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BGR offers health care for people in Pakistan

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A particular village in Pakistan is an attractive place surrounded by mountains. The literacy ratio is very low and unemployment is high. Most of the communities performing labor for daily wages have to struggle for their survival. There is limited land for farming. The area was heavily flooded in 1992 and then struck again by disaster with the earthquake of 2005.

BGR partners established a health clinic in 2009 to provide services of pre-natal, deliveries and post-natal care for 1200 women. Health care is also provided for 800 children under the age of one year with special focus on immunization and nutrition care. Pray that God will provide a doctor for this clinic, as well as professionally qualified and competent staff.

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www.gobgr.org. Used by permission.

Although illegal, temple prostitution is still alive in parts of India, Christian worker says

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By Kate Taylor

KARNATAKA, India — Imagine living in a society in which you are judged by your station in life, determined by your birth, rather than by your individual worth or accomplishments. As a member of the lowest rung of society, you can barely keep food on the table for your wife and two daughters.

When your wife becomes ill after giving birth to a third daughter who, unlike the son you had hoped for, will be an unbearable financial burden, you have only one choice: You must dedicate your daughter to the goddess as a devadasis, a temple prostitute.

By dedicating your baby, you have given her a profession and a way to obtain food for her family. Perhaps the goddess will now show favor to your family, sparing your wife’s life and filling her womb with the long-awaited boy child. Your daughter’s sacrifice is small compared to your entire family’s alternative fate of starvation. If her body is the price the goddess asks, it must be paid.

In India, the devadasi (day-vah-dah-see) system, a Hindu practice of temple prostitution, has existed for more than 5,000 years, says David Dass, executive director of the India Gospel League. In the state of Karnataka, where he and his wife live, starving families dedicate hundreds of girls each year to the goddess Yellamma. The children are forced to begin a life of prostitution at age 11 or 12.

“From the very beginning, they’re being exploited as babies,” says Annette Romick, a humanitarian aid worker in India. “Then, when they hit maturity, their bodies are exploited by men. Even when their bodies are no longer desirable to men, they are still exploited and abused because that stigma is on them. They can never escape from it. It’s a trap that they’re stuck in; it’s a living hell that they’re experiencing.”

The word devadasi literally translates to “god’s female servant.” Parents usually choose to dedicate their daughters as infants to the goddess Yellamma, in hopes of gaining the goddess’ favor or easing a financial burden.

Once dedicated, a girl is considered to be married to the goddess and is never allowed to marry a man. When the girl reaches physical maturity, she is forced to begin her life as a prostitute.

“Since 1982, the devadasi system has been banned by the government of India and Karnataka,” says Joseph Paul, a Christian pastor ministering among devadasis. “But there are underground practices – nobody knows how they practice and how they dedicate.”

Because the devadasis practice has gone underground, the women work mostly from their homes, only visiting the temple to beg money from worshippers. Many of the prostitutes are trafficked to the red light districts of Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and other large cities.

“Our parents gave us birth and threw us on the street. Men come and use us, finish their job and go,” says Sugandha, a former devadasis receiving assistance from a non-governmental organization.

In the Hindu religion, devadasis have hope for a better life only through the cycle of rebirth. Few devadasis have ever heard the name of Jesus Christ who offers hope for this life and for eternity.

“Their lives have been ruined, and they feel like trash that’s just been used over and over again and just discarded,” Romick says. “They need to know the love of Christ and the only way that they’re going to have that is if we go and tell them.”

Devadasis come mainly from impoverished families of the untouchables class, the lowest rung of Hindu society. They are used and exploited by men. Sometimes they receive compensation for their services, sometimes not. A vulnerable population, the devadasis are susceptible to HIV, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“Not only are they shunned because of their profession, but they’re shunned by society because of their status,” Romick says. “They’re the lowest of the low. They’re not even in the caste system – they’re outside the caste system.”

A number of human needs organizations are working to prevent the continuation of the underground devadasi system, but the practice is still widespread throughout India; estimates range from tens to hundreds of thousands of devadasis in the country.

A devadasis who discovers a relationship with Christ, Dass says, becomes a powerful witness in her community: a witness against the practice that enslaved her and for the Savior who set her free. “It’s like the woman at the well,” Dass explains. “Jesus asked questions and finally she realized, ‘Hey, here is the person whom I know that He is the Messiah.’ Then she goes out, calling other women and bringing them and telling, ‘Here is the answer for our problem.’”

