In the above video of 2 minutes and 49 seconds, a mother explains why she sponsors children in Gospel For Asia’s Bridge of Hope ministry.
Category Archives: Church
A Mother Shares Why She Sponsors Children
Pictures Tell Stories Better Than Any Writer Could Ever Do
(Click on the photo)
By clicking on the above photo, a window will open, revealing a monthly archive of photos. Choose any month. The pictures reveal life in India for millions of people, most of whom have no hope in life unless they meet Jesus. And how will they meet Jesus? Someone will have to go and preach to them. And how will someone be able to go and preach? Someone, like you and me, will have to help missionaries with our prayers and financial offerings.
If you are interested in helping, check out Gospel For Asia.
Prayer: So Easy To Talk About, Yet So Tough To Do (Part 4)
I was so hungry for a Bible. Seeing my desperation, my mother remembered an old man in another village. This man had been a pastor before the Cultural Revolution.
Together we started out on the long walk to his home. When we found him, we told him our desire, “We long to see a Bible. Do you have one?”
The old pastor simply told me, “The Bible is a heavenly book. If you want one, you’ll need to pray to the God of heaven. Only He can provide a heavenly book…”
When I returned home, I brought a stone into my room and knelt on it every evening for prayer. I just had one simple prayer, “Lord, please give me a Bible. Amen.”
Nothing happened. A Bible didn’t appear.
I went back to that pastor’s house again. I told him, “I’ve prayed to God according to your instructions, but I still haven’t received the Bible I want so much. Please, please show me your Bible. Just a glance and I will be satisfied. I don’t need to touch it. You hold it and I will be content to just look at it…”
The pastor saw the anxiety in my heart. He spoke to me again, “If you’re serious, you should not only kneel down and pray to the Lord, you should also fast and weep. The more you weep, the sooner you get your Bible.”
I went home, and every morning and afternoon I ate and drank nothing. Every evening I ate just one small bowl of steamed rice. I cried like a hungry child to his heavenly Father, wanting to be filled with His word. For the next one hundred days, I prayed for a Bible, until I could bear it no more. My parents were sure I was losing my mind.
Looking back years later, I would say this whole experience was the most difficult thing I’ve ever endured.
Then, suddenly one morning at 4 AM, after months of begging God to answer my prayers, I received a vision from the Lord while kneeling beside my bed.
Later…
I quickly opened the door and there standing before were the same two servants I had seen in my vision. One man held a red bag in his hand. My heart raced as I opened the bag and held in my hands my very own Bible. (The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun, by Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway, 2003, Piquant Publishing, pages 27 – 30)
The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (James 5:16)
(Continued in Part 5)
Filed under Christianity, Church, Faith, Gifts of the Spirit, God, jesus, Kingdom of God, Prayer, Prophecy, spiritual warfare
Prayer: So Easy To Talk About, Yet So Tough To Do (Part 3)
We arrived at her apartment by night in order to escape detection. We were in Russia (in the region of Lithuania, on the Baltic Sea). Ellen and I had climbed the steep stairs, coming through a small back door into the one-room apartment. It was jammed with furniture, evidence that the old couple had once lived in a much larger and much finer house.
The old woman was lying on a small sofa, propped up by pillows. Her body was bent and twisted almost beyond recognition by the dread disease of multiple sclerosis. Her aged husband spent all his time caring for her since she was unable to move off the sofa.
I walked across the room and kissed her wrinkled cheek. She tried to look up but the muscles in her neck were atrophied so she could only roll her eyes upward and smile. She raised her right hand, slowly, in jerks. It was the only part of her body she could control and with her gnarled and deformed knuckles she caressed my face. I reached over and kissed the index finger of that hand, for it was with this one finger that she had so long glorified God.
Beside her couch was a vintage typewriter. Each morning her faithful husband would rise, praising the Lord. After caring for his wife’s needs and feeding her a simple breakfast, he would prop her into a sitting position on the couch, placing pillows all around her so she wouldn’t topple over. Then he would move that ancient black typewriter in front of her on a small table. From an old cupboard he would remove a stack of cheap yellow paper. Then, with that blessed one finger, she would begin to type.
