Rejoice!

They were running low on water again. Gaurav didn’t want to walk all the way to the hospital to get more, but that was the only option.

Water was scarce, and it was a daily struggle to provide for his family. All of the villagers had a hard time finding water to drink and use for everyday needs.

In his village, there were two Christian families. There were rumours spreading that these believers would be getting a well. They would not have to pay to use the well, and fresh, clean water would be available all the time. But Gaurav wasn't a believer, so he didn't think his family would be able to use it.

Jesus Well Installed

One day, the workers arrived to install the Jesus Well. All of the villagers watched with curiosity and longing as the well was drilled. Once it was finished, they were surprised and delighted to hear the local pastor, Yashwant, invite anyone who needed water to use the well. Gaurav was so pleased that he and his family wouldn't have to walk miles to get water anymore!

“This was the day God heard our prayers and gave us pure water to drink,” Gaurav says.

Gaurav, along with his wife, Vibhavari, and their two daughters, decided to attend the local worship services. At one of the services, Gaurav listened closely to what Pastor Yashwant was saying and chose to give his heart to Christ. He and his family began attending services regularly, and before long, Vibhavari made the decision to follow Christ too.

When Tragedy Strikes

Soon the family was enjoying their new-found peace and joy in serving Christ. Life was richer than it had ever been. Then one day Gulal, their 10-year-old daughter, became severely ill. Gaurav and his wife rushed her to the nearest hospital and learned that she had a hole in her heart and was suffering from lung complications.

The doctor said she would need an operation immediately. “Lord Jesus,” Gaurav prayed, “I don’t have money to spend for my daughter. Please heal her heart disease.”

Pastor Yashwant and his wife visited the hospital and prayed for Gulal. They shared Bible verses to comfort Gaurav and Vibhavari while they waited to see what would happen to their daughter.

The Lord Is Healer

One day, the girl realized that her symptoms had disappeared. The Lord had answered her parents’ faithful prayers. During worship on Sunday, Gulal shared the miracle that God had performed in her life.

A Jesus well can help meet the practical and spiritual needs of an entire community!

Imagine how different the outcome would have been had the Jesus Well not been provided for this village. Gaurav and his family may never have gotten the opportunity to hear about Christ and learn that He is the true Healer.

Thank you for your involvement in the lives of people like Gaurav and his family through your gifts and prayers.

Gayana remembered clearly the feelings of depression that almost crushed her spirit.

She often used to wonder why she had to be born into her family—a family in which her father would get drunk every night and beat her mother. Because of his alcohol problem, he wasn’t even able to care for his family properly. Gayana and her four siblings knew they couldn’t do anything to help make the situation better.

All feelings of depression began to fade, however, when Gayana joined the Gospel for Asia Bridge of Hope centre. She started attending Sunday school, and for the first time in her life, Gayana experienced God’s love. The Gospel songs and Bible stories she heard brought joy to her heart.

Soon Gayana asked Jesus to be her Saviour. Anxious to tell others about Him, she has become a positive influence in her family and to the other children in her village. She shares Christ’s love everywhere she goes. Gayana regularly attends Sunday school at the local GFA church, and her parents hope to start attending worship services there too.

Rashmi, 12, had already lost both her parents, yet her uncle wanted to take away one of the few things she had left. His greed cared nothing about her dignity.

Tragedy Wouldn’t Leave Her Alone

When Rashmi was only 4, her father died, and two years later, her mother got remarried to a man in another village. Rashmi’s mother left her with the girl’s grandparents, never to return. Growing up, Rashmi was deeply saddened that her mother never even came back to find out how she was doing.

Joy crept back into Rashmi’s life in 2008, when she joined Gospel for Asia’s Bridge of Hope. As the young girl made new friends, grew academically and learned about Jesus, her heart filled with hope for a promising future.

But a few years later, Rashmi’s world collapsed from under her again. Rashmi’s father had left her some land, and her uncle Sanjiv wanted it for himself. He thought that if he arranged a marriage for Rashmi, he could easily take the land when she moved to live with her husband. Without Rashmi’s knowledge and despite her grandparents’ objections, Sanjiv found a man willing and arranged a wedding date. On May 29, 2012, Rashmi was forced to get married.

Rescued by Jesus

But after the wedding, Rashmi ran away. For two weeks, she found shelter with relatives in another village.

