AsiaStories

Najia Khatun* knows what her life would be like without the Light of Hope Center. 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. Today the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund helps support the center. International World Hunger Day is observed on Oct. 16.

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.

Light of Hope

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 to minister 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.”

Hope for the Future

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.

View Photo Set

View Photo Set

“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.”

As our motorcycle neared the wooden bridge, we heard the worrisome sound of rushing water. Heavy rain had swollen the creek and made the path very muddy. Jaidee Yodsuwan,* my guide and driver, accelerated through the mud. The back wheel slid sideways, causing Yodsuwan to lose control of the bike. We headed straight for the cliff. I breathed a quick prayer.

At the last moment, Yodsuwan recovered and our bike crossed the bridge to safety.

Our adventure started on a treacherous, muddy path. But our story in this remote Thai village began six years earlier — when the medical clinic closed and a community development organization supported by the World Hunger Fund took its place.

My father was one of the last doctors to work at this clinic in Thailand. I was excited to see how things had changed and how the staff I remembered from childhood now reached out to their Northern Hill Tribe neighbors through the Thai Peoples' Welfare Foundation.

Trek to the Village

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We loaded down motorcycles with supplies and rode up into the hills on a narrow, muddy walking path. Our team of six Thai Life Development Center workers and International Mission Board missionary Joanie Snyder* headed to a village the Thai government deemed as being in great need — Ba Cam.

Yodsuwan and another pastor originally visited this village a few years ago. The community development workers found the people very isolated and living in their old ways: abject poverty, no electricity, no decent bathrooms and wooden homes with thatch roofs. The village had no building specifically for their children to attend school.

As he surveyed the conditions, Yodsuwan gained a vision for how the organization could serve the village and build relationships to share the love of Jesus by meeting physical and spiritual needs.

Yodsuwan said the first night his team stayed in the village, no one invited them into their home. Then, as the team began making up beds in a deserted house, one old man invited them to stay with him. This “man of peace” started the relationship that allowed the team to work in the village.

Three years later, the relationships and trust continue to grow, providing access to other villages even more isolated in these hills.

Yodsuwan and his team make this treacherous trip into the hills each week – rain or shine. This week, the rain poured down. But with joy and rain gear, we rumbled on toward the village. Yodsuwan said it is important to make this trek each week, the village needs the encouragement and is a launching point for further community development in the area.

“In your precious name, stop the rain,” I heard Snyder pray. Then turning to me she said, “Though I don’t always go with them, I feel responsible for the team’s safety, so I’m always praying for them. I have to trust in the Lord, and pray.”

I learned more about why she was concerned for the team’s safety as we continued up the trail. I started out driving one of the motorcycles, but after falling off four times, I rode on the back of Yodsuwan’s motorcycle.

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As we rode along, the path became very narrow. On the left was steep hillside, on the right, the steep drop-off of the cliff. We had only a one-foot margin of error on either side. On several occasions, I got off and walked as Yodsuwan gunned the motorcycle up the rough mountain trail, bouncing back and forth. Like Snyder, I found myself praying the whole trip. Who knew our World Hunger Fund projects made it to places as remote and rough as this?

Even though the trip was difficult, the team ran to serve the people when we arrived. Community development projects have taken hold here gradually. Villagers have learned about proper nutrition and how to grow their own vegetables. Proper toilets have also been dug, keeping their water supply clean.

Changed Village

You can tell the difference the World Hunger Fund has made in this village simply by listening to the laughter and singing of children playing soccer with two community development workers. Now the children are healthy and beginning to thrive.

The homes also were full of smiling women, as team members Fern Yodsuwan* and May Srisai* taught them new life skills.

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As evening approached, we made our way to the school building, which this team helped build, to spend the night. Jaidee Yodsuwan and the schoolteacher led in a time of prayer and song as we ended our day.

The following morning, the team gave math lessons and the sound of happy chatter and scraping chalk filled the school. Jaidee Yodsuwan cut hair and Joe Boonmee* prayed with the children as they studied. Through the team’s teaching, each of the children has heard the story about Jesus' love at least once.

After I prayed for the village, we headed down the mountain — back to electricity, real roads and nice homes.

Somehow, the ride back didn’t seem quite as treacherous, as I rejoiced in seeing how God uses this passionate team to serve the poor and share the good news of His love, no matter how difficult the journey.

With confidence one team member told me, “Though there is not a believer in the village now, one day someone will come to believe in Jesus.”

Through your gifts to the World Hunger Fund, you are an active part of this team. You make it possible for them to physically help people in poverty while sharing Christ’s compassion and love literally to the ends of the earth.

As a result of ongoing agriculture projects in East Asia, many hundreds have heard about God's love for the first time. Many have been through intensive training to help them make a living.

Trees that bring hope of life

Across the mountains and foothills of the eastern Himalayas, mountainsides lie barren of any trees. Years, of war, economic privation, and population explosion have forced people to farm farther and farther up the hillsides.

Villagers slashed the forests and planted sugar cane and other cash crops to make ends meet. Today, across the world -- primarily in Asia, Africa and Latin America -- there are enough barren hillsides to fill the country of Russia!

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View Photo Set

In this remote corner of East Asia, test plots for fast growing trees were planted. About 50 varieties of trees are located at multiple sites in various elevations. The objective was to discern which trees would grow and thrive best on these highly denuded mountains and severely depleted soils.

After three years of growth, the trees were evaluated for economic benefit to the community. We asked, “How beneficial are these for firewood, charcoal, or forages for livestock?” Finally, three species were selected for lab analysis. Could their fiber be used for making quality paper as well? Lab analysis said, “Yes!”

With two very large paper mills in desperate need of raw material, a growers cooperative began to grow trees that will benefit the land, by increasing soil moisture, increasing beneficial microbes, benefit the farmer with income from what was previously worthless land, and benefit the factory by providing raw material.

Thanks to the World Hunger Fund, this cooperative will have the harvesting equipment, chain saws, winches and wood chippers needed to make villagers more self-sufficient. Trees are bringing life and hope back to these desperate people.

As a result of this ongoing forestry project, many hundreds have heard about God's love for the first time and dozens of young people have been through intensive training to help them make a living a follow the path to abundant life that Jesus taught.

The Deaf now teach the hearing

Ka Wa’s grandfather harvested the corn seed from his previous years crop and put it in storage for the next. There was little, if any, local knowledge of how to select quality corn seed or how to store.

Ka Wa, who is deaf, came to a training sponsored by local believers. He learned the importance of the type of fertilizer, the amount and placement. Through a sign language interpreter, he learned about the proper spacing of the seed and how to efficiently manage weeds. He requested assistance for someone to go to his village and help implement a test plot that would demonstrate the new methods for his family and the whole village.

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With the land and labor provided by Ka Wa and his family, and various seed varieties and fertilizer provided by the World Hunger Fund -- costing about $7 -- Ka Wa saw a 150 percent increase in corn yield, compared to local village methods and varieties.

When all the corn was piled on the floor and compared to the local methods, the entire village came to see.

They said, "Now we have a deaf man who can teach us how to grow corn!"

Savannah Ashton has worked with World Hunger Fund projects for many years.