All day and far into the night she would type. She translated Christian books into Russian, Latvian, and the language of her people. Always using just that one finger—peck… peck… peck—she typed out the pages. Portions of the Bible, the books of Billy Graham, Watchman Nee, and Corrie ten Boom—all came from her typewriter. That was why I was there—to thank her.
“Not only does she translate their books,” her husband said as he hovered close by during our conversation, “but she prays for these men every day while she types. Sometimes it takes a long time for her finger to hit the key, or for her to get the paper in the machine, but all the time she is praying for those whose books she is working on.”
I looked at her wasted form on the sofa, her head pulled down and her feet curled back under her body. “Oh, Lord, why don’t You heal her?” I cried inwardly.
Her husband, sensing my anguish of soul, gave the answer. “God has a purpose in her sickness. Every other Christian in the city is watched by the secret police. But because she has been sick so long, no one ever looks in on her. They leave us alone and she is the only person in all the city who can type quietly, undetected by the police.”
I looked around at the tiny room, so jammed full of furniture from better days. In one corner was the kitchen. Beside the cupboard was her husband’s “office,” a battered desk where he sorted the pages that came from her typewriter to pass them on to the Christians. I thought of Jesus sitting over against the treasury, and my heart leaped for joy as I heard Jesus bless this sick old woman who, like the widow, had given all she had. (Tramp for the Lord by Corrie ten boom, ©1975, 2008, Christian Literature Crusade, excerpt from Chapter 31, “One Finger for His Glory.”)
Corrie ten boom did not mention the name of this sick old woman who prayed all day long as she pecked away on a typewriter. So, we don’t know her name, but I guarantee you this: all of heaven knows her name.
(Continued in Part 4)
Filed under Christianity, Church, Faith, Gifts of the Spirit, God, grace, jesus, Kingdom of God, Prayer, Prophecy, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized
Sponsor A Child – Save A Family
Let’s say your spouse dies, what would most likely happen next?
Your family, neighbors, and friends would show up at your home to comfort you. They would bring food. There would be an outpouring of love shown to you through many different ways in the days following the funeral and the months afterward.
But not so, if you are a wife in rural India, especially in Mula’s case.
Mula and her husband loved each other, but he died from cancer after seventeen years of marriage. When that happened, Mula was blamed for her husband’s death, forsaken by both families, shunned by her friends, and despised by her community. She and her four children faced a desperate future.
Fortunately, her oldest daughter attended a Bridge of Hope school. Through this connection with Gospel For Asia, Mula attended a seamstress school and eventually received a sewing machine. She now earns enough through sewing to feed and clothe her family.
The reasons all this happened:
1. Someone sponsored the daughter for $35/month.
2. Someone bought a sewing machine from GFA’s Christmas Catalog for $85.
What may seem like pocket change to the people who sponsored the daughter or who bought the sewing machine, made a life and death difference to Mula and her family. And oh yes! Mula gave her life to Jesus.
Do you have any spare pocket change? It may be enough to sponsor a child, which may end up saving a family.
Filed under Christianity, Church, Gifts of the Spirit, God, India, jesus, Poverty, Prayer, Prophecy, spiritual warfare
Hope for Those Born into Brothels
My good friend Derrick Coy in his recent post, Journey with us through the slums and brothels of India, wrote about the above 2004 documentary film, Born into Brothels. Check out his post for more info on the film.
The first child you meet in the film is a beautiful 10 year-old girl named Kochi who lived in a Calcutta brothel. “They ask me, ‘When are you going to join the line [to be a prostitute]?” she said, looking out the window. “They say it won’t be long.”
Later in the film, a gifted young boy named Avijit, lost his mom because a pimp set her on fire. The police did not even investigate the murder. The devastated Avijit said, “There is nothing called hope in my future.”
All through the disturbing film, which I watched twice, I thought about K. P. Yohannan’s dream of harvest fields in Asia:
…Right in front of me was a river so wide and raging that I dared not step closer or try to cross it…
My heart broke. Was I only going to look at the harvest but not be able to embrace it? I stood there weeping, feeling so helpless and full of despair.
