Keeping the virus contained with 1.3+ billion people and a failed healthcare system is challenging, to say the least, but efforts are underway. Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi started a three-week national lockdown, but it could be too little, too late.

“Travel from one state to the next is prohibited; all transportation has been shut down. People are filled with all kinds of anxiety,” says Todd of Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Mission India.

And yet, hope remains.

“God is still at work and creating great opportunities to share the name of Jesus Christ with others.”

Of storm clouds and silver linings

(Photo courtesy of Mission India)

Typically, India is one of the world’s most difficult places to be a Christian. More about that here. Religious radicals and government oppression challenge Gospel growth. However, “persecution has radically decreased because people are so consumed with the coronavirus,” Todd says.

In fact, “Parliament was going to meet and consider a national anti-conversion law, but then they shut Parliament down so it didn’t even come up for discussion,” he adds. “So, we see a lot of positive even in the midst of all the problems that come with COVID-19.”

As described here, the nationwide “shelter-in-place” order ended Mission India’s typical ministry activities. However, “we’re still doing ministry; just the way we’re doing it has changed,” Todd explains.

“The opportunity for the Gospel has radically increased during this time. We really think this could be the most critical and catalytic time in terms of the kingdom of God.”

More about Mission India’s ministry here.

Daily life in the villages is changing, too. “India is 70% rural, so the impact in the villages is completely different than the impact in the major cities,” Todd says. “In the villages, people are conducting worship services outside their home. People have more time because there’s this lockdown going on so they’re engaged in more conversations.”

By redirecting authorities’ attention, the coronavirus lockdown “really kind of created an openness and freedom of the Gospel,” he adds.

Next steps

Even India’s biggest challenges present Gospel opportunities. As described here, the lockdown left millions of migrant workers without work or pay. With no transportation, scores are walking home – in some cases, the journey is hundreds of miles long.

(Photo courtesy of Mission India)

“Day laborers are really being impacted. So, we’re already in discussions about how we might provide some of this relief and, of course, the hope of God’s Word,” Todd says.

Contact Mission India for tangible ways to help. Most importantly, pray.  Use the prompts listed alongside this article. Or, watch this Prayercast video for ideas.

“Pray for all the people who live in the slums,” Todd requests. “Hygiene… social distancing, it’s just not possible. They don’t even have clean water.”

Header image courtesy of Mission India.

“Our goal is to build relationships within these communities, build relationships with the churches, and also build a relationship with people that sponsor to direct individuals within these communities,” Kenya Hope’s Joy Mueller says.

Churches around the US — including California, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania — are partnering with churches in rural and needy communities in Kenya because of Kenya Hope.

Mueller says the organization often finds partner churches in the US and Kenya through divine serendipity. “Many times, it’s God just bringing people across our path and building that relationship and finding the churches that have that same heart vision to reach the world, not just locally, but globally.”

Naitaiaang, a widow sponsored by Kenya Hope. (Photo courtesy of Kenya Hope)

As Kenya Hope links churches across oceans, they put an emphasized focus on sponsorship for their Widows Might Program in Kenya, which both individuals and churches in the US can support.

Through the Widows Might Program, Kenyan widows receive monthly food assistance, five goats to begin a self-sustaining herd, skills training, and biblical teaching.

Mueller points out the need for widow sponsorship in Kenya is significant.

Poverty in Kenya

While Kenya is an economic powerhouse in Africa, Nairobi is home to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa with about 250,000 people. Furthermore, there are about 200 slums across the country and about 2.5 million people living in them, according to Kibera.org.

“I would say one of the common misconceptions is that it’s a modern country…. The majority of people outside of the capital of Nairobi are extremely poor. The more remote your community is, you’re not going to have a chance to go to school because the government doesn’t build those schools,” Mueller says.

“So, many of these people are poorer than poor. They survive on less than $20 a month and just can’t feed a family and buy clothes and pay school fees [to] send your child to school on $20 a month.”

(Photo courtesy of Kenya Hope via Facebook)

Kenya Hope has found that widows often have the greatest needs. Sponsoring widows and extending God’s love to them can bring the greatest impact.

“Sponsoring widows and training widows and impacting widows has been one of the greatest benefits. It’s benefiting the widow. It’s benefiting the children and the whole community at large…. When you sponsor a widow, you are basically empowering her to support her whole family, which is just huge.”