Education and awareness are essential components to bring about the end of the devadasis system. Of the women themselves, Dass says, “Equip them, empower them, mentor them, train them, disciple them and put them back [in their communities] and you’ll see what the Lord does.”

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Caring for a beggar man opens doors to share the Gospel

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By Janae Herd

MUMBAI, India — It is not uncommon to see beggars at train stations in Mumbai. Often, they are individuals who are physically impaired. They will lay in the middle of the platform and rattle a tin can in which those passing by can drop rupee coins. Sometimes people give food and others give money. However, this day, when Bea Anther* saw the man laying on the platform, she could tell he was different.

He was about fourteen years old and lying in his own waste. People were rushing past him, avoiding stepping on him, but not paying any attention otherwise. Anther saw him and stopped. Frozen in place, she didn’t know what to do. She thought of Jesus’ words in Luke 10. Approaching the man, she bent down and asked him, “Aap ka naam kyaa hain?” Hindi for, “What is your name?” The young man’s response was “pani, pani.” He croaked out the Hindi word for “water.”

Anther bought three water bottles, a new set of clothes, soap, flowers, and two dosas (Indian food). With onlookers staring and taking pictures, she helped this man drink water. He was unable to sit up or grip the water bottle on his own.

Once he had gotten some water into his system, he regained a little strength. In the States, Anther worked in a hospital and that day, she went into “hospital mode.” She started bathing the man with the bottled water and soap.

Some passengers started helping her as they were waiting for their train. People kept asking, “Why are you doing this?” A worker from the railway station told her that this young man had been laying there for seven days. By the end of his bath, he was sitting up on his own, eating the dosa.

She said, “I am follower of Christ. I do this because I love and obey Christ.” She showed them in her pocket Bible where Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. She caught the next train, saying a prayer.

The next week, Kavita,* our househelper, comes in with a newspaper in the local language. However, Hindi is the trade language of all of India and is what we speak. The front page news is of Anther cleaning up this man at the railway station.

Ever since we started seeing Kavita* (over a year ago) we have tried to tell her about Jesus. About His love. She had never wanted to listen and always replied, “Ganpati” to indicate that she follows the Hindu god Ganesh.

That day, however, she was interested. We had no idea what the article said about Anther, but Kavita was interested. She kept asking, “Why did you do this?” In broken Hindi, Anther told the story of the Good Samaritan. She told Kavita that it is only because of the love of Jesus that she helped this man. Kavita asked for a Bible. That day, she took home a Bible in her heart language. She has been reading it at night and also going to a prayer meeting somewhere near her home.

A few days ago, Anther and I went to the station where the young man had been laying. He was no longer there. We asked some men who have shops around the station and they told us that the man had gone away. We don’t know his name or where he went. But he went.

Please pray for Kavita to have understanding when she reads the Word and a desire to follow the living God, Jesus’ Father.

God is alive. He is working in the lives of His children.

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*Name changed.

Janae Herd is an IMB representative in South Asia.

Jailed Pakistani mother’s plight buffeted by money, media strife

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Baptist Press, Jan 10, 2012: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=36926

By John Evans

LAHORE, Pakistan (BP) — As a Christian mother of five sits on death row in Pakistan accused of insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad, new controversies are brewing over her case.

Asia Bibi (referred to in some reports as Aasia Noreen) was jailed in 2009 after a dispute with local Muslim women who later accused her of insulting Muhammad, an offense punishable by death under Pakistani law. Although she denied any wrongdoing, she was convicted a year later and sentenced to death. While Bibi waits for her appeal to be heard in court, an NGO claiming to represent her is trading accusations with her husband Ashiq.

The Masihi Foundation, which describes itself as a humanitarian organization and claims to be Bibi’s legal counsel, published what it said was an interview with Bibi from her Pakistani prison, where it claimed to have found her mistreated, in poor health and near mental illness.

But The Express Tribune in Pakistan, an affiliate of the International Herald Tribune, reported that Shahid Khan, home secretary of the Punjab region where Bibi is imprisoned, gave no permission for such a visit, and officials at the jail where Bibi is being held denied the visit ever happened. Furthermore, Bibi’s husband Ashiq told The Express Tribune that he saw Asia over Christmas and didn’t notice any health problems.

