Bridge Of Hope For Children In Asia Presentation

What was the time? What was the time? I was going to the market. I was going to buy some sweets. It was sweet, wasn't it? Yes, it was very sweet. When she goes to work? She goes to work at 2.30 pm. Okay. I used to work in a hospital. Her mother died. I don't have a son. I had a daughter, but God took her away. Now I have to leave my daughter. Who will take care of her? I will have to take care of her. If I don't take care of her, who will? I don't have anyone. I don't have an uncle or an aunt. Once we have someone, then it's a family. I do house work for myself. I have to come and go somewhere else after work. I don't come back home from anywhere else. They take you to work every day? Yes, I have to work. I go in the afternoon and go out in the afternoon. Do you have a house only for rent? Yes, I have a house for rent. How much do they pay for traffic? Rs 1500 is enough for the rent. The electricity bill is not too high. I don't want to go to any other place. Do you have a brother or sister in the neighborhood? Yes, I have a brother in Mumbai, but I don't go to anyone. My poverty is with me. I don't go to anyone to spread it. I have 60-some children out there, but this one has a very special one, and of course her grandmother. I heard the story yesterday, it just broke my heart, that both her parents are dead. And in this, we can just look around, because I don't want to forget her. Hardly a ten-metre-tall room made of just, you know, makeshift tin sheet. I think they say it's a shack. I think that's not a good word. It's just really sad to think. Now all she has is a grandmother, and she's not getting any younger. But often she mentions, if it was not for her job, she would have no future. And you can see how beautiful a young girl she is. And I kind of imagined she would grow up to be a wonderful mother, could be a doctor, a lawyer, somebody who cares about other people. And our commitment is to stay with her till she's naked. And you wonder what that means. Many times it is high school graduations, sometimes we're on to further studies, which we do with the hostages in all parts of the country. Well, they're saying goodbye. God bless you. Well, it's been kind of a long day, but not really when you think about the amazing experience that I feel deep in my heart. Here in Bombay, among 32 some good job centres that are run by believers Eastern Church, I was able to meet Father Benny, who is in charge of the diocese here, and others. But more important, meeting these precious children in our centre, taking care of their education, their food and their future. But then finally, something that broke my heart, I had to fight to keep my emotions, that is meeting this most beautiful little girl studying in the third grade. Her both parents are dead and she's staying with her grandmother. And I promised her, I said, study all you can and get through high school and then we'll be with you for your future education. Who knows, she'll be a teacher, a doctor, whatever else it may be. But I just want you to say to yourself, what is life all about for you? And ask the question. And for me when I say, what is my life all about? It is really giving everything and all I can to care for others who are in need. And the motto of Bridge of Hope of Believer's Eastern Church is meeting the needs of the helpless, needy children, giving them hope. And we say that in a thousand different ways. And it's been an interesting journey. I thank God for being part of this my day here in Bombay. But then, it's you and I, we are traveling together. And may God give us the grace and the meaning that our lives will be used by him. Praise the Lord. The one Bible verse that I picked out for this talk and my short time in sharing with you is John chapter 17, verse 18. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. It's amazing to think how God is using Bridge of Hope and moving in mighty ways there, a direct extension of Believer's Eastern Church. So it's been as Paul prayed in Colossians, I think, pray that doors may be opened. And I was visiting with one of the leaders from the field. He was visiting at our headquarters there in Dallas. I was taking him back to the airport. And as we were in line with him, going back, long flight. Because what they do when they're researching, they go into an area and they say, we'll take so many kids and greatest need of families, things like that. And this brother looked me straight in the eyes and said, when we were getting ready to start a Bridge of Hope Center in this particular area, the parents kidnapped me. And he kind of had a smile and I had a confused look. But they were so desperate for their children to be enrolled into the Bridge of Hope. And he said, no, they just didn't give me no water, no bread for like two days. And they didn't hurt him. I'm not trying to say that. And I do want to say that none of this out of guilt or twisting an arm or pleading or begging. I just want to make sure that's clear because the things that God gives us, it's opportunity. And if we don't see it that way, then I think that's what God wants. He wants us to want it anyways. Anyways, that's a little side note. I just say that because when I said how much was her rent there, you know, 1,500 rupees, I had to look it up. I have a little thing that helps me figure out how much that is. But it's for rent for that area, it's equal to $20.25 plus electricity. But again, not out of guilt. And then another thing is another leader on the field says, how many of them will come to Christ? How many of them will find hope? And he says, all of them. All of them will. So, praise the Lord for that. I was at a Bridge of Hope center in an area. And the same center that they had the children, in the afternoon they would be teaching tailoring classes for the moms of the children. They go through six months of training and then when they graduate, we provide them a sewing machine. And it incredibly increases their livelihood. Something simple as a sewing machine that is provided for them after graduation. Brother David, our first session, he made a comment. There are many times when so many people are coming to the kingdom that we cannot keep up. And I feel like we're over our head in ministry, which is good. You know, there's a handful of us that serve in the office there in the headquarters in Dallas. And we're doing everything we can, but there's so many people coming to the Lord. And so many people being reached and helped. And we're just grateful for that. One of the GFA-supported workers was responsible for three different churches that I visited in the area. But I say all that, our number one prayer request, if you'd keep us in your prayers, is a request that God would raise up qualified and godly leaders. The growth is going so fast that we need people, we need brothers, we need the right brothers to fill that call of God on their life. So, application. I'm very grateful again to be a part of this like-minded conference. We hear of fasting and praying, prayer. We've encouraged at churches all around, when different leaders from the ministry go to speak at churches, we encourage to pray, use Operation World, use the news as a prayer letter. So I know that we pray here, and I'm grateful for that. I think Matthew Henry says that God will begin a good work when he gets us praying, and we're in that direction. On the second thing is Pastor Shaney. I haven't checked out his book yet, but on fasting. So we suggest that you fast for a group once a day, and if you want to lose a pound, maybe fast two days. And for our prayer culture, we say the shortest way to get things done is through prayer. We have a non-stop prayer meeting once a week that it's not going to stop. And it started in Brother KP's living room, putting maps on the floor, praying for the nations, asking God to raise up. And so I say that not to sound spiritual. I mean, a lot of times for me, I go to prayer meetings dragging my feet, but I walk away clicking my heels. I stole that quote from another preacher, but that's how I feel. I walk in, oh, we're praying again. But then you leave, you're refreshed, you're engaged, you're aligned. I'm going to ask, so that's application. Fast once a week, pray, and we're going to have an opportunity to pray here in a second. I'm going to ask you guys to do that. And then we have, I got permission, if you're online, you'd like to sponsor one of these children, link your life with one of them, you can go to gfa.org slash sponsor. And again, no guilt, no pressure. All the resources you give goes to the field. Myself and all the staff at GFA have raised their own support, so we can give more to the field to get more work done, amen. But yeah, if you want to link your lives with a GFA worker or a Bridge of Hope child, you can do that, and I have a couple profiles in the back and other resources. So what I'm going to do is ask you guys to gather in groups. Maybe if you guys could huddle in little groups. And I have some prayer requests. I think the number one thing we would ask and covet, and please pray for us. So we're going to have some prayer requests appear on the screen, and I'm going to ask you guys just to gather in little groups. You can turn and face somebody, and if you just maybe take a prayer request or two, pray for the things we saw in the video, we would covet that. So go ahead and break into groups, please, and let's pray, and then I'll transition in a second.