Jesus 4 Asia Now

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

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Series Code: JFAN

Program Code: JFAN000005A


00:21 Hello and welcome to Jesus for Asia Now.
00:24 Today we want to talk about our Bethel Evening Schools,
00:25 but first I want to share with you
00:28 the shocking statistic that 16,000 children die every day
00:32 for malnutrition and starvation.
00:34 Honey, how does this happen?
00:37 Well, the vast majority of them
00:38 do happen in third world countries,
00:40 countries that basically have a really difficult time
00:44 to provide enough food and nutrition
00:46 for their children to grow properly.
00:48 And that's mainly because of poverty.
00:51 Absolutely.
00:52 There's a lot of different aspects of poverty
00:54 that we living in the west don't really understand.
00:57 In the United States, when you're really poor,
00:59 a lot of times, you're still quite overweight
01:00 and we actually spend as much in the United States
01:03 on weight loss as it would take
01:07 to actually feed the rest of the world,
01:09 and eradicate poverty, and malnutrition completely
01:10 but the truth is malnutrition happens
01:14 when there's not enough money to buy food.
01:16 There's not work,
01:17 there's not some kind of system to provide for them
01:20 when they get into hard times,
01:21 and so these kids just go into malnutrition.
01:24 They can't get enough food,
01:25 they can't get enough of the right kind of food.
01:27 So part of it's that they're poor.
01:29 Absolutely.
01:30 Part of it's that in some places
01:32 they can't find jobs,
01:33 and part of it's that the jobs they do find
01:35 don't pay enough to provide.
01:36 Right.
01:38 And what's happening today is that lot of people
01:40 are migrating to the cities.
01:42 And even in the rural places if you get a drought, I mean,
01:45 some places their whole existence
01:48 depends on next year's crop.
01:50 And if there's a drought
01:51 or if they get the wrong kind of seeds,
01:53 and things don't produce,
01:54 then they end up in a very difficult situation.
01:57 So which countries are we looking at here
01:59 or what country,
02:00 because today we've got particular project,
02:03 the Bethel Evening Schools and that is in India.
02:05 Yes. So what about India?
02:07 I've seen the statistic online
02:09 that India has the third of the world's poor,
02:12 just in that one country.
02:14 There's a lot of child death in India due to poverty.
02:18 Even if it's not death, there's a lot of other things
02:21 that happen to a child
02:23 when they don't get enough nutrition,
02:24 even if they don't die, they may end up
02:26 being stunted in their growth,
02:28 stunted in their mental ability.
02:30 Yeah, I remember reading an article
02:32 that was talking about that, how the children,
02:34 because they weren't getting enough to eat,
02:36 they couldn't learn.
02:37 They became unable to learn.
02:39 Right. And so that is part of the cycle of poverty.
02:43 If you're unable to learn,
02:44 you're unable to get an education,
02:45 you're unable to do very good work,
02:47 you're then unable to provide for your family
02:50 and so therefore the cycle of poverty continues.
02:53 And it's a downward spiral.
02:55 The two biggest challenges, actually three as Christians
02:59 for children in poverty situations
03:03 in order to grow and thrive,
03:05 number one is getting enough nutrition.
03:08 Hmm.
03:09 Okay, if they don't get enough nutrition,
03:11 they can't get an education, they can't go forward,
03:14 they can't develop.
03:15 And there's a lot of people
03:17 that don't get that kind of nutrition,
03:19 like you said 16,000 people die every day,
03:22 children from malnutrition, they're dying,
03:26 even today because of malnutrition,
03:29 lack of food.
03:30 So what do we do about that?
03:32 Well, the best thing is to give them more food
03:36 to feed them.
03:39 And the second biggest challenge
03:40 that they have is,
03:41 the challenge of getting an education
03:44 so that they can think different,
03:46 so they can even see themselves getting out of that situation
03:49 because when you've been living day-to-day
03:51 all your life, that's just what you'll expect.
03:54 And so, thinking outside the box shall we say.
03:57 And then the third one is this system of poverty
04:02 is actually, entrenched in their religion, okay.
04:06 Hinduism has a caste system
04:08 where if you are born as an outcast shall we say,
04:12 then that's your place in life for the rest of your life
04:16 and there is no getting out of it.
04:18 And your children's lives, and their children's lives,
04:20 and on, and on, and on.
04:22 Yes. Never ending.
