Build a Bridge From Despair to Hope

Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Wills Point, Texas – Discussing the life-changing impact of Bridge of Hope centers on the lives of thousands of children.

When you are a child of the slums, every day may be a repeat of the last. Life is about staying alive. If you do not scavenge or beg or become entrapped in bonded labor and a pantheon of dismal circumstances, you will not survive to see tomorrow. Even worse, tomorrow holds no promise of anything better than yesterday or today.

Think for a minute what it is like to lay your head down at night in a dirt-floor hut built from scrap materials, perhaps alongside a railroad track, in a garbage dump or near a red-light district. There are no visions of sugar plums dancing in your head with joyful anticipation of what will happen when you awake in the morning.

Millions of children in abject poverty in Asia close their eyes at night, knowing for certain that tomorrow holds no more hope for them than the day that has passed.

Perhaps it is too much to ask that we imagine a situation so desperate. Most of us have not, as the old saying goes, “Been there; done that.” It is far beyond the scope of our own reality. But for these children, it is reality.


When the Lord gave GFA’s founder, Dr. KP Yohannan, the vision to start Bridge of Hope centers, little did he realize that these centers would eventually be leading tens of thousands of children to see that their tomorrows can be filled with hope exactly as our loving God has planned.

For those of us with a Western mindset, we may be inclined to see supporting a child to attend a Bridge of Hope center as “a good cause.” We can become accustomed to having a small sum drawn from our bank account as a token gesture of an “obligation” or commitment.

But for these children, the result of our support is life-changing.


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