All of a sudden there appeared before me a bridge reaching from one side of the vast river to the other. It was not a narrow bridge, but one that was very broad. It was completely filled with children from all over Asia − poor, destitute children, like those I’d so often seen on the streets of Calcutta, Kathmandu and other Asian cities.
Then it was as though someone spoke to me and said, “If you want to have this harvest, it’s all yours. But this is the bridge you must cross to get it.” (Except from No Longer A Slumdog by K. P. Yohannan, ©2011, page 90)
K.P. Yohannan’s dream became the basis for the Gospel For Asia’s Bridge of Hope. So far, more than 500 Bridge of Hope Centers provide over 60,000 children with the love of Jesus, quality education, daily meal, and medical care. As these young children begin to understand God’s love, they carry the gospel home to their families.
Zani Briski, the main English speaking character, voiced her frustration in the documentary. “I’m not a social worker. I’m not a teacher even. That’s my fear, you know, that I can’t really do anything…” she said.
Bridge of Hope does something, by offering hope for the poor children of India, even those born in brothels.
Prayer: So Easy To Talk About, Yet So Tough To Do (Part 2)
The vibrant sounds of Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number Seven swirled through the Beacon Hill mansion’s ballroom. The fifteen females seated around the grand piano, listening to the maestro, had proper Brahmin names like Cabot, Coolidge, Forbes, Lodge, and Shaw. Each traced her ancestry back to the earliest Puritan settlers of Boston. This blueblood lineage insured their invitation to the social tea, no nouveau riche Johnny-come-latelies were among the invitees.
When the pianist completed the piece, he stood and bowed. The women showed their appreciation with warm applause. One of the ladies put her white gloved hands to her mouth and said, “Oh, I would just do anything to be able to play the piano like that.”
The maestro turned and stared at her. His eyes exploded with fire.
“No you wouldn’t,” he said.
The crowd collectively gasped. All felt sorry for the woman who had been openly rebuked by the man’s insensitive words.
As for the lady, she sat stunned, paralyzed by his harsh eyes, tears rolled down her cheeks. Then, as if she remembered her privileged pedigree, she mouthed three defiant words at the pianist: “Yes, I would.”
“No you wouldn’t,” he said again, leaning over the piano toward the lady.
“Because if you really meant what you said, you would have been willing to give up your youth, your teenage years, and eight to ten hours every day practicing on the piano. You see there is a price to sit on this bench. I’ve been willing to pay it, and you have not!”
(Short story from my e-novel, Deceived Dead and Delivered by Larry Nevenhoven, ©2012, Amazon.com)
Like playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number Seven, prayer demands an all-effort on our parts if we really want to see God move through our petitions and supplications for our families, friends, neighbors, and cities. How costly will the price eventually be for each of us?
It will cost us everything!
(Continued in Part 3)
Filed under Christianity, Church, Faith, Gifts of the Spirit, God, grace, Kingdom of God, Prayer, Prophecy, spiritual warfare
Inside Israel – Pentecost (Part 2)
As you have probably guessed by now, I’m not Debbie, but since she’s taken a sabbatical, I will host Inside Israel where we will hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is …
And, speaking of The Bread, the two challot (‘challa’ is the three twined braided shabat bread) that I am hoping to bring to our gathering tomorrow are rising on my stove. Our fellowship plans to gather together to worship The Lord and bring our own thanksgivings to Him.
Shavuot is actually the 50th day following Passover (which is why it is called Pentecost in English) during which time the grain harvest is ripening and taking place. We are told in scripture to ‘count the Omer’ (grains of wheat) for 7 weeks of 7 days (49 days) and there is a meditation for each day (again Leviticus 23) and when the time of the grain is full and the grain is full in it’s head, it is really a time to thank God for the new grain harvest – grain being the ‘staff of life’ – and the first fruits of the land as spring and the land is now literally covered with new life!
As the life of the next generation … the seeds… are already amazingly present in each generation…this is evident in all of His creation.