04:23 Yes, exactly.
04:24 And so there's four main castes,
04:27 there's the Brahmin and the...
04:29 so that I forgot all of them but, then there's the outcaste,
04:32 okay.
04:33 And so, if you're born in one of the lower caste
04:35 or one of the outcaste, you can't change that.
04:39 And unless you change religions.
04:42 And it's amazing this concept of the gospel
04:44 that all men are created equal, that's a Christian concept,
04:48 you don't find that anywhere else.
04:50 That everybody is of equal value.
04:53 Yes, that is a Christian concept.
04:55 And so when we share that Christian concept,
04:58 and when they accept Jesus into their lives,
05:01 now all of a sudden all kinds of doors start opening up.
05:03 Doors like education, "Oh, I can get an education.
05:06 This system that keeps me,
05:08 you know, under the thumb is wrong.
05:11 Really?
05:12 Oh, I'm of value to God just as I am?
05:15 Wow!" Mm-hmm.
05:18 "Well, my families are of value too,
05:21 so therefore, I have the right to go
05:23 and pursue an education to learn
05:25 and to get a job just like everyone else."
05:28 But, don't we have something to show,
05:31 to show the viewers what it's like there?
05:33 You ask him how he likes his work.
05:41 Back around 2001, I was videotaping in a slum.
05:45 I came across thing young man
05:46 who was sorting through recyclable trash.
05:49 And he looked like a college age student.
05:51 I asked him, you know, I was videotaping, I asked him,
05:53 "Do you like doing this?
05:55 Would you like to do something else?
05:55 What's you career?"
05:56 And he said something and the translator said,
05:58 "This is all he can do.
06:00 He's an outcaste."
06:02 So he didn't have any choice.
06:03 He didn't have any options.
06:04 Had no options at all because of how he was born,
06:08 that dictated who he's going to be,
06:10 what he can do, where he can go,
06:12 that he can't get an education.
06:14 I mean by law, he's supposed to get an education
06:16 but in reality it's very difficult
06:19 to get a decent education
06:19 that will lift him out of that,
06:22 or give him opportunities to get out of that situation.
06:23 To me he looked like a bright, intelligent, happy young man.
06:28 Why would he be denied opportunities to grow
06:31 and to do something else with his life?
06:33 Coming from a culture where that is important
06:36 to lift yourself up with your own bootstraps,
06:39 get an education, move your life forward.
06:41 Have it so that your kids have a better life than you had.
06:44 All these wonderful dreams and aspirations that we have,
06:47 for that to be denied a young man,
06:50 so that he doesn't even have an opportunity to do better.
06:53 Hmm. No option.
06:54 No option. No option.
06:56 To me that's just wrong.
06:59 And for me to go back to a regular life
07:01 and say thank you God for everything that I have
07:03 and ignore his life, that's... I can't do that.
07:07 Don't try and not try to do anything.
07:08 I cannot do that.
07:11 So you went back to that slum?
07:13 Yes. A few years later?
07:13 Yes.
07:15 And you followed a man that did that for a living.
07:17 Yes. He went and picked up trash.
07:19 Yes, Bhaskar. I ask...
07:21 We have a little video... Yes.
07:22 From that to show.
07:24 I asked my translator if we could go there
07:25 when they do their...
07:26 'cause they go early in the morning
07:27 'cause if they go later in the morning,
07:29 then all the recyclables are gone.
07:32 Somebody gets them before them.
07:33 Yeah, so they have to go early in the morning.
07:35 So I got there 4:30 in the morning.
07:37 And I found all these people sleeping on the sidewalk.
07:49 It's 4:30 in the morning
07:52 and I'm here at one of the slums in Madras, India.
07:54 I've gotten permission through Pastor Samuel,
07:56 to follow a trash collector named Bhaskar
07:59 on his morning route.
08:04 They are all rag pickers.
08:06 They pick some papers, and old things, and tins,
08:10 and bottles from the garbage, and they take it to the shop
08:15 and sell them, and get some money out of that.
08:17 And then they try to buy some groceries,
08:23 rice, and cook and eat.
08:24 I asked a question: "Why are they sleeping here?"
08:39 So they say, when the flood came
08:42 their houses were washed away to the other side,
08:45 so they lost all their huts and the belongings,
08:49 you know, other things, so they have nothing,
08:54 so they are sleeping on this platform.
