(Photo courtesy Vision Beyond Borders)

International (VBB/MNN) — Making the name of Jesus known among the nations remains an utmost priority for Vision Beyond Borders.

2016 looks to be a year of building on the groundwork laid in 2015–which was considerable. What follows are summaries of some of that progress in the different countries in which VBB partners. Thousands of lives are changing with each interaction with the Gospel. There’s still room for prayer and other forms of support. Read on.

LEBANON

VBB paid half of the cost and began printing 20,000 Arabic Bibles for the Syrian refugees in Lebanon. They will be finished and ready for distribution in early 2016.

CHINA

The ministry printed 18,000 Bibles for China that were shipped to their Hong Kong warehouse and are being carried across the border by teams. Over 300 additional Bibles were carried by teams who were traveling from the US to China.

VIETNAM and LAOS

Vision Beyond Borders printed 21,960 Hmong tribal Bibles for Vietnam and Laos. Almost half of these have already been carried into these closed borders by VBB teams.

They also printed 30,000 Lao Bibles earlier this year, and over 10,000 0f those have already been moved into the country.

(Photo courtesy Vision Beyond Borders)

NEPAL

There were many changes in the Vision for Women projects in 2015.

In Nepal, the VBB contact helped the women at the safe house move to a new location after the owner of the old house would no longer allow them to stay.

Over 35 women have been rescued from sex trafficking since the safe house was begun in January of 2014, with nine of those girls rescued last year. Most of the women have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and have also been baptized.

The women are growing in the Lord and learning the skills offered at the safe house, such as tailoring and salon skills. The new location also provides the opportunity for the girls learning salon skills to actually practice their skills on customers in the VBB salon, located only a block away from the safe house.

The safe house has seen several women leave and use the skills they’ve learned. One woman returned home to her village and started a salon from her home, using it as an opportunity to share the Gospel in her village.

Another woman returned home to her family with a passion to teach the Gospel; her family is Muslim and had rejected her for her new faith. Two women have completed the training courses, graduated from Bible College, and are now leaders in the safe home of morning devotion times and skill training. Another woman completed the salon training course and is now the head beautician at the VBB salon.

(Photo courtesy Vision Beyond Borders)

INDIA

The VBB contact in India continues to have prayer meetings with the women and brothel owners on a weekly basis, offering counseling and encouraging the women to leave the red-light district. She also continues to walk through the red-light district and visit different women in the brothels, providing for their basic needs and helping bring them to the hospital for medical care.

She has helped place children in good hostels and has found Christian homes for babies given up by the women in the red-light district. In October, she was also able to obtain her Social Worker’s license, which will allow her to continue doing this work without fear of repercussions. In India, it is illegal to offer these services without a license.

She also found a space for a salon (which opened in October), and there’s a new space for the day care center, too.

In another arm of ministry, VBB began supporting a fishpond project, which will generate income for the local people as well as provide fresh fish for the children at Abundant Life Home. They also bought mattresses, furniture, books (Christian books in the Mizo language), children’s encyclopedias, picture books, and bed sheets for Abundant Life Home.

MYANMAR

In Myanmar, Vision For Children (under the auspices of VBB) supports nine different children’s homes in different parts of the country.

They are helping to touch Naga children, Chin children, and children from Shan State who now are being educated for the first time in their lives. Some of these children were rescued from their villages because they were in danger of being taken by the army as child soldiers. They are now safe in a children’s home being educated and taught the Word of God.

Many of these children are eager to return to their villages when they are older and share the good news with their people. This past year we were able to provide funds for a new roof for a children’s home in Burma, build a dining hall at another home, build toilets and water tanks at still another home, and also begin a water project. The program also supports many refugee children who are living in camps along the Burma/Thailand border.

CUBA

20,000 Spanish Bibles have been printed for Cuba, and they are steadily moving into the country, with about 1,000 penetrating the border each month.

