Stories from the Mission Field

January 2023

A new home for Navin in India

Hunger is the constant companion for countless children in India. But for some, there is hope - and not just for getting fed, but for "an almost normal life" with loving care and school attendance. "A home for children" - not a matter of course for those who come from the poorest families and live on the margins of society. Abandoned children because mothers who have been left alone no longer have the strength to care for them or because they simply cannot be cared for. Violence, abuse and parentlessness have also already shaped many young lives. Because of such family disasters, these children literally get left behind. How can they be helped?


Protection through children's homes
EBM INTERNATIONAL supports twelve children's homes in India. Here the children can forget their worries for a while and achieve freedom, joy, schooling, Christian education and better chances for the future. By taking them into the homes, they are also saved from the fate of child labor or even forced prostitution. In the nearby communities, they are given access to the Christian faith.


Education: Opportunities for the future
In the Bethel Ashram children's home in Uppada, 20 girls and 25 boys find a new home. After the pandemic, it was able to reopen and all the children are overjoyed to be able to go back to school. Since the students had missed almost 20 months of school, they lacked many basics. Therefore, there were additional classes, in the morning at five o'clock and in the evening at 6:30 pm. Almost all of them passed their exams! There is also an evening school program for children from ten villages. The volunteer local teachers tutor almost 230 children, combined with spiritual elements such as prayers and songs.


Junior college instead of child labor
Navin's story is impressive, his father died before he was born: The family is poor; they are illiterate. When his uncle also died, Navin lived completely isolated and without hope. JESUS-LOVES-MINISTRIES staff found him in this desperate situation and brought Navin to the children's home at the age of eleven, very weak and malnourished, with two pairs of clothes. This brought the unexpected turn in his life: At the Bethel Children's Home he received schooling, healthy food, and he found caring people, a new loving caring home family, and a church environment. Here he was able to make many friends. Now Navin has completed tenth grade and wants to continue his studies at junior college to become a teacher.

Navin: "Thank you EBM INTERNATIONAL for the precious support of Bethel Ashram Children's Home, without which I would have had to work as a child laborer fishing on the beach and cleaning boats!"
The Bethel Ashram Children's Home is funded by donations to "Children's Homes in India".