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Safeguarding Women So Their Babies Can Stay Healthy, Too

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When a woman in America is pregnant, she has multitudes of resources available to her. Rows of books at libraries, countless blog posts and magazine articles about the best way to prepare for labor and raise a child, many options for how and where she will deliver her baby, dozens of options for prenatal vitamins and various supplements to boost her health and help her baby develop. But that’s not the case for many women in Asia. Many have never been told some of the things we consider basic pregnancy information here, such as taking vitamins, resting extra and decreasing the weight of any loads they carry. I’m six months pregnant, and I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard “Are you taking it easy?” or “Are you sure you shouldn’t be resting right now?” or “Here, let me carry that for you,” or “Are you taking your prenatal vitamins?” I’ve thought often of the story Gospel for Asia shared about a mother in Asia who lost her baby because she never learned what pregnancy care should i...
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What a Horse Showed Me About Healing (at Gospel for Asia)

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The sun was riding lower in the sky when Todd stepped into the pen. The horse was branded. She was branded with a mark of someone else—someone who had once owned her. Now she was there in the pen surrounded by a crowd of eager spectators. Everyone expected to witness this wild horse become broken and submit. But it was plain to see after some time that she was already broken. She was hurting and you could see the fear in her eyes. The horse wanted nothing to do with Todd, who just wanted her to know she had so much potential. Instead of just being a stock horse, she could be what she was created for. But something happened to her long ago that kept her from allowing people near her. She’d run laps in the pen, trying to find an escape, not wanting to be near the man who just wanted to love her. Then she’d walk backwards. “I’ve never seen a horse do this before,” Todd said as he walked beside her, trying to earn her trust. But whenever Todd got too close, she’d turn away. “It’s as if my ...
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Gospel for Asia Medical Camps in Asia Offer Hope & Healing

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Gospel for Asia medical camps in Asia offer free medical care to assist families who are often too poor to pay for their own medical needs, or typically have little hope of ever receiving proper medical care. “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” —Hippocrates There is a hospital about 15 miles north of my home. There is another 12 miles west. There is a third just 12 miles south. There are three urgent care facilities within a 6-mile radius. My doctor’s office and three pharmacies are less than 2 miles away. In some places in Asia, that is not the case, especially for those living in rural and remote villages. “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti Whilst the hospitals provide a needed service by ministering to medical needs and training physicians, they also serve a much greater scope of care by reaching out to the unreached in the rural villages and slum areas where medical aid is n...
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Gospel for Asia Presents a Christ-like Response to the Global Clean Water Crisis

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Gospel for Asia (GFA) , Wills Point, Texas, Special Report 4/4 on a Christ-like response to the global clean water crisis. What Scripture Has to Say About Water It is intriguing, in light of the fact that 71 percent of our Earth is covered by water, that Scripture has a great deal to say on the topic. One commentator suggests that water is mentioned 722 times in the Bible. This total is less than the mentions of God, Jesus, heaven or love, but more than faith, hope, prayer or worship. In Genesis it says: “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters The name of the first is Pishon … The name of the second river is the Gihon … The name of the third river is the Tigris … And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” For those of us with a Sunday School background, the stories dealing with water are memorable: Moses parting the Red Sea as the children of Israel fled the pursuing chariots of the Egyptians. Moses striking the rock at Horeb so that...
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Motherhood, Mosquito Nets and Why We Keep Doing Good

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It’s ironic that as someone who likes to cook and loves to eat, I really dislike making dinner. As a mom with four kids, it’s not exactly a chore I can skip when I’m not “feeling it.” They need food. And I care that they eat healthy food. So, I make dinner. Every night. It’s a small thing, but I have learned perseverance in the small things of motherhood. I have learned to keep doing the necessary tasks, day in and day out, regardless of my level of sleep deprivation, irrelevant of my emotional state, often in opposition to my current degree of motivation. The words of Paul often run through my head, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Getting tired of the things we were once passionate about is a common human experience. We have all gone through it. But sometimes it has a greater impact than we realize. World Malaria Day , observed on April 25, was inaugurated in 2008. According to a special rep...
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Gospel for Asia Identifies Clean Water Problems Around the Globe

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Gospel for Asia (GFA) , Wills Point, Texas, Special Report 3/4 So let us take a deep breath. Let us think a moment about that peaceful and stunning NASA photo: AS17-148-22727. Let us remind ourselves that of all the spinning planets in our solar system, it alone has been created uniquely to sustain water, and that not one other drop has been discovered anywhere else in interstellar space. Let us remember that 75 percent of our planet is covered with water, some 96.5 percent of that in its oceans. Then let us say a prayer for its water resource preservation and purification, and let us remember that some religious systems view water to be holy. Only then, let us absorb the fact that an investigative report by Reuters released December 19, 2016, found nearly 3,000 areas in the United States with lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint. This headline tagged a report released by the Associated General Contractors (AGC): “Both Public and Private Studies Find Astounding Gaps Be...
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The Global Clean Water Crisis Exists in America Too Says Gospel for Asia

Gospel for Asia (GFA), Wills Point, Texas, Special Report 2/4 The Global Clean Water Crisis Exists in America, Too In her master work titled Dirty, Sacred Rivers: Confronting South Asia’s Water Crisis , Cheryl Colopy, a prize-winning environmental reporter specializing in water systems and clean water restoration , makes a wry observation about the Western form of household waste management: “But the system I have known and used, quite unconsciously ever since I was potty trained, is nuts. In a world where the supply of clean drinking water is becoming an almost universal worry, why would anyone put clean water into a toilet? For South Asia, flushed toilets and the treatment systems they require have become untenable long before they have become universal. For the Western world, the system as it is currently practiced will surely become untenable before too many more years have passed.” Orange County, California Any discussion of clean water inevitably introduces the twin dilemma on th...
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