“I asked Asia and she says no one met her,” he said. “The Masihi Foundation is trying to earn money out of my wife’s name.”

The husband also told The Express Tribune that Masihi Foundation is no longer Bibi’s legal representation.

“We do not think it is advisable to pursue Aasia’s case right now under the current government,” he said. “We are in touch with some top lawyers in the country.”

The Masihi Foundation countered by claiming it still represents Bibi and accusing her husband, who signed a contract with a publisher for a book on Asia, of looking to enrich himself.

“Ashiq is only interested in money-making, which he has been involved in ever since international support started coming in for Aasia,” Haroon Barkat, the head of MF, told The Express Tribune.

Amid the squabbling, Bibi is still locked in her cell for all but 30 minutes a day, according to The Telegraph in London, basing its report on an interview Bibi gave to Life for All, a Christian organization.

“I am given raw material to cook for myself, since the administration fears I might be poisoned, as other Christians accused of blasphemy were poisoned or killed in the jail,” she said, adding that a female warden was suspended for trying to strangle her.

As Bibi awaits the ruling on her appeal, her case — and Pakistan’s blasphemy laws — have unleashed deadly tensions in Pakistan.

Salman Taseer, governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, was a vocal critic of blasphemy laws and called for Bibi to be pardoned. He was gunned down in January 2011 by an Islamist member of his security squad who, according to media reports, was angry with the governor’s stance.

“Witnesses said [the guard] fired 20 rounds into Salman Taseer’s back, while members of the security team that was supposed to guard the Punjab governor stood watching,” wrote Terry Mattingly, religion columnist for the Scripps Howard news service.

“Moderate Muslim leaders, fearing for their lives, refused to condemn the shooting and many of the troubled nation’s secular political leaders — including President Asif Ali Zardari, a friend and ally of Taseer — declined to attend the funeral,” wrote Mattingly, who also is director of the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

Two months later, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for minorities and the only Christian in the government, was killed by unidentified gunmen after campaigning for reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

While the office of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said he would pardon Bibi if an appeals court upholds her death sentence, a pardon would not guarantee her safety. In July 2010, two Christian brothers accused of blasphemy were gunned down inside a courthouse during their trial. And the imam of Bibi’s village mosque suggested a similar fate awaits her.

“If the law punishes someone for blasphemy, and that person is pardoned, then we will also take the law in our hands,” Qari Mohammed Salim told the BBC.

Such threats are on Bibi’s mind as she accepts that some things are out of her hands.

“I am hopeful that I will be released, although there is a bounty of about $8,000 offered by the Islamic clerics to anyone who will kill me,” she told Life for All, according to The Telegraph. “I have left everything on God, I will accept His will.”

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John Evans is a writer based in Houston. www.bpnews.net. Used by permission.

FIRST PERSON: The whisper of God

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By Gene Yaussy

BANGLADESH — She sits next to me with virtually all her earthly possessions on her frail body. Her weak voice tells of a husband’s death, a son’s desertion, and a daughter’s distance. She has come to speak with the people who gave her hope.

She shares the atrocities of her life with calm resolve and acceptance. She has virtually no food and no means of providing for herself. The community she lives in offers her no help because she has denied their religion and believed in Jesus to save her from the death of her sin. This faith has brought her the security of a future with her Lord. Beyond her faith she has nothing. She is reduced to a few articles of clothing and a shelter for a home. She is more than 80 years old and knows that she will soon die. She could renounce her faith and be welcomed back into society, be reunited with her son, and receive proper care in the final years of her life.

She cannot read and has no Bible to go to for encouragement. She has only the simple faith that was taught to her many years ago by faithful servants of God. I imagine that as she sits in her home over the next months, as her food diminishes, her body weakens, and her life slips away that her Lord will whisper something in her ears that I will never hear because I have never trusted Him like this. She has something far more valuable than the money for food, clothing, anything. She has the whisper of God.

Tonight she will return to her village home. She will go there joyful that she has had one last opportunity to see her spiritual parents. The next time they are together will be in the glories of heaven. Now she will return to the shelter she calls home and wait. She will wait until the food is gone. She will wait because that is all she can do. She knows God’s promise of salvation and now without words she will testify to the community around her that her faith is more important to her than life itself.