As I walk the several streets from the bus to my work in the morning I have been writing to you in my head. Here it is… May…and yet what strikes me most is that the fall fruits are already alive in their bursting buds! My head spins with this visual example of the ‘cycle of life’ that God has given; beautiful grape vines, clean from the rains, press their paths over gates and hedges and already there are evident miniscule clusters of what will become, Lord willing, lush grapes that won’t ripen until their fullness during the fall feasts of Sukkot. Dazzling my eyes are the florescent pink orange ‘horn’, the dramatic buds of the pomegranate which will signify the fall feasts as well. I see the fig leaves in full fan already being pulled downward by the heavy dates beginning to develop. As if a colorful ‘frame’ around this activity, the bright yellow lemons beg to be picked and the air is permeated…full of the fragrance of more flowers then I could take note of … more colors then my eyes can define… all of this and so much more God has given even to us now in our disobedience!
What awaits us in the fulfillment…! Overhead the swallows (as they are called in America) or swifts (as they are called in Europe) literally darken the morning sky as they feast of the little bugs. I watch them darting around at a speed that boggles my mind and wonder at how they navigate around one another and buildings. It is literally a display of nature that one need only to look up to see. I have had to laugh because as I wait at my bus stop (after getting off the train…) in the morning, it is on a crowded narrow street. The people crowd into the little ‘tachanat’ or ‘waiting station’ and sort of ‘tolerate’ the time. One day the swallows (swifts) were just THICK and I was enraptured looking up and watching them. I took a sudden look around and EVERYONE was gazing up instead of at the ground. That brought a prayer to me ‘Lord! Looking up may we see You! May we FIND You! Look, Lord! We are looking UP!’ He is truly so good!
And as truly as the life of the fall fruits are already growing so wonderfully in the bud as the spring harvest takes place, perhaps…dare I say… that this is true in the Spirit as well as the natural? As Shavuot was given through the hand of Moses…The Holy Spirit came on the self same day through Yeshua h’Meshiach…One God, one seed, one bud, one Fruit…In Him alone is life. Maybe THIS year? Even THIS day?
There is much more to share, but I think that in this letter I don’t want to mix the wonder of the seed of what He does and is doing with more words.
Lovingly, with blessing, your sis
Filed under Christianity, Church, Gifts of the Spirit, grace, Israel, Jerusalem, Prophecy
Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?
One day the Lord got my attention while I was standing at a busy street corner in India waiting for the light to turn green. There were little children everywhere, a common sight at many busy corners in Bombay. Tourists are cautioned not to give them anything because once you do, the others will all mob you.
While I was at this corner, feeling a bit annoyed by little hands grabbing at me, I heard from behind me the voice of a young girl.
“Sahib, Sir, my father died. My mother is sick. She can’t beg anymore. And I have a little brother, who is very hungry. Would you please give me a few pennies so I can buy some bread and take it to him?”
The light turned green, and everybody hurried on. But I couldn’t move. What she said pierced my heart, I turned around and saw this young girl, not yet 10 years old. I will never forget her face − one of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen on a child. She had big brown eyes, thick black hair almost the length of her body, dirty fingernails, and dust mingled with sweat running down her face. She was barefoot and in rags. She just stood there with her hand extended.
I put my hands in my pocket and took all the money I could find and gave it to her. Then, I walked on.
Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I felt an unseen stranger joined me on this emotional walk. “So, what do you think about the little girl you just met? Is her life as valuable and precious as…” and the face of another young girl appeared in my mind’s eye. I didn’t know the name of the girl on the street, but I for certain knew the name of this new face; it was my own little daughter, Sarah.
I certainly don’t want anyone to feel guilty about lovingly caring for our own children and grandchildren. But the question remains: Is there room in our hearts for one or two of the world’s suffering children, and can we also care for them in Jesus’ name? Can we see them as Jesus does, so special to Him, their worth like jewels beyond compare?
(Excerpts from No Longer A Slumdog by K.P. Yohannan, © 2011, pages 69-72. Order your copy here.)