Meanwhile, the Bridge of Hope staff noticed that Rashmi had stopped coming to the centre. One of the social workers, Philip, visited Rashmi’s home to ask her grandparents why she hadn’t been coming. When they told him about the forced marriage, he was shocked.

Not long afterward, Rashmi returned to the village, and her uncle threatened to take her back to her husband’s home. But Philip stepped in. He and the Bridge of Hope project director brought Rashmi to stay at the director’s home. Then Philip met with Sanjiv.

He explained that if Sanjiv harassed Rashmi anymore, he would file a police case against him. Frightened, Sanjiv left Rashmi alone and let her continue her studies at the Bridge of Hope centre.

Now that the situation has settled down, Rashmi has returned to live with her grandparents, and she is continuing to flourish at the Bridge of Hope centre.

See how Bridge of Hope has touched one girl with the love of Jesus.

As usual, people in the bustling city marketplace hustled past Pradip, trying to avoid him.

A snake-catcher, Pradip was disdained by almost everyone. His people are a nomadic group at the bottom of the caste system, living outside the city in an isolated village comprised of temporary sheds. They rarely take baths or wash their clothes. Although the people’s traditional occupation is catching and defanging snakes, they earn their living primarily by going into busy city areas to beg and to entertain people through snake-charming, dramas and dances. Instead of sending their children to school, they usually teach them these methods of earning money. People look down on the snake-catchers because of their low caste, their lack of cleanliness and their aggressive begging tactics.

But on this particular day, something unique happened: Pradip was astonished when a man began talking with him. The man, Gospel for Asia pastor Ramra Khan, had been handing out Christian literature among the people and stopped to talk with Pradip about the love of Jesus.

Hearing that Jesus, the living God, loves the snake-catchers so much that He died for them, Pradip’s heart was stirred. He asked Pastor Ramra to come to his village to tell the other snake-catchers and their families about Jesus.

Even though most people wouldn’t have dared soil their image by going to the snake-catchers’ village, Pastor Ramra followed Pradip there that very day.

A Miracle Opens Hearts

Upon his arrival, Pastor Ramra learned that Damini, the wife of a snake-catcher, had been tormented by demons. Around noon, people brought her to Pastor Ramra under a tree, and he began praying for her. About 200 people gathered to watch as he interceded in Jesus’ name for the woman writhing on the ground.

The evil spirits struggled to maintain control over her.

“I will kill her,” one demon spoke through her.

But after four hours of intercession, God completely delivered Damini.

Astounded by this miracle, the villagers’ hearts opened to the Good News, and Pastor Ramra started visiting them regularly. People began to believe in Jesus.

Months later, when Pastor Ramra and some women missionaries hosted a prayer meeting in the village, many demon-possessed and sick people received deliverance and healing and decided to follow Christ.

Change from the Inside Out

God’s kingdom is rapidly spreading throughout this village. Not only does Pastor Ramra lead a prayer meeting every Friday night—usually attended by about 40–50 people—but he also started an adult literacy class and a Sunday school, where nearly 40 children learn about God’s Word every week.

As the villagers seek to know more about this Jesus who loves even snake-catchers, many have chosen to embrace Christ’s love—including Damini, Pradip and their families. These two families travel a long distance every Sunday to worship with Pastor Ramra’s main congregation in the city.

As Jesus’ light shines in this village, He is not only transforming individual lives; He is changing the entire community. Many people have stopped smoking. Parents have started sending their children to the nearby school, and people are learning the importance of bathing daily and adopting clean habits.

Watch the story of one pastor's willingness to reach out to some of the least of these.

This transformation occurred because God used a national missionary to reach out in love to a group of despised people. Thank you for supporting the ministries of national missionaries so more people like the snake-catchers can experience Christ’s deep, redeeming love toward them.

Marya, 40, wanted to help her five school-aged children in their studies, but she had one problem: She was illiterate

She used to watch her husband, Ravi, read the newspaper and wished she could read the articles too, but she had to settle for hearing Ravi’s synopsis of the news.

When Marya went to church, she listened to her pastor refer to Bible verses in his sermons, but she couldn’t look them up and read them for herself.