Can you see her? Can you imagine the shelter where she is sleeping? Can you imagine the hunger pains and the sickness she will endure over the remaining months or years of her life? Now, can you imagine the comfort that our Lord is giving her? Every time someone derides her faith and scoffs at her condition God is there speaking to her with words that cannot be uttered. He is holding her with arms that cannot be seen. He is covering her better than any clothing and protecting her better than any home.

Her faith is strong because it is the only thing she has. Her testimony is strong because she values it more than life itself. Her legacy of faith will speak to generations. She will die with nothing except that which is everything. Tonight I will go to sleep to the sounds of my iPod but she may be listening to the chorus of the saints.

There are millions of people here in Bangladesh who have never had the opportunity to hear about this wonderful faith. Although IMB representatives Tom and Gloria Thurman served here for 35 years and saw this woman come to faith there are still more that need to hear. They would rather their names not mentioned here, but were it not for them I would not be here. It is my desire that through this story that you are moved to greater involvement in the lives of the peoples of Bangladesh. Today, please say a prayer for this woman, for the Thurmans, for me, and for the place God would have you serve in reaching the peoples of Bangladesh with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Can you hear God’s whisper?

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Gene Yaussy is an IMB representative in Bangladesh.

Fearfully and wonderfully made: Muslims in Bangladesh find value in God

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On the 13th floor of a Dhaka, Bangladesh, industrial high-rise, a factory manager keeps tabs on production as the day nears lunchtime. Bangladeshi garment makers produce designer branded clothing to export for consumers around the world.

By Caroline Anderson

DHAKA, Bangladesh–She’s 26 and has a 12 year-old daughter.

Married at eight years old, Ibriz Abaza * became a woman before I said goodbye to my Barbies.

Abaza never played with a Barbie. She didn’t have sleepovers at friends’ houses. She didn’t have time to giggle with pre-teen girlfriends over the cute boy in school. She was married before she ever thought boys were cute.

Abaza lost her innocence before she even went through puberty.

“How many years have you been married?” one of Abaza’s friends asks me as we sit around a dinner table after house church.

I tell them I’m not married. The fact that I’m in my mid-20s and unmarried is a novelty for many in Bangladesh.

Child marriage is still practiced in many areas of rural Bangladesh. According to the United Nations Bangladesh has a child marriage rate of 64 percent.

Abaza is one of the 64 percent.

Abaza left her village to work in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city. She worked long hours to produce the clothes that are found on the shelves of major clothing stores in Europe and America.

Bangladesh is known for its two main exports: garments and people. Thousands of Bangladeshis work as migrant workers internationally.

Abaza tells me she has no husband now. She’s a single mom and is fighting to support her two children.

As she adjusts her head covering and tells me that she left her job at the garment factory. She now makes handmade purses that she sells in markets and to foreigners who visit Bangladesh.

Abaza, a Muslim, heard the Gospel through Kohinoor Madari,* a Muslim background believer who lives in Dhaka. Madari was challenged in a recent discipleship training conducted by IMB workers to write down the names of three people with whom she could share the Gospel.

“They were taught to share the Gospel and to share their testimonies,” Travis Strauder* said. Strauder and his wife Madison* work with Muslims and Muslim background believers in Dhaka. They are working with a national partner to host church planting and discipleship trainings.

“In three or four months, we’ve already seen 19 baptisms and we haven’t even gotten to the training on baptism yet,” Strauder said.

Madari is one of the growing numbers of Muslim background believers in this predominantly Muslim nation. The cost of turning from Islam is high. Many Muslim background believers are beaten and thrown out of their homes. Madari’s husband left her when he heard she became a Christian.

That didn’t stop her from believing and sharing her joy with others. Madari feels like she has value now. Most women in Bangladesh grow up hearing that their only value is to cook, clean and have babies. Most don’t have a choice when and to whom they get married.

Madari now knows she is fearfully and wonderfully made and is an important part of God’s Kingdom. She knows she is needed to tell others, like Abaza, about God.

Abaza hasn’t believed yet. She’s attended jamaat, a house church for Muslim background believers, and is open to hearing more about the Gospel from Madari.

Though Abaza will never get her childhood back, I pray that one day she’ll learn she is a precious child of God.

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*Name changed.

Caroline Anderson is a journeyman writer based in Southeast Asia.

Beggars in Bangladesh find food, Christ

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The center staff members visit the girls' mothers regularly to ask about the families' needs and pray with their mothers.

