We covet your prayers as we continue to take the blessed light of the Gospel to the remote, dark areas of India.
Our schools serve the lower caste in India, providing a Christ-centered education to those that would not otherwise be able to attend school. During 2015, we took on an additional 200 students from nine surrounding villages and now serve almost 500 children in two schools. In this primarily Hindu land, we want to reach these children before forces of darkness creep in.
Ninety percent of our new students are girls. In India, daughters are unwanted and viewed as burden, ill-treated and under-fed, and are married off in childhood. After marriage they are forced to work long hours, often facing physical and mental torture. Our goal is to empower these girls so that they are taught to stand up for their rights and fight injustice with God’s help.
With these additional students, our most urgent need is construction of additional classrooms. Please join us in praying for God’s provision!
We continue to add clean water wells throughout Pokot villages. One of the most common statements we hear is: “This water is like blood transfused to a sick person who needs blood”. It’s miraculous to see the change in the health and wellbeing of villagers as the clean water begins to stamp out waterborne diseases like thophoid and cholera. Women are saved from hours of walking to find water, as well as the physical burden of carrying the heavy weight. Spiritually, boreholes have played a major role in church planting as people will settle and build new villages adjacent to the wells. The meetings we hold in villages when surveying drilling sites and turning over boreholes give us the opportunity to expose the people to the gospel.
health care support.
church communities to be self-supporting. To that end, we have provided goats to each church for both milk production and breeding for an additional food source. We seek income generating activities for both the church and its members and emphasize the importance of savings. This is a new way of thinking as most have never had any extra resources to save.
rted a new program called Kollukhedi Child Development Center with 150 students ranging from three to five years of age. Of the 150 children, 124 are girls. In Indian villages, daughters are neglected, looked upon as burdens, and married off at a very early age. We want to empower them to change the course of their lives. Our Jagat Jyothi School in the same village serves 200 students from preschool to Eighth Grade. All students are provided with spiritual education, regular curriculum, medical care, lunch, and school uniforms and supplies.
for Reuben and Becky! Julius is the director of Pokot Outreach Ministries, our partner in Kenya. Reuben is the first Pokot missionary, now living in South Sudan and serving the Toposa tribe. Working with Support Women of Pokot, Becky empowers young women by providing community training against the horrendous practice of FGM.
ue to fear of rebel groups who occupied the area. After his parents death, Sasita had no other family members to care for him and found himself in desperate need. Families in the area were unable to feed their own children, much less take on the responsibility of another child. Sasita soon began to experience serious health issues. Now he is cared for at the homeless children’s center where he gets food and clothes. His health is improving. Sasita has no idea who the generous people are who God is using to save his life, yet he is experiencing their love in real ways on a daily basis.
cut. The countenance of their faces is legible. At times, they quarrel for unknown reasons. Because of the circumstances of their living conditions, they have learned life skills for survival. Some steal, others smoke or inhale unknown stuffs, while others drink alcohol. We may be quick to make judgments and draw gross conclusions. But the question “why do they do all this?” still needs a comprehensive answer. I spent time with some of them and have understood something important. I call it “multiple deficiency syndrome” – they do what they do, they are what they are, because several things are missing. We may classify these deficiencies in broad categories from physical, social, economic, psychological to spiritual.