Travelers have carried an additional 67 Spanish Study Bibles for pastors into Cuba. In addition to the Bibles, close to 250 flannel graphs were also carried to the persecuted church to help with evangelism and children’s ministries (through Vision For Pastors).

There is great hope thriving among Cuba’s believers, despite harassment from the government. In one case, it got so bad that their contact needed to leave. VBB was able to relocate the family into a safer home. Before, their home resided on a busy corner with a retired communist guard living next door. This left them at risk because of the large volume of Bibles and supplies coming through their home.

Some men in India believe that if they have AIDS or venereal disease and have sex with a virgin, they will be healed.
They will pay up to $500 to have sex with a virgin girl
as young as 7 years of age.
(Image, caption courtesy VBB)

Nepal (MNN) — Imagine all the 7-year-olds you know, both girls and boys. Now, picture them trapped in human trafficking, suffering in horrific, unmentionable ways. That’s reality for many children in Nepal.

Dyann Romeijn with Vision Beyond Borders says “most of the girls are 14, 15, 16 years old,” but their ministry partners have seen seven-year-olds trapped in Nepali brothels.

“They’re not even women; they’re young girls who’ve been tricked into this and really have no escape,” Romeijn notes.

VBB’s ministry partners opened a safe house six months ago for girls who wanted to escape the sex trade. With 25 young women sheltered inside its walls, the house is already filled to capacity. They have to turn girls away because there’s simply no room.

“There’s just this huge outpouring, and they’re seeing a huge number of girls wanting to come out,” says Romeijn.

“Praise God, we rescued another woman and are following up with three more…One is just 12 years old…We have discovered many places where this business is running currently. And they sell girls and children from one place to another…they are able to do this business in that way because many high government police, army officers, and ministers are their customers.” –VBB Contact, Red-Light District
(Photo, caption courtesy VBB)

Vision Beyond Borders wants to build another safe house to help more girls escape, learn a new trade, and hear about Jesus. But they need your help.

Building a second safe house in Nepal would cost $83,000 USD. Click here to help.

“That would pretty much cover everything; it would cover the building, the training materials that they need.”

Pray that more girls can escape. Pray for the protection of workers who are trying to help them. Take a look at more prayer needs here.

“This is a very lucrative business, and the people that are profiting from these girls do not want them given up; they don’t want them taken,” Romeijn explains.

“There’s a lot of money, a lot of power, a lot of corruption behind it. In a lot of instances, even the police are going in and taking taxes from these girls.”

Learn more about VBB’s work in the red-light districts of Nepal and India.

(Image courtesy VBB)

SE Asia (MNN) — It’s one thing to know that 27 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking. It’s another to actually do something about it.

“It’s not the UN’s, it’s not the government’s responsibility; it’s our responsibility because we know that people are created in the image of God, and this is NOT His purpose or plan for their lives,” says Patrick Klein with Vision Beyond Borders.

“We as Christians should be moved with compassion and say, ‘We need to do all we can to rescue these women.'”

Klein is leading a short-term team in Southeast Asia right now. They’re building a safe-house to protect girls who are courageous enough to leave the trade.

“We’ll have 11 or 12 starting out, and our goal is eventually to have 50 women in that home,” Klein shares.

Along with building the safe house, “We’re going to have discipleship in the morning…and then in the afternoon, we will be teaching them [rescued women] how to make handcrafts, how to sew.”

This way, women can support themselves in a God-honoring way.

The safe house and training are the latest developments in an ongoing partnership between VBB and an in-country ministry partner. This partner is a woman who’s been ministering in the brothels for 15 years, establishing friendships and earning the trust of trafficked women.

“She’s sharing the Gospel with them the whole time, and once they trust her and they’ve come to Christ, they want out,” Klein explains. “It’s a dangerous work, but at the same time, it’s really exciting because you see God radically change these girls’ lives.

“When they worship, their hands are raised, their tears are just running down their faces. They’re just so grateful for what Jesus has done in their lives.”