09:01 So how long will they think that they have to stay here?
09:11 They will continue to stay here as long as they live
09:15 because they belong to a lower caste of people,
09:18 so they don't have any proper houses
09:24 or any proper care from the government.
09:28 They are requesting: "Our children are not studying,
09:30 can you do some help for them?"
09:33 For what? To get some education.
09:34 Oh, education.
09:36 Are there schools they can go to?
09:41 They have a Government school
09:42 but they don't treat the children well,
09:46 the teachers don't come to class
09:48 to take care of them.
09:49 So they're not going to the school properly.
09:54 Two-three small children of his went to the school,
09:57 but nobody came to take care of them,
09:59 no teachers, or anybody.
10:00 So they all stopped,
10:03 the parents stopped the children
10:04 from going to the school.
10:06 And so, what amazed me is that they didn't ask for money,
10:10 they didn't ask for their tents to be rebuilt,
10:15 or utensils for them to cook with,
10:17 they asked for one thing, they asked for an education.
10:21 For their children.
10:22 An education for their children,
10:23 because they know that this is the only way
10:24 that these kids will have a better life.
10:27 Hmm. And not be trapped.
10:28 So, because of that video and because of a burden
10:32 that God laid on the heart of our director in India,
10:34 we have Bethel Evening Schools now.
10:38 And what are the Bethel Evening Schools?
10:39 What do we do there?
10:40 Well, when we started the first one,
10:43 we had our Director in India
10:44 go into a village and do a survey.
10:47 How many of you could read?
10:47 How many of you could write?
10:49 How many of you were getting an education,
10:52 all that kind of stuff.
10:53 And even though they were given an education
10:54 at the government school,
10:55 out of 62 kids that they interviewed,
10:59 12 of them could read and write.
11:01 So, that means...
11:03 That's not a very good large percentage.
11:04 Fifty kids could not read or write.
11:07 That's like wow!
11:08 Yeah.
11:10 Just to give you an example of what this looks like.
11:12 They need to go downtown or some place else in the city,
11:16 they go to a bus stop and they have to ask somebody,
11:17 "What does that bus say?
11:19 Is that going where I need to go?"
11:21 And if the person is nice, and tells them right
11:23 then they can get on the right bus,
11:24 but if nobody's at the bus stop,
11:27 or if they're, you know,
11:27 kind of playing a trick on them,
11:29 they end up in the wrong part of town.
11:29 End somewhere else. Yeah.
11:32 They don't know what's happening
11:33 with their bodies, they don't know anything
11:35 what to do, to go to the doctor.
11:37 Some people are unfamiliar with money,
11:39 they don't know how to count.
11:40 We were at an evangelical series once
11:42 and a lady came up asking for some money,
11:44 so we gave her a 500 rupee note.
11:48 And she... Paper.
11:48 Yeah, paper.
11:50 And she went walking around and she was asking her friends,
11:53 "Why did they give me this paper?
11:53 I need money."
11:55 And they're like well, that is money.
11:57 Really? This isn't money. This is just paper.
12:00 She'd never held paper money in her life.
12:03 She lives in such poverty all of her life
12:04 that she'd always been dong everything with coins.
12:07 Wow.
12:09 But I think back in her life,
12:11 what if somebody had given her paper money,
12:13 and she didn't know what it was,
12:15 what did she do with it?
12:16 Did she throw it away? Hmm.
12:17 You know, a little bit of education
12:19 would have made such a difference in her life.
12:22 When she found out how much money that was,
12:25 I mean, it just blew her,
12:26 I mean, she just broke down and cried in tears
12:27 because she'd never had, I mean 500 rupees,
12:30 that's 10 bucks.
12:31 Yeah. Ten bucks.
12:32 Another time, this is in Indonesia.
12:33 I went and visited a family there,
12:35 just on the side of the river, we just dropped in unannounced,
12:37 and asked them 'cause I was videotaping,
12:41 I wanted to see how they cook in their home.
12:42 So she let, they let me in into the little family, they ate,
12:45 and on the way out I gave them 10 bucks, you know,
12:48 they didn't ask for it, but I just wanted to.
12:50 And they were blown away, and as I was leaving,
12:53 the translator, the friend that I was with says,
12:54 "Enough to feed them for
12:57 probably one week or two weeks!"
12:59 Ten dollars.