Join Kenya Hope as they empower churches and individuals in Kenya. Get started on creating a partnership between your church and a Kenyan church by contacting Kenya Hope here.

You can also sponsor a widow here!

Please also pray for Kenya Hope’s work in the nation. Pray for safety and for partnerships to be strong and blessed.

Header photo courtesy of Kenya Hope.

This fire took place in Jolo town, but it’s only one of many that have taken place in the Philippines throughout the year. According to Reuters, over 2,200 fires have broken out in Manila alone.

Why is this happening?

“What’s happening in the Philippines, much like a number of other places in the world, is there’s a real movement to the urban centers. And so, people are coming into the cities because they feel like that’s their opportunity,” World Mission’s Greg Kelley says.

However, for a majority of these people, life is even more difficult for them once they move to the city. Many are unable to find work and end up in more impoverished situations than they were living in before.

They’re forced to move to slum areas that have unsafe and unhealthy conditions.

“Most of the homes that are in these slums are just a basic wood shack [and] will have four to six families living in it, and they’re all just tied together one after another as far as you can see,” Kelley says.

“When these fires happen, the people are cooking and they have open fires going on, and when a fire breaks out as someone’s cooking something, and one of these wood shacks catches on fire, it literally just takes all of them out in that area.”

Fires have also broken out due to bad wiring, electrical problems, and discarded cigarette butts.

Because of the overcrowded areas, efforts to save people and possessions are far more difficult for firefighters. Thousands of homes in these areas have often been destroyed before they’ve been able to contain the fires and put them out. Many people have been displaced because of this.

However, Kelley says even when people do return and start to rebuild their homes, he doesn’t believe life or safety conditions in the slums will change.

“They’re living in places that were never meant for people to live in. It’s like a tent city that’s made out of just kind of basic wood and slapped together some tin roofs. And so, you’ve got thousands and thousands, and thousands of people in these highly-congested areas that are living in some of the worst impoverished conditions that we’ve ever seen as an organization.”

In order to initiate change in the slums, there needs to be a different approach to the problem.

A Different Approach

“It’s not a matter of their physical sort of lifestyle changing. The issue for the Christian community is that we need to share the Gospel with them because when the Gospel brings transformation on the inside of a man, it changes their outside condition,” Kelley says.

“And so, now the standards that they abide by, they’re going to be looking for situations where they can improve the lifestyle of their children and local churches begin to plant. A community then takes over. And so now, people start looking after one another. They start caring for each other.”

(Photo courtesy of World Mission via Facebook)

World Mission’s partners are helping to start this community care by going into areas and providing for those who have lost everything.

They’re providing people with tin roofs, clothing, water jugs, food packs, school supplies, and distributing their solar-powered audio Bible, the Treasure, in the Cebuano and Tagalog languages.

Kelley says because many of the people living in slum areas are illiterate, World Mission partners are helping to set up dozens of listening groups that are excited about listening to the hopeful Word of God.

“There’s a real church planting mobilization going on right now inside of these slums. And, ironically, the attention came because of the fires. But now, the Christians are mobilizing because of that. They’re going in, loving these people, sharing Jesus with them. And, we’re seeing new churches be established because of it.”

World Mission is even hearing stories of the community providing for one another.

Kelley says some families who are a part of the Church have been affected by the fires, but because of the relationships they have in the Church, friends have supported and provided for them.

Join World Mission in prayer for those who have been affected by the fires throughout the Philippines. Pray the Lord would protect the residents and firefighters. Pray World Mission’s efforts in supporting communities would open their hearts to God and encourage them to help one another.

Help share the Gospel and change a community by giving a Treasure.

(Photo courtesy Every Child Ministries) It’s slums and dumps like this one where churches are so vital to showing hurting children the love of Christ.

Mark Luckey, director of Every Child Ministries, says, “Churches are really the key to ministry in so many ways. They’re the key to bringing the Gospel. The key to helping with community development.”

And with ECM, churches are key to helping abandoned children who are in great need by providing a safe haven, love, and the life changing hope of the Gospel. One particular way Luckey has seen this play out was during his recent trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the capital city of Kinshasa’s slum.

“As a Church, you’re being available to help those in need. And that was one of the things that struck me in meeting a couple of the kids who were being helped by this church. They were both street boys, still technically are street boys. No one had given them a house to live in or taken them into their family. But the church had become their family,” Luckey explains.