Baptist Press, Oct 12, 2011: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=36324

BANGLADESH (BP) — Najia Khatun* knows what her life would be like without the Light of Hope Center in Bangladesh. She knows she would be hungry. She knows she would be uneducated. She knows she would be working long hours at a garment factory.

Najia knows — and she is grateful.

“Before there were a lot of problems in my family. There was no money for food,” 17-year-old Najia said. “Now I have a job, and I am able to help my family. I am the main breadwinner in my family.”

Najia and her 14-year-old sister, Amila Khatun,* began studying at the Light of Hope Center when it first opened in September 2006. Light of Hope continues in operation today with help from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.

Najia and Amila — like the other 12 girls who come to the center — live in a slum of tiny bamboo houses that have tin roofs and mud floors. While these seem to be only temporary homes set on swampland or along railroad tracks, the families do have landlords who expect rent money. Najia’s father comes and goes, taking money from the family but never contributing any. Their mother doesn’t work. One older sister is sick, and the other siblings have married and moved away. Najia and Amila are expected to bring home money, however they can get it.

Some of the girls at the center were raised by beggars to become beggars; others have mothers who work as prostitutes, a center staff worker said. But inside the Light of Hope Center, that world fades away. The girls eat a healthy breakfast, take showers, put on clean school uniforms, hear Bible teaching and sing Christian songs, and then begin their studies in the Bangla language, math, spelling, science, grammar and English. Before they leave to go to their places of work as paid apprentices or trainees, World Hunger Fund dollars feed the girls again — a hearty lunch of rice and lentils with vegetables, eggs, fish or meat.

“Experiencing even in a very small way the lifestyle of beggar families … just being around them on the street, almost makes you feel helpless, like there’s nothing you can even do for them,” said Isla Metzger,* who recently came from the Midwest to minister for six months at the Light of Hope Center. “But then I was reminded that these girls are from those circumstances and that this is something that can help them get out of that.”

Providing lasting help — the kind that will help cure hunger and prevent the cycle of poverty from proliferating — was exactly the goal of the two American Christian women who founded the center.

“I knew that just giving [beggars] money was not going to help the situation,” Southern Baptist Geri Hennerman* said. “I wanted to do something that was going to help them long-term. Sharing Christ with them is going to help them for eternity; but also to give them some skills and education, that will help them get jobs and provide for their families.”

Najia works as a Bangla tutor and hopes to become a translator. Amila has studied under a housekeeper, has learned to make jewelry, and currently attends a sewing class. Najia’s best friend, Lili Sabarna,* works as a nanny in an American family’s home.

A student enjoys a healthy lunch of rice, lentils and vegetables at the Light of Hope Center. The World Hunger Fund provides two meals a day for these girls, meals that they likely would not eat otherwise.

“For my family, they have given me a job, and my family is able to be helped by [gifts of] food or medicine,” Lili said. “I have learned how to read and write, school in general. I’ve learned about Jesus. I’ve become a believer. I don’t know who gave us that but…..”

Lili’s family is Hindu; Najia and Amila’s family is Muslim, as are the families of most of the girls. Several of the girls, including Lili, Najia and Amila, are now followers of Jesus Christ who are growing daily in their walk with Him, said Jane Wise,* the center’s director.

“Thank you so much for allowing God to provide through your giving,” Wise said. “It is allowing the girls to continue coming to the center.”

The Lord directed Hennerman to Zechariah 9:16-17a, as part of her vision for the center. It says “the LORD their God will save them…. They will sparkle in His land like jewels in a crown. How attractive and beautiful they will be!”

“Most people in the world would just see them as nothing, as trash, but I was seeing them as these precious jewels, basically that God was going to take and make them something,” Hennerman said. “We’ve just watched some of them come from little girls to become little women. And they are women who love the Lord and want to serve Him.”

Yes, Najia is grateful, for she knows well what life would be like if there were no Light of Hope Center.

“I would be at a garment factory. I would not know how to read or write. I would not know about Jesus,” she said. “I think that God directed [one of the founders] to my house because He knew that one day I would follow Him and decide to go His path for my life. I know that God placed this center here for me.”
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*Name changed. Goldie Frances is a writer in South Asia. www.bpnews.net. Used by permission.

Give to the World Hunger Fund

Bangladesh: At a glance

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Bangladesh is a country located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except Myanmar in the far southeast and the Bay of Bengal in the south. Bangladesh was earlier a part of India, but later became a part of Pakistan. In 1971 the country gained its independence. Bangladesh is home to one of the largest coastal mangrove forests in the world!