A Long-Awaited Opportunity

Having long known the handicap of illiteracy, Marya was excited when the Women’s Fellowship group at her church started a women’s literacy class last year. She and five other women joined the weekly literacy class to learn the alphabet and numbers in their native language. Marya faithfully attended class, spent extra time practicing at home and prayed and fasted for God to give her the wisdom to learn.

Because of God’s grace—and with her husband’s encouragement and her hard work—she is gradually realizing her dream of reading and writing. After only a few months, she learned to read and write the alphabet and numbers. She also has started reading and memorizing Scripture. She memorized John 3:16, and when she recited it before her class, she helped inspire the other women in the class to continue working hard. Since then, she has begun reading through the Psalms.

“When I was able to read by myself for the first time, I felt very excited, as if I were the only person in the world who could read. Praise the Lord!” Marya says. “I am thankful to Women’s Fellowship for helping me to read and write.”

Through your support of Gospel for Asia’s Women’s Fellowship and women’s literacy outreaches, more women like Marya are entering a new world of language, sharing that world with their children and—best of all—reading God’s Word to understand it on a deeper level.

Seventeen-year-old Parni did not need the ability to see into the future in order to guess what hers might soon look like. If her life turned out similar to the lives of the women in her family and her village, Parni would have a lot of expectations and religious regulations to live up to.

Deeply devoted to their traditional religion, the people of Parni’s community perform every prescribed ritual to please their gods and goddesses. If they don’t have money, they will borrow it from friends or relatives to make sacrifices to their gods.

In addition, women are expected to cover their heads before the elders of their families, and they fast two or three times a week for their husbands’ long life.

But for all their religious commitment, the villagers do not have any peace in their lives.

Learning to Shine like Stars

When Parni’s friend, a Sunday school teacher, invited her to come to a three-day Vacation Bible School hosted by Gospel for Asia missionaries, Parni accepted.

Parni had never attended a Christian event before, and she was fascinated by the way the believers did things. What intrigued her most was the way the leaders took time to pray for all the children. The lessons from the Bible and songs they taught stirred Parni’s heart.

All centred around the theme of “Shining Stars” from Philippians 2:15, the lessons, activities and songs of the VBS program showed Parni and the other children how to shine like stars in the world for Christ. One song in particular moved Parni.

“Some like to be like Shahrukh Khan [a famous actor], some like to be like Sachin [a renowned cricket player], but I will be like Jesus,” the song declared.

After singing those words, Parni wondered what they meant for her own life.

“How can I become like Jesus? How can I shine for Him?” she asked one of the VBS teachers.

The teacher helped Parni see that Jesus gave His life for her so that she could become more like Him through trusting in Him and being transformed by His Word. That day, Parni joyfully made the decision to follow Jesus.

In a village characterized by bondage, Parni discovered the One who came to set her free. And although she does not know what the future holds, she has been given the precious opportunity to know God, who holds her future in His hands.

Years ago, my wife, two of our brothers in the ministry and I were sitting at a McDonald’s, and we started talking about how we wished we had vehicles so we could send teams of missionaries to go share the Good News with more villages than ever before.

At the time, I was learning about faith—a practical faith that believes God based on His Word and trusts Him.

So I pulled out my wallet. All of us together had $4 or something like that. With a red pen, I wrote on the money, “Down payment for 100 vehicles.” Then all of us prayed together, saying, “Lord, we have no clue where we are going to get the money or how it is going to happen, but we trust You.”

I honestly didn’t have such fantastic faith, but I knew one thing: God answers prayer. Before we even sent out a letter about these vehicles, money began to come in for them. Soon we had more than 100 vehicles purchased, and mobile teams were traveling around Asia sharing the Good News.

Like Abraham, who waited many years for God’s promise of a son to be fulfilled, we pray for some things for a long time. But nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is impossible for those who believe. And the proof that we believe is praying steadfastly.

Like Abraham, who waited many years for God’s promise of a son to be fulfilled, we pray for some things for a long time. But nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is impossible for those who believe. And the proof that we believe is praying steadfastly.

He has already used you to answer many prayers. Just look at the stories of people like Gaurav, Pradip, Damini and Rashmi, who have been rescued into the arms of Christ’s love! Through your generosity and intercession, He is changing lives like theirs. Thank you for helping our Asian brothers and sisters share the hope of our Lord with people who have been waiting to experience His life-transforming love.