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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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Gospel for Asia Addresses Scandal of Slavery and Human Trafficking

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Recently, January 2018 was declared as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month . Gospel for Asia deals first hand with the scandal of slavery and human trafficking by helping our field partners who minister among the poverty stricken in Asia, where over two-thirds of the worlds human trafficking victims reside. The 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that 45.8 million people are living in some form of modern slavery. Over 30 million reside in Asia. Five countries are home to 26.5 million men, women and children trapped in the grips of slavery and human trafficking. Another source estimates 36 million victims worldwide, with 23.5 million in Asia. Regardless of the exact number, any number of this magnitude is scandalous. Many of the tens of thousands to whom Gospel for Asia ministers are victims of this scandal or of its results. “The United Nations estimates that some 64% of human trafficking in Asia is for forced labor, servitude and slavery, while 26% is for sexual e...
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Gandhi: Eliminating Leprosy Is the Only Work I Have Not Completed in My Lifetime

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The international observance of World Leprosy Day is held annually on the last Sunday in January. Its purpose is to raise awareness of the disease. Churches and humanitarian organizations around the globe participate in World Leprosy Day by communicating facts, dispelling myths long associated with leprosy, and praying for those afflicted and those who provide aid to them. World Leprosy Day was established in 1954 by French philanthropist Raoul Follereau. It was originally observed on January 30, linking it to the death of Mahatma Gandhi on that date in 1948. Gandhi is quoted as having said, “Eliminating leprosy is the only work I have not been able to complete in my lifetime,” although he worked continually to help those afflicted with the disease in India. The goal of the World Health Organization is for every nation to have zero documented cases of leprosy. The official measure of zero cases is one per 10,000 people per country. Although India achieved that goal in 2005, and the go...
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I Lived Life Surrounded By People Who Love Jesus

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When I came to Gospel For Asia’s School of Discipleship I didn’t know what I was getting into (in a good way). I was shocked by how loving and friendly the community at Gospel For Asia ( GFA ) was. I didn’t just go to class, eat, sleep and repeat; I lived life surrounded by people who loved Jesus. They chose to invest in me and my classmates. Many of the families here “adopt” different students and pour into them in deeper ways. After two years in the program, I felt like I had an additional family here. While it was difficult being away from home for two years, the Lord gave me people here who loved me for me. I watched how the staff acted in an office environment, but I also saw them be laid back at home and in everyday life situations. They shared their struggles and stories with me. I learned from them and their walks with the Lord. He put people in my life who had similar struggles and those who were further along in their walks than I was to help me see Jesus. A GFA School of Di...
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Imagine Your Life Without Any Form of Transportation

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Gospel for Asia is in the business of providing answers. Providing answers to questions like: “Does my life have any value?” “Does anyone care about whether I live or die?” “How can I find peace for my restless heart?” To those questions, our workers can say confidently, “Yes, your life has incredible value; God cares so much about you that He sacrificed Himself in order to make a way for you to live with Him for eternity; the longing in your heart is met through relationship with Christ.” Gospel for Asia ( GFA )-supported workers help provide other answers too—like the solution for a family trapped in poverty or for a community battling illnesses due to impure water . Just in the last 10 years, hundreds of thousands of families have received clean water and income-generating gifts, such as livestock or sewing machines, through the ministry’s community development initiatives. But what answer is there for a pastor who doesn’t have a way to visit all his congregants or neighboring commu...
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