Now, though the two boys don’t officially have a home, and the church can only provide so much because of the lack of resources, the boys do have a place to lay their head every night, within the church walls. And though they don’t have biological family coming alongside them, they have a church family and a heavenly father who loves them more than anyone else could.

That Sunday, Luckey had the joy of joining this particular church for worship, “One of the things that struck me, was one of the Sunday school classes that was meeting, was right next to just a huge dump of garbage in the road, which you fairly typically see in places like that. And just the contrast there of the singing and dancing and reciting of scripture. The enthusiasm and excitement there in the midst of that kind of situation and those kinds of conditions.”

Yet, why are these kids on the street in the first place? Well, for a number of reasons. Some might have physical defects, their family may have been too poor to care for them, some have been trafficked, and for others, they may be on the streets because they became a Christian and their families didn’t approve.

And life in the streets isn’t easy. Kids are as young as seven or eight, waking up in a busy downtown street with no one around who cares about their existence. No one, despite being surrounded by people, takes positive interest in these kids.

These kids have no food, they’re hungry, and their only way to feed themselves is by begging. Then, there are the kids who’ve been trafficked and are expected to turn over anything, whether it’s money or food, over to their controllers.

Life is utterly hopeless. They’re unloved. They have nothing in every sense of the word.

Eventually, to relieve the pain, these kids will turn to drugs or whatever else they can, to escape their personal hell.

But, there’s hope.

“We really have a heart for street kids at ECM. You know these kids, they’re not just poor, they’re really battered and bruised in almost every way. And really almost no one cares for them or loves them and they’re just so often abused. They’re very, very vulnerable, and we need caring adults to step in and help them,” Luckey explains.

(Photo courtesy Every Child Ministries)

ECM offers child sponsorships to help get these kids off the streets, provide them with regular meals, and give them an education to help them be successful later on in life. And for barely a dollar a day, you can help.

You could sponsor a child and become a part of the loving community each of them needs. But also, through this sponsorship, you could help introduce a child to the healing power of God’s word through Jesus Christ.

But please, above all else, pray for these kids. Pray for them to know the love and joy of Christ. Pray for them to get off the streets and for the right sponsor to come along for each child, and pray for their protection from the world’s coldness.

Want to sponsor a child? Click here!

Find out how previous sponsorships through ECM has changed lives in this link’s video!

To learn more about ECM’s ministry in DR Congo, click here!

It’s true in Pakistan, as well, where the oppression against Christians is reaching a crisis. It’s such an issue, it seems, that the Pakistani government is cracking down on slums in Islamabad over concerns the Christian population could overtake the Muslim majority.

(Image courtesy Forgotten Missionaries International)

Bruce Allen of Forgotten Missionaries International says the Capital Development Authority (CDA) made its decision last year about the slums in and around the capital. ”In Islamabad, there [are] about 80,000 Christians in these different settlements. There have been groups calling for the eviction of these Christians.” Most people living in these areas are Christians and Afghan refugees. Allen then explains the reason they’re in the slums. “81% of Christians across Pakistan do not own their own homes…four out of five Christians. Those people, the 81%, either have to rent from landlords or else they’re kind of relegated to Christian slums or ghettos.”

(Photo courtesy Forgotten Missionaries International)

Displacing 80,000 or more people with nowhere to go seems heartless. Yet, Allen confirmed the report through Brother Nehemiah, FMI’s Pakistan director. In response to the question, he wrote, “[SIC] As per military action plan, all illegal unauthorized colonies will be demolished with 30-days notification. This action was taken due to highly-populated Afghan colonies as number of high value targets arrested from these colonies. This Christian colony is also illegal and allotted to local Christian people in years ago by [a] member of national assembly to get votes in Pervaiz Musharraf’s regime [the previous administration]. Worst part of this situation is that government is not showing any interest to give some alternative place [for] people [to] stay temporary/permanent.”

The CDA tried to justify the decision. “They were generating the propaganda that these settlements were harboring Islamic terrorists.” Instead, a report offered this profile of the slum areas. “Two-thirds of the Christian families are living below the poverty line in Pakistan,” says Allen. These Christians are trapped in the cycle of poverty because most can’t afford an education. Without an education, they’re relegated to a 3D job (dangerous, dirty, and difficult). “They may be part of a church,” Allen notes, “[but] they can’t support their pastor to stay in ministry.”

