“Bridge of Hope Made Impossible Things Possible for Me”

Schooling. Food. Clothing. An encouraging smile. These are simple ways of showing love to a child, but those simple gestures shape lives.

In God’s Church, generosity flows freely toward the hurting and sorrowful. We at Gospel for Asia (GFA) can testify to that. Tens of thousands of men and women and children of all ages in many countries freely give of their resources to help uplift the lives of people they love but have never met. Why? Because that’s the heart of the King we love.

Bridge of Hope, an afterschool tutoring program supported by Gospel for Asia (GFA), is currently giving more than 82,000 children those simple gestures of love. But it wouldn’t be possible without the prayers and support of the loving Body of Christ. Without them, stories like Kaling’s would be quite different.

These are two of Asia’s children who live in a slum. We may not be able to change every difficult circumstance in their lives, but we can do something! We rejoice in 82,000 children in Asia receiving help today through Bridge of Hope.

Bitterness Becomes Gratitude

Dirty, tattered clothes hung loosely over Kaling’s malnourished frame—poverty marred his appearance in many ways. Yet Kaling felt even more forlorn on the inside than he looked outwardly: Bitterness and insecurity churned in his young heart.

Death took his father when Kaling was only 5 years old. With no father, the burden of providing for the family fell heavily on his mother’s shoulders. His mother, Nadia, decided the best thing for the family was to send Kaling to live with his grandmother while she and her other son worked as daily laborers in another state.

Kaling’s grandmother also lived in poverty, and she couldn’t provide for the young boy or fill the void after his family left him. Kaling felt lonely and longed to see his mother and brother, but they knew no other way. Although Nadia meant well, a tangled mass of bitterness festered within Kaling.

A Place of New Beginnings

Situations like Kaling’s are not unusual in many South Asian nations. Gospel for Asia (GFA) field correspondents have encountered many such desperate plights. When parents die young or leave to find work, the elderly and fragile are often charged with the responsibility of caring for young grandchildren.

That is one of the many reasons Gospel for Asia’s Bridge of Hope Program exists: to help care for children like Kaling who have next to nothing; to ease the burden of their loving but helpless caregivers.

One day, a team of staff members from a Gospel for Asia-supported Bridge of Hope center met Kaling. Touched by his sorrowful plight, they invited the unhappy 8-year-old boy to enroll in the center. His first day in Bridge of Hope, December 14, 2012, marked the start of a new life.


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