Hope for South Asian Slums

Jaya* is a sister in Christ, but her life has been difficult. This widow lives on the side of a busy road in the most densely populated city in the world. Her extreme poverty means she has many opportunities to trust the Lord’s provision.

Through your generosity to this ministry, you walked alongside Jaya through her struggles.

Jaya’s son watched his mother grow in Christ. He heard stories from Scripture and responded positively to Jesus’ love, but he struggled with alcohol addiction, which eventually took his life. Jaya grieved but was not alone; you were there.

Jaya was left to care for her daughter-in-law. Broken by her husband’s death, she began drinking, too. When she wasn’t drunk, she showed interest in the gospel.

Your gifts provided groceries that national partners brought to the family, and they shared Bible stories. Gradually, Jaya’s daughter-in-law responded to the gospel and accepted Christ. Just before she was to be baptized, she, too, died unexpectedly.

This cycle of poverty and addiction quickly leads many living in the slums to despair. Only God can truly rescue the brokenhearted, as He rescued Jaya.

She continues walking with God despite her losses. She shares the gospel faithfully with her grandsons and prays for them to avoid the struggles of their parents.

Jesus says, “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). You have walked with Jaya through poverty and grief, just as you have walked alongside many others here. We appreciate your faithfulness to this ministry.

Please join us in prayer:

• Pray for Jaya, her family, and others, walking with Jesus despite hardships.
• Pray for local believers serving here to be light in this darkness and hopelessness.

Thank you for giving and praying for those living in South Asian slums. You impact eternity by reaching out to “the least of these.”

*Name changed

Your generosity to Hope for South Asian Slums has shared the gospel with over 6,300 people in our megacity since 2020. Praise the Lord!

In addition, your giving has:
• covered the medical expenses for many slum dwellers facing urgent health issues
• provided food rations for hungry families
• placed deposits on rental rooms for families who want to get off the street but don’t have enough money to start
• met many other tangible needs

Ranjita’s Story
Recently, your gifts covered medical bills for Ranjita, who has suffered from HIV and other health problems for years. She and her elderly aunt lived together on the street in our city. Your generosity has also provided food rations for them several times.

Ranjita’s health continuously declined due to kidney failure, and sadly, she recently passed away leaving her 7-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. We are so thankful your gift helped pay for some of Ranjita’s funeral expenses, which gave her children a sense of closure in their grief. Ranjita loved Jesus even though her life was filled with suffering and difficulty. We rejoice she is now in the arms of her Savior!

Ranjita’s aunt has still not followed Jesus, but through this project, you help her care for Ranjita’s children when they are home from boarding schools (ran by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Please pray for Ranjita’s kids to be safe and know the love of Jesus, even as they miss their mom’s love. Pray, also, the aunt to follow Jesus with her whole heart.

Jasunda’s Story
Jasunda is another woman your gifts have served in recent years. She heard the gospel through our national partners several years ago and gave her heart completely to Jesus. She shares the gospel with those around her and becomes more passionate about discipleship every day. Your giving helps Jasunda with food and groceries when her son can’t provide enough for her family’s needs.

Jasunda’s two sons have suffered from alcoholism. Sadly, one son passed away from liver failure a year and a half ago. His wife lives with Jasunda and is often possessed with an evil spirit. Jasunda loves the Lord and wants to see her daughter-in-law set free from demonic oppression through the truth of the gospel. She also prays for her other son to become free of his alcohol addiction.

Please pray for Jasunda’s situation, that she would continuously grow strong in Christ and be a bold disciple maker, and that her family would also choose to follow Jesus.

Our team continues to press forward in ministering to people like Ranjita and Jasunda throughout our city. We give thanks to God for your partnership in this work. It is not possible without your support, and we feel encouraged that you have faithfully come alongside us to share the goodness of God and make disciples in this city. Your prayers and financial partnership are changing lives like Ranjita’s and Jasunda’s for eternity.

Please prayerfully consider giving again to propel our ministry into more slum communities in 2024.

Your gift has brought hope and life to women and men who never before knew that God loved them.

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.

• Ask God to move powerfully in these slums so that people will know that Jesus alone provides salvation, hope and eternal life.

Thank you for partnering with us to reach the nations for Christ. We appreciate your sacrificial giving and prayers as we labor together to solve the world’s greatest problem: lostness.

*Name changed

We are so grateful for the generosity of supporters like you who fund the Hope for South Asian Slums project. Your giving allows us to serve faithfully in this South Asian city of 22 million, most of whom have never heard of Christ.

One of our goals is that soon, through your generosity, we will be able to rent a room in which the church to meet and worship in one of the slums. In this area, the houses are too small to hold all the families that are faithfully coming to church.  It’s a good problem to have! Your gifts will enable this local body of believers to meet all together and worship the Lord.

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

• Pray for our “SW” slum area to be transformed by the gospel. Ask the Lord to bring the men out of their alcohol addictions and into salvation!
• Pray for many doors to open in the “K” slum area as our partners and local church members are sharing the gospel. Ask God to draw many people there to faith and new life in Christ!
• Pray for the “G” slum area that the Lord would open hearts in this place and for people to respond in faith! Specifically, pray that the radical Hindus in this place would not work against the spread of the gospel.
• Pray for false teaching to cease in all the slum areas of our city! Dangerous heresies are taught to brainwash people who claim the name of Christ into following lies.
• Ask the Father to fill our team and local partners with the Holy Spirit as we go out to engage the people of this city with the truth! Ask that He would embolden us to continue speaking Christ’s truth, no matter what opposition we encounter.
• Ask our Father to be near to our local partners and teach them about maintaining a vibrant relationship with him. The culture we live in promotes following the rules of religion and has no understanding of a personal connection with any god. Ask God to reveal His desire for an ongoing relationship with believers rather than just obedience to his laws in precisely the way they can understand. Please ask that the Lord continuously fill them with his joy and love, fruits of the Spirit!

*Name changed