A young married couple teams together to mix clay and slap it into a metal form. Their baby joins them during their workday in the “giant sandbox.”
(Photo, caption cred: FMI)

It’s here that FMI comes alongside the indigenous churches either through training, tools, or pastor support. Allen says if the eviction orders go through, a massive humanitarian effort is in the offing. FMI tells these church leaders, “We will partner with you for a number of years to help you lead your congregation to maturity. We don’t want you to leave ministry.’”

However, the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom noted in this year’s report that Pakistan represented “one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom” and again recommended that the administration designate it a “country of particular concern.”

Given the challenges Gospel workers face, Allen says, “Pray for God’s good provision for His children. Pray for the wisdom of the pastors who serve the congregations that are made up of those folks that they would have courageous and creative leadership.” As for what’s needed to help church leaders, You have promised that when Your children ask for bread, You do not throw stones at them. You give them what they need.’”

Want to come alongside a pastor in Pakistan? Click here to explore a few options through Forgotten Missionaries International.

(Photo courtesy of GFA)

India (MNN/GFA) — Some people spend their entire lives trying to escape poverty. For those fortunate enough to get out, not many would want to return. But that’s exactly what one Gospel for Asia preacher did.

Pastor Marty grew up under a bridge in the slums of Mumbai, India. Like most slum children, he grew up playing with friends and experiencing the joy of childhood amidst extreme poverty.

But soon, the reality of Marty’s struggles settled in. His father, a severe alcoholic, would waste what little money his family had. He soon died, forcing Marty and his brother to find work.

“I remember searching through garbage bins just to find small pieces of bread to fill my stomach. This was my childhood every day,” Marty said in an interview with Gospel for Asia through a translator.

Marty found a ray of hope when a pastor began preaching in his village. He gave his life to Christ and began developing a relationship with God.

But the ray soon disappeared as Marty’s struggles worsened. Now with a family of his own, Marty struggled to provide for his wife and son. When his son fell seriously ill, Marty lost all hope.

“I couldn’t care for my family’s basic needs,” Marty told GFA. “I wanted to kill myself.”

All along, members of the local church had been praying for the boy’s healing. And when his son miraculously recovered, Marty praised God.

“I cried to the Lord, ‘Use me for Your glory,’” he told GFA.

(Photo courtesy of GFA)

And he meant it. Marty enrolled in Bible college to become a pastor, but he never forgot the suffering of his childhood.

After graduation, Marty returned to the slums, where children lacked education, clothes, and other necessities. Now, he is sharing Jesus and meeting the same needs he himself once faced.

Through the support of GFA, Marty started a Bridge of Hope center on the top of his home. Kids receive a free meal, an education, and they are shown Christ’s love. And the ministry is growing–Marty had to request extra help to meet the increase of students.

“It gives me great joy in the Lord to see how He is drastically changing lives,” Marty told GFA.

The slums of South Asia face great need, both physically and spiritually. Nearly 25% of the urban population in South Asia’s major cities lives in the slums. Open sewage, illiteracy, and disease are just part of the problem. Parents struggle to find work, so many turn to begging, prostitution, or alcohol.

(Photo courtesy of GFA)

That’s why Gospel for Asia has stepped in. Since 1999, GFA has been providing free medical clinics and helping to educate people on basic hygiene and preventative health measures. Workers provide reading classes for adults and hold Sunday schools. GFA also trains and equips missionaries to expand the message of Jesus throughout the slums.

You, too, can help GFA fight poverty and share the hope of Christ. Pray that GFA workers would effectively meet physical needs and share the Gospel. Pray also that those struggling through poverty would be open to the message of Jesus. Help meet these needs by donating to GFA’s slum ministry fund.

(Photo credit IMB South Asia)

India (MNN) — Have you ever been asked to find a woman? We’re not talking about dating or hide-and-go-seek. imbStudents, the student and young adult mobilization ministry of the International Mission Board, is asking college students to help missionaries find the hidden women of India.

If female college students should accept this call to adventure, they will spend six months helping Southern Baptist missionaries connect with the “hidden women” of India.

More information here.

This nation’s women don’t become “hidden” by choice. Regarded as “less than human,” hidden women are tucked away in alleys and slums, isolated in small apartments, or kept locked in a brothel, waiting for the next paying customer.

This adventure isn’t for the faint-hearted. Students will likely be trekking through dirty alleyways and slums to find India’s hidden women, or to distant villages that are only accessible by foot.

