Gospel for Asia

Wills Point, Texas – GFA Special Report (Gospel for Asia) – Discussing the troubling problem of open defecation and the lack of basic sanitation for millions throughout the world. Talking Openly About Open Defecation Another key dilemma in this discussion—open defecation, hardly a dinner-table topic or a mission committee agenda item—is the fact that accessibility to toilets does not always indicate usage . Changing habits is mostly a matter of changing mindsets in the face of the stranglehold of deeply entrenched beliefs. Elizabeth Royte, in a comprehensive August 2017 National Geographic Magazine article , reports visiting Parameswaran Iyer, India’s secretary of drinking water and sanitation, in 2016. A hand-numbered sign on his wall tracks progress. “You see that?” he asks. “One hundred thousand is the number of villages that are ODF today.” (ODF is the acronym for open defecation free). Royte reports working the internal math: “Just 540,000 to go, I note; three years before Modi’s...

Wills Point, Texas – Gospel for Asia Special Report (GFA) – Discussing the troubling problem of open defecation and the lack of basic sanitation facilities for millions throughout the world. 2.3 billion worldwide lack basic sanitation facilities and 892 million still defecate in the open, according to World Health Organization. For much of my adult life, it has been my privilege to hang out with the “renegades” of Christian missions, that relief-and-development crowd that rushes to help during natural disasters, struggles to alleviate the suffering and abasement of refugee displacement, and pays concerted attention to the everyday struggles of everyday living in the developing nations of the world. The first trip I made around the world was at the invitation of Food for the Hungry, and I traveled with Larry Ward, the executive director at the time, and his wife, Lorraine. It was on this trip I became convinced this particular crew of crisis-ready, crisis-solving, crisis-adaptive human...

Wills Point, Texas – GFA ( Gospel for Asia ) – Discussing how the Unsponsored Children’s Fund helps provide a chance for hope and life to children without sponsors. My name is Nirash. I am only a child. I am always sad. We have very little to eat. Sometimes I have to walk to the river with my mother to carry water home for cooking. It is a long walk and the water pots are heavy. There is always someone in my family who is sick. I can’t read or write because I have no one to teach me. My mother and father can’t read or write either. My father works very hard every day. When he comes home, he is so tired that he gets angry easily. He complains about his work in the fields and the way he is treated by his overseers. He is sad because he does not earn enough money to take care of us and to pay something called his debts. My mother has told me that I may have to go to work soon, perhaps in a brick kiln, to earn enough money to feed us better. I know some other kids who work in brick kilns. ...

Wills Point, Texas – Gospel for Asia ( GFA ) – Discussing the importance of women national workers in Asia cannot be overemphasized. Millions of Asian women face unimaginable pain, misery and degradation. In Acts chapter 16, the Apostle Paul tells of visiting the city of Philippi for a number of days. On a Saturday, he and those with him retired to a river bank where believers customarily gathered for Sabbath prayers. It was there that he met Lydia, an entrepreneur (centuries before entrepreneur was even a word) from the city of Thyatira. Both Paul and Lydia were a long way from their respective homes. They were in Philippi, a city in Macedonia named for its former king Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. When Paul met Lydia, the city was under Roman rule and was, in fact, planned to be converted into a miniature version of Rome. Thyatira, Lydia’s hometown and base of operations, was located in Asia Minor, nearly 600 miles away by land. Lydia, like the Ethiopian eunuch, was a fo...

The average young adult in America looks forward expectantly to a life free from the rules of home; free to build their future; free to make their own decisions. They look forward to the world of adulthood that they see being living out around them. This is natural and, therefore, to be expected. However, there are also those who have responded to the call of the Lord to present themselves as a “living sacrifice” forsaking their own dreams to be set apart for His work. The Apostle Paul describes this as their “reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1) It is not possible to present ourselves as a “living sacrifice” unless we do it as a “willing sacrifice.” Doing so requires an entirely different mindset. Paul explained that mindset in his letter to the Philippians (Philippians 2:5-8). Although Jesus had all the riches of Heaven to enjoy for all of eternity, He “made Himself of no reputation and took the form of a servant.” This required that He humble himself. The Creator gave up everything to...

Wills Point, Texas – GFA ( Gospel for Asia ) – Discussing how GFA-supported Bridge of Hope centers give education and transformation in the lives of children. In a meeting at the United Nations on September 25, the leaders of France, Canada and Great Britain made a case for the UN to focus concerted efforts on educating young girls. Sight Magazine reports, “ More than 130 million girls . . . do not attend school , according to the World Bank, costing as much as $US30 trillion in lost earnings and productivity.” Meanwhile, The Atlantic published an article that boys don’t read enough and that “girls tend to do almost everything more thoroughly than boys.” GFA has recognized the need for better education in developing countries, and we have been providing teaching through GFA-supported Bridge of Hope centers throughout Asia. The centers address the needs of impoverished children with education, healthy meals and basic health care. Anyone who is familiar with Bridge of Hope (BOH) alread...

Wills Point, Texas – GFA ( Gospel for Asia ) – Discussing the transformative impact of the GFA School of Discipleship in the lives of believers. “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” – 1 Timothy 4:12 Because the Apostle Paul encouraged young Timothy to be exactly that, we know that it is possible for a young person to be an example to all believers. The question is, how can a young person accomplish that—especially during times like these when so many young people, including Christian young people, are consumed with following the world and all of its “attractions” and distractions? One of the unwritten objectives of the GFA’s School of Discipleship is to help young people discover how to be the example Paul exhorted Timothy to be. The School of Discipleship is not a college or a university. It is a discipleship experience in which young men and women are immersed in a discipleship experience wh...