The world was shocked by the persecutions in Orissa, one of the states in India. Christians living in this state faced severest persecutions from religious fanatics. Thousands and thousands of Christians had to flee and still are hiding in the forests. Their houses were looted and destroyed. “Saffron ribbons” brigades are patrolling their villages ready to kill anybody who would dare to make any attempt to come back home. Thousands of our brothers and sisters paid the price of their lives for following Christ to the end. Those who gave up their faith were forcefully converted to Hinduism and had to go through the initiation ritual which includes eating cow dung and drinking cow urine. Otherwise fanatics would kill members of their families one by one right before their eyes.
Persecutions in Orissa still go on. Christians are still getting killed, raped and robbed. The number of orphan children is growing. Many of them lost both parents. We prayed, standing on the Word of God (Psalm 68: 5): “You, our God, are the Father of orphans! Protect these children, who lost their parents. Lord, what can we do and how can we help these poor children?”
In our life, God is often speaking to us through dreams. And at this time, He decided to show us a new direction of our ministry while we were sleeping:
My parents were pushing a bunch of Indian kids towards us, saying, “Take these children! We absolutely do not understand what to do with them. Take them!” We were quite puzzled by such a number of children and were saying in response, “What are we going to do with such a crowd of Indian kids?” But suddenly some unusual God-inspired words leaped from our lips by themselves, “We know! If nobody wants these children, we will start an orphanage!”
In the morning when I woke up I thought: “It was such an unusual dream! Lord, will it happen that in the future we will start an orphanage?”
One small girl of eight years old who was thousands and thousands miles away from us had an evening prayer with her mom. She learnt from her mom that many children in Orissa lost their parents. Then her mom asked her, if she would like to give something from her personal savings for these poor children. The girl ran to her room and brought her personal money-box and gave away everything she was saving for the eight years of her life! Her mom got completely amazed at her daughter’s decision. She took this offering and brought it to my puzzled parents, and they sent it to us to India.
It is impossible to describe what you feel when you hold in your hands an offering from an eight year old kid. When you know that it was everything that this child had. Indeed, as Jesus said, “she has put more into the treasury than all the others.” (Mark 12: 43)
#FromIndiaWithLove Stan & Lana
Jesus Unltd #EverythingIsPossible