(Photo cred: IMB South Asia)

What’s the goal of this search for India’s hidden women? It’s the same as that of Jesus Christ: to find the lost, the hurt, the outcast. Christ came to bring redemption and new life to the hidden women and hidden sinners of this world.

On this IMB adventure, female college students will become the feet of Christ, carrying hope and Good News to the outskirts of society.

Please pray for the young women God is calling to embark on this journey. Pray for the hidden women of India, that they will find hope and eternal salvation through Christ. Pray that IMB missionaries will be encouraged and helped greatly by the students.

More India stories here.

You can help change their future, and feed their bellies as well. (Photo courtesy of Bright Hope Int’l)

Kenya (MNN) – When events like Typhoon Haiyan occur, the devastation spreads beyond the original point of impact.

Relief efforts in these cases are diverted from the daily ministries to provide for those people in more destitute situations. This is the case for Bright Hope International, specifically with their work in Kenya.

CH Dyer of Bright Hope reports that World Food Program covers about half of their food costs yearly for their work in the slum community of Mathare Valley.

“Over the last few years, we’ve seen the World Food Program certainly decrease, actually stop in some areas of Nairobi from providing food. We get about half of our food needs from the World Food Program.”

As resources become strained, Bright Hope knows that their program may eventually be cut from World Food Program’s funding. Changes are being made to keep their program moving even if this does happen. However, some of the cutbacks are detrimental to the work they are doing there.

Their work, providing education through the local church, is successful largely due to the fact that they are able to provide food for starving children. Often the kids show up because they know there will be food.

Dyer gives the example of a woman named Grace who lives in Mathare Valley. She lost her husband and is trying to provide for her young children. “They’re trying just to survive. They need an education. This is the only opportunity–to go to this church school that we support. And honestly, it’s the only meal the kids get each day. So for them to show up at school and not have a meal would be devastating to the family and to the kids themselves, and obviously the learning process.”

Already Bright Hope has had to cut back from two meals a day to just one. To lose their ability to provide food completely would significantly decrease the involvement in the school.

In an attempt to reduce dependency on World Food Program, they supplement the rice they receive with additional resources including meat and vegetables.

The education they provide is a long-term ministry to help children climb out of the slums in which they live. Many supporters understand this concept, but often the push for long-term overshadows the awareness of immediate needs. Dyer has a unique view from inside the ministry: “A lot of times we think as Americans, ‘Hey we want to do some of the meatier things of job training or micro-lending or things that really help in the long term,” and we forget that some of these immediate needs really are about survival and about helping kids have an opportunity to learn and to grow in school and to come to school.”

By providing for their immediate needs, Bright Hope can continue the education of the children with their future in mind: “It’s a Christian education, so they are learning Scripture, they are learning the Bible. Not only are they doing math and reading and writing and science and all the different studies, but they have the basics of the Christian faith.”

The Scripture learning is not merely supplementary, however. Backed up by the gifts that have been given by Bright Hope, the Gospel is making an impact on these children:

As I’ve talked to these young people, they know Scripture; they know there’s a Jesus and that he’s real to them and that he’s looking out after them. And they know that this church is providing these services—the school and the meals—because of their faith in God. And that the resources that people from America, from Bright Hope, are there to encourage them in their faith, encourage them that they can overcome the poverty that they’ve been born into and find a way out of that community.”

Dyer urges you not to forget these children and their basic needs this Christmas season. It is easy to forget in a season of abundance that there are people out there who are just trying to survive on what little they have. Help Bright Hope bring true Christmas Joy to these communities this year. For a list of gifts that Bright Hope administers, check out their Season of Hope catalog.

As always, pray that the Gospel will continue to flourish as these little ones hear about Jesus and feel His love from brothers and sisters in His name.

Carlota Ursaig, 45-years-old, was thankful to be reunited with her 6 children after a tree landed on the house they had been taking shelter in. They gladly received food that an OM team had to spare. (Image, caption courtesy OM)

“I’ve seen dead people on the streets and the sidewalks,” a nine-year old girl tells CNN. “It made me feel scared.”

At the same time, more relief aid is being poured in. According to a recent report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN and U.S. are sending $25 million and $20 million, respectively.