Why go?
Klein says people interested in supporting VBB often ask him whether they should go or give.

While giving is an immense help and is truly needed, “People should go; if they can go, they should go because I believe it’s life changing,” the ministry leader says.

Some men in India believe that if they have AIDS
or venereal disease and have sex with a virgin,
they will be healed. They will pay up to $500 to have
sex with a virgin girl as young as 7 years of age.
(Image, caption courtesy VBB)

Although VBB’s trips are short-term, they leave an everlasting impact on those involved.

The team members “come back changed, and they say, ‘You know what? I want to do all I can to help these women in the red-light districts,'” shares Klein.

Relationships forged between women in the trade and women on the trip lead to Gospel opportunities.

Klein shares the story of one team member, a rape victim, who connected with one of the red-light district workers in a unique way. VBB’s partner says she had never seen a smile on the worker’s face.

But the VBB team member ministered to this worker as she styled the woman’s hair, and by the end, something had changed.

As the worker got up to leave, “this lady from the States hugged this girl good-bye and said ‘I love you’ and kissed her on the cheek,” Klein recalls.

“As the girl was leaving, the girl turned around and waved, and she smiled for the first time.”

Your Turn
VBB regularly takes teams to minister in SE Asia’s red-light districts. Find a list of upcoming trips here.

“We can always use people who teach the women skills. Also, we need women that could come over and actually teach them in the beauty salon,” Klein notes.

“Lord, please help us get the Gospel to more people, and that the Gospel will permeate these red-light districts everywhere around the world,” prays Klein.

(Image courtesy VBB)

Please pray that more women will escape human trafficking and find salvation through Jesus Christ. Ask the Lord to open the eyes of brothel owners and traffickers who use these vulnerable women and girls.

Pray also for the men who abuse them to be transformed.

Says Klein, “They’ll go into these buildings…and they’ll window shop. They’ll walk in and look at the girls and see which ones…that they want to use.”

Learn more about VBB’s Vision for Women program here.

In some areas, girls as young as five are sold into the trade by their families. An estimated 250,000 Nepalese women and girls have been sold into sex slavery to work in the brothels of India. The city of Mumbai alone has over 2 million young girls trapped in the commercial sex trade.

Around the world, around 27 million people are caught in the chains of forced labor and sex. Human trafficking is the world's second-most lucrative criminal industry, averaging a profit of $32 billion each year. In 2007, traffickers made more money than Google, Nike, and Starbucks combined.

Individual efforts seem powerless in light of such staggering global statistics. What CAN you do about it?

Pray.

Vision Beyond Borders (VBB) has a 15-day prayer guide to help you pray specifically and with power. It's completely free, and you can click here to download the guide. We'll also be tweeting a prayer daily on Twitter; just follow @MNNTeam.

Vision for Women is an outreach of VBB, working alongside believers in SE Asia who are reaching out to women and girls abandoned by their families. These believers bring the hope of Jesus to trafficking victims and minister to their needs. VBB also sponsors a safehouse in Nepal for women and girls who have been rescued from the sex trade.

Pray that as many join to intercede for the enslaved, God would set the captives free. Share this story with your small group to raise more awareness concerning the issue.

But that's the silver lining in a dark situation.

Vision Beyond Borders (VBB) says approximately 400,000 people live in the southern districts where they're working. Of these, only 150 are known to follow Christ. VBB says families in this region are killing their daughters-in-law because of dowry fees, and child marriage is commonplace.

Kids in southern Nepal reportedly marry between the ages of 10 and 14. An estimated 250,000 Nepalese women and girls have been trafficked to India to work in the brothels. NGO's estimate that around 7,500 are trafficked within Nepal's borders each year.

Pray for freedom for those in spiritual bondage. Click here for a 15-day prayer guide for vulnerable women in SE Asia.

In addition, temperatures are dropping, and many people die each year because they lack winter clothing. Ask God to provide needed blankets and supplies to help combat the cold weather.