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A Bicycle in Asia Means So Much More

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My excitement and anticipation had never reached such a climax in all my eight years of life. I had seven birthdays already under my belt, but none would compare with this one. This birthday was sure to be archived in my future memory as the best birthday of my childhood; the story I would retell time and time again. I confidently opened gift after gift, sure one of them would lead me outside to a long-asked-for-patiently-awaited bicycle. My parents had never been able to afford one before, and even though monetarily nothing had changed, I could feel in my bones that this was the year my dream would become reality. My senses tingled; a bicycle was close. As I came to the last present, I held my breath as I tore open the wrapping. What? No bicycle? No note telling me to look behind the garage? No first clue to a treasure hunt ending in my parent’s room with a gleaming, two-wheeled beauty, hopefully in pink? As doubt crept from my gut to my heart, I scanned the faces of my family assembl...
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When Disaster Strikes, They Become Vessels of Peace and Comfort

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On April 29, 2017, deadly tornados struck just a few miles away from Gospel for Asia’s U.S. headquarters in Wills Point, Texas. The GFA campus lost power for three days, but we were deeply grateful to be otherwise untouched by the twisters. However, our neighboring communities were reeling from the devastation. Homes had been torn off their foundations; a car dealership was in shambles—and so were many lives. Local churches stepped up and organized groups of people to help clear rubble from broken homes and salvage whatever belongings could be found. Gospel for Asia (GFA) staff members quickly partnered with those churches and found ways to help serve the affected communities. Gospel for Asia staff member helps clean up homes after a tornado devastated a nearby community. I went with one group of helpers to a neighborhood that would have been sheltered in a beautiful wood just days prior. But now the trees were splintered, and logs and branches sprawled across lawns, cars, pools and ...
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God’s Word in Tract Transformed Bharat & Birthed a Church in Slum

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I brought my rubber garden clogs for this very reason. I remember very well the warm, sweaty, sunny day I found myself on the other side of the world— in a slum in Asia. The sights and smells of the slum we visited assaulted me at every step. As I walked through the mud, avoiding piles of trash and keeping a sharp eye out for mice, I was glad to be wearing my trusty rubber clogs. Our guide, Sanjeep, a Gospel for Asia ( GFA)-supported missionary , lead us through a maze of leaning patchwork dwellings. We crossed active train tracks as trains screamed past us at a very uncomfortable proximity. We navigated around garbage heaps bigger than any city garbage dump I’ve seen. This train speeds through the middle of the slum several times a day. As we neared our destination, I watched Sanjeep disappear through the doorway of a corrugated metal structure slightly bigger than a shed. It was raised three feet above the ground on a foundation of mud and sand bags to avoid flooding in the monsoon s...
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Missionary’s Steadfast Prayer Displays God’s Constant Pursuing Heart

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Do you remember the man or woman who influenced your life towards the Lord? Maybe someone spoke truth into your life, or stood by you in prayer, or answered your questions about God and the Bible. One day that someone’s prayers for you were answered when you understood the love of Jesus for the first time and received His forgiveness and new life in Him. Gospel for Asia-supported missionary Latha faithfully prayed for a young man named Bheru for many years, and it was at a moment of tender need that he realized the love of Christ displayed in Latha’s life. This is Gospel for Asia-supported missionary Latha with her two sons. A Longsuffering Friendship Bheru, battled mental illness. His mother had asked her friend Latha, a GFA-supported woman missionary, to pray for her son to receive healing . After Latha prayed, Bheru and his mother started going to church, and soon, the Lord healed Bheru completely. But the miracle in his life, didn’t seem to leave any lasting impression on Bher...
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This Terrible Tenderness

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World Cancer Day 2018 By Karen Burton Mains When our last-born child, Jeremy, was younger, he used to complain regularly about the privileges of his older brothers and sister. “Why don’t I get to do all the things Randy and Joel and Melissa get to do,” he would whine—frequently. My reply always was, “Just wait. Just wait. When they all grow up and leave home, you will be older, then you will be able to do all the things that they all do.” Of course, that parental prophecy came true. When the older siblings were in college, or getting married, moving to their own homes and entering their first jobs, Jeremy was the only child left with us—a teen home alone, a high-schooler, then a college student, and finally a young adult, and he got to do a whole lot of the things he had always wanted to do. Early, Jeremy exemplified a cross-cultural curiosity. At 16, he decided to study Japanese, arranged for a tutor, then nagged us to let him go to Japan through the contacts of a mutual friend for a ...
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The Pain of Leprosy Is Loneliness Reports Gospel for Asia

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If the greatest misunderstanding about leprosy is believing that it is a highly contagious disease, the second is misunderstanding its pain. In fact, leprosy is highly treatable and curable, and nerve damage can be entirely avoided. Early treatment, in other words, limits leprosy to a minor skin disease. Even in people with advanced stages of leprosy, the likelihood of others contracting the condition is minimal at best. As to the matter of pain, the nature of the leprosy bacteria is that it seeks primarily the cooler parts of the human body: the skin and the extremities. Once there, it can cause unsightly discolored lesions and nerve damage. The nerve damage compounds the damage by making the injuries, bruises, cuts and sores imperceptible to the victim. That unrecognized damage leads to more sores and, often, the eventual loss of fingers and toes. Like many other diseases, the longer the disease is untreated, the greater the internal pain. But that is not the worst pain someone infec...
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World Leprosy Day Report #1: What Is Leprosy?

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World Leprosy Day Report #1 Leprosy is one of the most misunderstood sicknesses in the world. Many people in the West think leprosy is a disease in which fingers and limbs fall off, is highly contagious, is incurable, and has been eradicated–if they think about leprosy at all. We don’t recognize the many facts about leprosy because it rarely appears in highly developed countries. It may surprise many readers that about 200 cases of leprosy are reported every year in the United States. There are currently more than 3,000 cases of leprosy under active medical supervision in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and other health care organizations refer to leprosy as Hansen’s disease. Much like a rose, however, leprosy by any other name is still leprosy and still carries with it the deeply imbedded stigma that has been attached to it for millennia. Leprosy is a “a complex infectious” bacterial disease. The disease can be contagious, but is no...
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