The Hope for South Asia’s Slums team helped Mani get an artificial limb, enabling him to start a government job and rent a small house. His Bible was with him at all times, even when he went home to see his family at the urging of the ministry team. Though Mani’s father was a staunch Muslim, he was delighted that his son’s life had changed. He told Mani, “If Jesus has done this much for you, then I will not hinder your faith in Christ. Go to church, read the Bible, and pray.” Mani does just that. Pray for Mani to grow in faith, for his witness to his Muslim family, and for the Hope for South Asian Slums ministry to guide many more lost souls into the kingdom of the God who knows and loves each of them.
With more than twenty-two million people, this city needs thousands of healthy, reproducing house churches to reach all those who have never heard of Christ. Some of those new churches have been birthed in a slum. Your gift will help local believers change this slum village with the love of Christ. Give to meet basic needs of families and children living in the slum and provide gospel materials to share the hope of Christ. Come and work in the slum, sharing the gospel, planting churches, and making disciples who make disciples. Your partnership will help transform this city by reaching “the least of these” in the slums.
Transformation in Christ brings wholeness. Sahana* came to the church where our team ministers because she wanted help with a problem. Eight years before, her husband had left her with two sons and no means of support. She began an eight-year affair with a liquor store owner in the slum, but recently the man’s wife had started abusing Sahana and threatening her with worse treatment if she did not end the affair. Shocked and distressed, Sahana came to church to find answers.
Through the prayers and counsel from our church, Sahana ended the affair and gave her life to Jesus. She opened a small shop, and her life began to flourish. After she opened her business, the liquor store owner and his wife publicly beat Sahana, demanding that she leave the slum. Her church family stepped in, praying and helping her register a complaint with the police. God gave her favor with the police, who supported her case, though they had regularly enjoyed bribes from the liquor store owner in the past.
Your generosity has helped the church support Sahana through her darkest days. Praise the Lord that Sahana is now an active church member. She continues to grow in the Lord and was baptized recently. She witnesses and encourages women in the area to come to church services. She has a generous heart for helping the poor and is always ready to contribute financially to church programs.
Thank you for your faithful partnership. God is moving in this country where thousands of gods are worshipped, but the One True God is unknown to so many. With God’s guidance and your help, many more like Sahana will come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Please join us in prayer.
Pray for Sahana’s two teenage sons to know the Lord. Pray for them to cling to God, recognizing him as their true Father after experiencing abandonment by their earthly father at a very early age.
So far this year, we have had around 400 gospel shares in the slum areas of our city, and altogether about 160 people have professed faith in Jesus! Two people are going to be baptized in March. Praise God!
We hope you enjoy reading these stories from our church planting team and those they serve.
You’ve helped local church planters successfully disciple others in three different slum areas.
We have two national partners, a married couple, who have been working with us on the ground to learn how to share the gospel and plant churches. They are working in three different slum areas in the city and have three discipleship groups going. All three are on track to become churches! They are teaching people in these small groups how to follow Christ, and, as of March, four of the new believers are ready for baptism. This couple is also starting to train people in several other communities about how to share the gospel and start discipleship groups in new areas. Praise the Lord for the people in these hard-to-reach places who are hearing about the Savior who loves them.
U.S. church partners are creating a significant impact by praying, giving, and going. A couple from the U.S. has joined our team for four months to specifically target one slum community that their home church has "adopted" in prayer and support. During their time here, their church back home has been praying fervently for the Spirit to move in this slum. In the last two months, more than 100 people have professed faith in Jesus! Six discipleship groups have formed in that slum to help the new believers learn how to follow Christ with all that they are. Now we are praying that local leaders will rise up in these groups to lead them long-term!
God is moving among women in hard-to-reach areas because of your generosity. In one area where there has been little response to the gospel, a group of believing ladies have met consistently for the past year. They have been slow to grow numerically, but they are certainly growing in faith! Most of their husbands are against their faith in Jesus, but with ongoing prayer, one of the husbands is now interested in following Christ, too! These ladies have learned to study the Bible and to trust the Father of All, who loves and guides them through all the difficulties that they face.
Personal stories of hope and lives redeemed are being shared. Priya* gave her life to Christ and moved her small family from a red-light area into a local slum. Because she left prostitution, her income source stopped, but she said she would never go back to prostitution no matter what happened. She and her four-year-old daughter slept in a train station every night. Even then, she was eager to be baptized because she wanted the world to know that she belonged to Christ alone.
Now her husband has also come to faith! Together, they host a small church in their slum home that God gave to them. They are growing deeper in their understanding of the Word, and they share the gospel with everyone in their community who will listen. We are praying for Priya’s neighbors; many of these ladies have husbands who drink too much and beat them every day. Too often, the men of this community do not provide money for their families to buy food. We are praying that the church in this sister’s house can be a source of light amid deep darkness.
Thank you for your sacrificial giving that has made all this possible. Please join us in prayer as God expands our ministry of sharing Christ and his hope for South Asian slums.
Prayer Requests
South Asian peoples live within a kaleidoscope of colors, a cacophony of sounds, and a buffet of flavors that ignite the senses and warm the soul. This enigmatic region is the birthplace of four world religions but is also home to the world's highest concentration of lostness.
The 1.6 billion people of South Asia are concentrated in an area less than half the size of the USA. Muslims and Hindus comprise the overwhelming religious majority. Every week 225,000 South Asians die, most without Christ. Yet there are glimmers of gospel hope. Through the work of local Christians and foreign workers God is bringing South Asians to faith in Jesus, the church is growing, and stories of Christ’s redeeming power are emerging from the field.
More than a billion South Asian eyes are searching for hope. Pray for long-term workers and their local partners who share the love of Christ daily. Ask God to use their efforts to create a movement of his Spirit across the city and throughout countries and islands of South Asia!