Taken from Baptist Global Response. BGR can be found online at www.gobgr.org.

This is Bangladesh: A poem

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By Madison Strauder

Beautiful people with brown eyes and raven hair
Women adorned in a kaleidoscope of colors
Bangles and nose rings display their marriage, their heritage, their style
Little children’s stares and giggles as you look their way
This is Bangladesh

The brick breaker’s toil to feed a family
The rickshawallas daily rounds as he navigates the streets
A difficult life and a hard working spirit
Simple pleasure of a little baksheesh [tip] and a cup of tea during a break
This is Bangladesh

A down-to-earth life with little need for Western ways
Living off the land and managing with no power
Hospitality that goes beyond their means
Adoring their children and respecting their elders
This is Bangladesh

The desire to spread their wings and fly
Coupled with attachment and respect for their home
Passion and sacrifice for a nation
Pride and joy in their identity and language
This is Bangladesh

High rise buildings and bustling crowds
Quiet rice fields and the sound of children playing
Miles of rivers with overflowing ferries
Dhaka streets full of rickshaws ringing their bells
This is Bangladesh

Cricket, soccer and Dhallywood films
Biriyani, curry, dried fish and jackfruit
A market full of people bargaining for their goods
The joys of a celebration and the festivity of holidays
This is Bangladesh

A beautiful people loved by a Savior
160 million lost in their sins
He knows each one of them by name
He died for them, “Will you go tell them?”
This is His Bangladesh

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Madison Strauder is an IMB worker based in Dhaka, who is focused on ministry to Muslims.

This is a poem that God gave me one day as I was focusing on all the negative things about where He has placed us. He convicted my heart and reminded me of many of the wonderful aspects of Bangladesh. I pray that He will teach you a little about this country and call you to pray for her masses.

FIRST PERSON: Shadow of a legend

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Tom Thurman, who was an IMB representative in Bangladesh for 35 years, sits on the porch in the early hours of the morning with his Bible in hand. Everyday, he and his wife Gloria welcomed countless visitors to their home.

By Gene Yaussy

BANGLADESH — If you ask anyone where the “Thurman Shaheb (boss) Bus Stand” is located they will easily tell you because it is one of the busiest places in the area. Everyone knows the place by this name though many have forgotten or never knew the Thurman family that lived in Bangladesh for 35 years.

Tom and Gloria Thurman served and ministered to Bangladeshis with selfless love and devotion. Since leaving some 10 years ago they have continued to serve the people by encouraging young families to come give their lives to serve the people.

I watched Tom sitting on the porch in the early hours of the morning with his Bible in hand for a week as we stayed in his village home. Everyday they welcomed countless visitors to their home and participated in services at a local church they helped to establish many years before.

People from all walks of life and all faiths came to say thank you to their friends. They met young men who were able to attend college because they went without A/C to give more for education. They met children who were serving the Lord because Tom had led their father to faith. Gloria hugged the masses of women that were aided by her medical clinics and care.

Most who came would bow and touch their feet as a sign of respect and honor. We were covered in flower petals and tears everywhere we went. I have never seen such joy in the faces of people. Children were happy to meet the people they had only known from the stories their parents had shared.

What were the great things the Thurmans did for these people to make them so happy at their return?

They gave them Jesus.

They did not bring riches or ease of life. In fact for many to follow the faith of the Thurmans cost them everything. They lost homes, jobs, family, friends, everything.

Yet, they are here celebrating the return of the ones who brought them what was of greater value than anything this world can offer. The Thurmans will not leave their children much of an earthly inheritance when they pass from this life.

What they will leave is a legacy of faithfulness that will testify to the generations of the love of Jesus.

Their lives will not be written about in history books or magazine articles, but it is written where it counts, in the hearts of those they served. I pray God will allow me the opportunity to serve as faithfully as Tom and Gloria Thurman.

I pray that one day I will leave a legacy of faithfulness for the next generation to follow. I pray that my children will look out each day and see their father sitting faithfully with the word of God and seeking to give the gift of Jesus to all. That is the legacy the Thurmans seek to leave, the legacy of Jesus.

To God be the glory for all that he has done and is doing through the lives of Tom and Gloria Thurman.

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Gene Yaussy is an IMB representative in Bangladesh.