When I read No Longer A Slumdog, I saw the face of my daughter, Susan, and became a sponsor in Gospel For Asia’s Bridge of Hope ministry. I pray this happens to thousands and thousands of Americans, maybe even you. (Larry Who)
Filed under Christianity, Church, Faith, Gifts of the Spirit, God, India, Inspirational, jesus, Kingdom of God, Poverty, Prayer, Prophecy, Religion, spiritual warfare
Inside Israel – Pentecost (Part 1)
As you have probably guessed by now, I’m not Debbie, but since she’s on a sabbatical, I will host Inside Israel where we will hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is …
And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabat…fifty days…you shall offer a new grain offering to The Lord. You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves…of fine flour…baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to The Lord.” Levit 23:15-17
“And it shall be, when you come into the land which The Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it,…and say to Him ‘I declare today to The Lord my God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us…’” Deut 26:1-3
“And when the day of Pentecost (SHAVOUT) had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting…and there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven…we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” Acts 2:1-12
May THE LORD alone be glorified and blessed, and may you, His precious blood purchased ones, be blessed and encouraged as we each struggle along the path.
When we made aliyah (it will be 19 years this coming July), I sat on the plane crying out to God with one prayer and one only, but one that continued for the entire long long flight: “SANCTIFY MY EMOTIONS! THEY ARE TOO BIG FOR ME!” This past week I spoke to Him about it: ‘You did not answer that prayer…my emotions are still too big for me.’
He impressed my heart with an answer that I did not expect. ‘I did answer your prayer. I DID sanctify them. But I did NOT change who I made you to be…like it or not.
I took a step back. My emotions are ‘sanctified’? What does this MEAN?
His economy is different then mine.
In like manner I approach this high holy day…one of the (only) three high feasts, when all of the men of Israel were COMMANDED to come up to Jerusalem and present themselves and their offerings before The Lord in Thanksgiving. (the other two being Passover-unleavened bread – resurrection- and Sukkot – feast of tabernacles)
The longer that I stand here in Jerusalem, the more He and His ways, His economy of things, become BOTH a deeper mystery AND an open book to me…now that can’t make any sense! But it is as if He FILLS us with Light and understanding only to show us how much MORE there is that we can’t see then end of and we must cry out ‘Lord! Expand the pegs of the tent! Enlarge my capacity for You!’
These major holidays seem to amplify that to me.
Shavuot (‘weeks’) is also Pentecost: the day when The Holy Spirit was poured out for the first time in Jerusalem as the “devout men from every nation under heaven’ (Acts 2) were gathered along with the rest of the ‘devout’ men of Israel in Jerusalem to bring their tithes and offerings and to rejoice before The Lord, AND to repent and remember all that The Lord had done. Although I was blessed to be filled with The Holy Spirit soon after I was saved, the ‘holiday’ of Pentecost never seemed to deeply move me, although I TRIED.
Likewise, during all of my growing up years, we did not celebrate Shavuot. It was only after making aliyah that I really saw the celebration…and quite a celebration it is; and beyond that, GREAT joy arises in my heart as it approaches. Part of the reason for that I see in the verse above from Deut that says… “…and when you come into the land…” It has seemed to me that a veil has come off as we ‘came into the land’. Why? Don’t know. Obedience? Perhaps. Fulfillment of His plans? Maybe. Don’t know. All that I can say, and bare witness to is: OH! What a glorious day of rejoicing His Presence in His Spirit, for those who know Him, and for rejoicing in His acts, for those who don’t yet know Him.
How is it celebrated here in Jerusalem? Well…this is the ‘cheesecake and milk’ holiday. Why? Don’t ask me…OR most of the rabbis for that matter…no one seems to know! Now the interesting part of this is that the fullest account that we have about how to celebrate this holiday is given in Deut 26 and Levit 16 and 23 where we are told to bake two fresh loaves to present at the temple (along with sheep etc and our tithes of the first fruits) and the loaves are to be ‘waved before The Lord’ as an offering of Thanksgiving. (Exod 23, Levit 16 and 23, Numbers 28, 29 , Deut 16 and 26 all contain information about Shavuot)
So…where does the ‘milk’ come from and why does everyone stuff themselves with cheesecake and blintzes? Well…funny that you should ask…and if you want a good laugh, go online and google ‘Why do Jews eat dairy on Shavuot?’ The answers are very funny and speak for themselves. But I would like to turn it into a prayer: May my brethren after the flesh…and indeed…all of us…me too…thirst after the pure milk of the Word in a way that it may not be quenched by anything else…but the living Bread of Life.
(Continued in Part 2)
Larry Who 