Despite the increased aid effort, many survivors still badly need food, water, and shelter, said Sally Ababa from Operation Mobilization. To date, three waves of relief goods have been distributed to 850 families in Bohol and the Northern part of Cebu, where many OM staff members reside.

An Emergency Operation Center has been set up at the OM Philippines (OMP) office in Cebu City. All cash and in-kind donations are being channeled through OMP for receipting and distribution purposes.

Click here to add your support to OM’s relief efforts in the Philippines.

Two teams have been formed to distribute relief goods in Bohol and Northern Cebu. Another team is based in Cebu City to assess OM Philippines-Cebu’s outreach to children and partner churches affected by the typhoon. Debriefing of staff and children is ongoing, and preparations for trauma counseling training in 10 areas affected by the earthquake and typhoon are underway.

OM’s Elaine Ellis shares a special concern for Cebu’s slum dwellers. These are families living on an average of less than $35USD each day.

“Just to survive the horrendous inconveniences of the storm has to be a huge challenge for them,” she says. “These slum areas have no running water in the homes, they have no sewers.”

According to a 2011 study from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), over 5 million Filipinos live in urban slums, or slums located in major metropolitan cities. A large percentage of those communities are located in coastal and low-lying areas, where vulnerability to flooding is highest

(Image courtesy OM)

“When it rains, even normally, these homes are flooded several feet,” Ellis explains. After Haiyan, the damage is even more extensive.

“With everyone focused on the worst areas, there’s always a concern that people who are on the fringe may go over the edge.”

Ellis works closely with OMP Cebu’s scholarship program, which shares the Gospel and provides hope for a future to some 114 slum kids.

“We have three levels of scholarships,” Ellis says. “We have a complete scholarship that includes tuition, uniforms, school supplies, and a living allowance. Then we have a second level that is everything except the allowance.”

“The third level is for special project needs, like children that need a calculator for high school.”

The majority of OM scholars are safe and sound. However, Ellis says, the status of two remains a mystery.

“These are children who were part of our program in past years, and I have not heard if they’ve been able to locate them,” she states.

Pray for the safety of these children. Pray they will be found soon.

Along with the scholarship program, OMP Cebu trains selected children in a three-month intensive course called Junior Leaders’ Training. Kids are expected to assist volunteer teachers and soon be teachers themselves after completing the course. Bible class is held regularly on weekends, and OMP Cebu holds a Vacation Bible School each summer.

“The projects OM is providing is helping [to keep] their lives cohesive,” says Ellis.

Learn more about OM Philippines.

In the coming days, Haiyan survivors in the Philippines will increasingly need your prayers. The bodies of storm victims are still in the streets and along alleyways. As they break down, the risk of disease increases.

Children are especially vulnerable to infectious diseases. Ask the Lord to keep them safe and healthy. Pray for the protection of OM relief workers and their families.

Ellis shares a quote from OM’s International Director, Lawrence Tong: “The One we serve is much bigger than any typhoon or earthquake, and we need to cry out to Him on behalf of the thousands who have lost homes and loved ones.”

This little boy’s blackened arm is a result of him falling into an uncovered pot of boiling water. (Image courtesy GFA)

One day, your child gets sick.

You don’t know what’s wrong and even if you did, you’re too poor to buy any medicine. The only person in your village who claims to have healing knowledge is the witch doctor. The nearest medical facility is days away.

What do you do?

This scenario is why Gospel for Asia’s adding a health and hygiene component to their ministry. Teaching basic hygiene and first-aid as a community outreach will now be a vital part of GFA’s Women’s Fellowship ministry.

In a recent trip to one of South Asia’s largest slums, GFA workers realized the importance of this addition. Read their account here.

They met with 80 women who coordinate 10,000 GFA Women’s Fellowships across the region for first-aid training. In addition, common myths and misunderstandings were shared and corrected.

Several leaders told the worker that “if even a fraction of those first-aid trainings make it back to the mothers of India, many children’s lives will be saved.”

According to GFA, about 80-percent of diseases in Asia are curable, even preventable. One World Bank report shows open defecation, a common and widespread practice in India, accounts for much of the country’s excessive child stunting. Open defecation is also a major source of childhood disease.

Another World Bank report details the importance of sanitation training. Six-year-olds exposed to basic sanitary practices during their first year of life were more likely to recognize letters and basic numbers.

Pray for the successful implementation of this new health and hygiene program. Pray GFA workers get a chance to share the Gospel as they care for basic needs.