God is blessing our partner in India despite hardships, and they are raising their hands in praise for the lives that he is mending and stitching together.
We celebrated with one of our partners in India when he got married at the very beginning of last year. His wife is lovely and a little shy, and they are very happy together.
Our partner runs a ministry for children and widows in their town and the surrounding villages. His wife did not have much previous experience working with children, and he didn’t want to pressure her into joining him, especially if that was nowhere God had designed her to serve. Within a few months of their marriage, though, she began to join him at the ministry center and quietly interact with the parents and their kids.
Now she has become very close to some of the mothers and their children, ministering to them as they grow in their knowledge and passion for God.
Rejoicing, our partner shared, “Now no one would question her love for the children and their families. She is sharing Christ and his great love to them.”
One of the families our partner and his wife have grown close to is Gulika* and her twin daughters whose lives were set on a new path this last autumn when our partners met them and intervened to help them build a safe home and make sure the girls could make it to school.
Now the girls not only have a safe home, but they can run outside and fill the water pots with fresh water from the new well that was recently dug by their house. Any of you who have been following this family's story can truly rejoice at how these girls’ lives have been transformed over the last nine months. When our partners first met them last June, these twin girls and their mother had almost nothing. Now they have a real home, electricity, water, a bathroom and, most importantly, a growing relationship with Christ.
Our partner also runs a tailoring shop to help women learn a new skill that will help them earn a living. Several, like Amara, are widows who now must support themselves and their children without the help of a husband, so the tailoring classes that the shop also offers have been a blessing to them. Amara and the other ladies in the shop are continuing to succeed and develop both in their sewing skills but their relationship with God as well. Four of the young women who have taken tailoring lessons are now skilled enough to work professionally for clients. Another three women are in training so they can soon join the others, working in the shop and earning their own livelihood.
Please join us in praying for the shop's success and that God will be glorified through it.
One of the young women who was orphaned and grew up in the children’s home that our partner works with is now old enough to marry now. Most of her family members are not believers, however, and when she stated that she would refuse to marry any man who wasn’t a Christian, they were outraged. They’ve given her a great deal of grief over this choice, especially when she found a young man who is a believer.
Our partners still aren’t sure if the marriage will successfully go through because of her relatives’ opposition. This situation is quite common in India where women are often pressured to return to their family’s religion or marry a man who is Hindu. Fortunately, the young man’s family seem very content with the arrangement, so there’s hope that these two young people will be happily married soon.
Another young woman who is a teacher in our partner’s children center also has a wedding coming up, and our partners are praying that the young man that she’s been matched with by her mother and other relatives will be faithful to her and the Lord. For many of these children, women and widows who have lost their family or spouses, our partners have stepped into the gap and loved them. Now they have a family in Christ who surrounds them with care and petitions on their behalf before the throne of heaven. Their adoptive family also rejoices alongside them with each new blessing that God gives.
After the hardships of the last year, it’s good to have reasons to celebrate and give God praise for his unending goodness.
Our partner shared this scripture that has often been on his heart the last few months: "Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Hebrews 13:15, ESV).
He said, “This is a scripture which the Lord is dealing with me personally about. Whether we feel like it or not, whether or not our circumstances are going well, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health...he is always worthy of praise. We can never reach this place of perpetual praise on our own, but by his grace, he can lead us into that place…. Father, help us, in good times and in bad, in times of peace or in times of war or persecution, in whatever position we are in, to learn to praise you, for you are always good and always faithful.”
*Not real name. For our ministry partners’ security, we don’t release names or locations in highly sensitive areas.