near the border of Niger, are 100% Christian. It’s just an unbelievable experience for us here at Unknown Nations.”

A Cause for Rejoicing

Believers in these villages are hungry for the Word of God. By their own reports, they cannot spend enough time hearing about their Savior.

“They’re consuming the Word of God. They’re listening to the Treasure, our solar powered audio Bible. The witch doctor himself, he testified. He listens now to the Word of God from sunup until sundown. We are rejoicing in what God is doing in this part of the world.”

Please pray that God will continue to grow these new believers in truth and understanding of the Gospel.

If you’d like to join the work of Unknown Nations, click here.

Image courtesy of Tep Ro from Pixabay

Vinati is a child in India whose family faced an impossible choice. Her mother was very sick, and her dad was struggling with the financial burden of caring for her mom alone.

(Photo of Vinati courtesy of Mission India)

Mission India’s Regan Miller says, “Vinati offered to help her dad earn a living just to make ends meet. She was just 10 years old. He didn’t want that to have to happen. He wanted her to be able to keep going to school, but he didn’t really know what else to do.”

They needed a miracle.

Around that time, a Mission India leader invited Vinati to join their Year-Long Children’s Bible Club.

Vinati’s parents were hesitant at first. But they heard how Vinati could get help with her homework at the Bible Club and enjoy being a kid with games, songs, and playing with her friends. Eventually, Miller says, “Her parents allowed her to go…. As Vinati attended the Bible Club, she learned about God and about the Holy Spirit.

“Through her attending the Bible Club, her parents came to know about Jesus!”

Vinati and her parents found new relationships with Christ. They also began to pray for healing, and God graciously restored her mother’s health! Today, Vinati is in school and her family is part of the local Church – all thanks to the Year-Long Children’s Bible Club.

If you’re moved by Vinati’s story, would you give more kids in India access to the gospel? Just $24 gives one child a spot in Mission India’s Year-Long Children’s Bible Club. Click here to give!

Then, please pray for more children like Vinati to hear the gospel. Ask God to show 10.1 million child laborers in India their worth in Jesus Christ. Pray encouragement for Mission India’s Bible Club leaders reaching the least-reached.

Header photo of Children’s Bible Club courtesy of Mission India.