13:01 Out of this came a dream,
13:02 what can we do if these people
13:05 that are on the edge of starvation
13:07 with their houses swept away
13:07 or asking for education for their kids,
13:11 that's what we need to give.
13:13 But not just education,
13:14 but we need to provide something for them to eat.
13:18 Our director in India came up with this idea
13:21 which was brilliant in my mind
13:22 because it provides two of the most basic needs
13:23 of these children that are growing up
13:25 in poverty situations.
13:26 Number one is an education, number two is the nutrition,
13:30 okay, and that's the evening school.
13:32 And what's the third thing it provides.
13:34 As a Christian it provides the means, the actual,
13:37 the thing that they really need the most
13:37 that they don't understand.
13:39 They don't know that they need this the most
13:41 but access and knowledge of the true God.
13:44 That can really help them on a day by day basis
13:47 that is with them, that cares about them,
13:48 and that sees great value in them.
13:51 Okay, so we have, we have education.
13:53 Education.
13:54 So they bring their school work from the government school,
13:57 and they have teachers there that tutor them
13:59 in their school work from the government school.
14:01 And make sure they are learning how to read, you know,
14:05 it's not so easy to learn Tamil.
14:07 They've got like 230 characters in their alphabet.
14:11 Yeah, or more. Somewhere around there.
14:12 You get different numbers from who you talk to.
14:14 We got 26, they got over 200.
14:16 But they make sure that they learn how to read,
14:18 they make sure they learn how to do Math,
14:22 so they can count their money,
14:23 and make sure they're not getting ripped off.
14:25 And make sure they learn how to do the writing,
14:27 and they can move forward in life.
14:30 And then they provide a free evening meal,
14:31 which is got not only rice, but it also has vegetables.
14:35 And they make them eat their vegetables.
14:37 Yes.
14:38 And some of them are really reluctant at the beginning
14:40 to eat their vegetables.
14:40 Yes. Yes.
14:42 But it sticks with them a lot longer,
14:44 if they eat the vegetables and not just the rice.
14:46 Well, that's where the nutrition is.
14:47 Right.
14:48 I've seen kids, and this is a short clip here
14:50 of a child having his daily meal,
14:52 and what's in that cup
14:54 is just some rice in the bottom with a lot of water,
14:57 and you can see him drinking.
14:58 That's his normal meal.
15:00 And if he goes out begging,
15:02 whatever he can find in the street,
15:03 from people, or whatever people throw out,
15:06 he might eat some of that.
15:08 But with the second meal,
15:10 I mean, with just the one meal that we provide in the day,
15:11 that's the second meal.
15:12 Mm-hmm.
15:14 And so you see kids that have been
15:16 going to the school for a couple of years,
15:17 and you compare that to the kids
15:19 that don't go to the school, it's a huge difference.
15:21 Their skin is glowing and shining,
15:23 they had light in their eyes, they're eager.
15:25 You can just see though,
15:26 that desire to learn in these kids' eyes.
15:28 It's such a thrill to see these kids grow.
15:33 Now, we have some stories from some of the evening schools
15:36 about how they, how they've used the knowledge
15:39 that they've gotten.
15:40 You want to share one of those stories?
15:41 We've got one story of a child that had been coming to our
15:44 evening school for a year or so.
15:46 He went home one day and his mom was lying in bed,
15:50 couldn't get up, couldn't make the meal,
15:52 couldn't take care of the family
15:53 because she had a big headache,
15:54 I mean, it was one of those debilitating headaches.
15:57 Hmm.
15:58 And he said, "Mommy, what's wrong?"
16:00 "Oh, headache, oh, I just can't get over this headache."
16:02 And the little boy says, "Why don't we pray to Jesus?"
16:05 Hmm.
16:06 And this is a home with all the Hindu Gods.
16:09 The pictures that they worship, and the little shrine up there
16:12 with the incense, and the little boy said,
16:15 "We need to pray to Jesus."
16:16 And the mother said "okay."
16:19 The little boy knelt down and prayed like
16:21 he'd learnt at the Bethel Evening School,
16:23 "Dear Jesus, please heal my mommy,
16:25 make the pain in her head go away."
16:26 Boom! It was gone.
16:28 She got up made the meal,
16:31 and then she took her son down to the school,
16:33 and said this is what your God did for me.
16:35 There's some extreme radical Hindus
16:39 that kind of come in
16:40 and they're upset about what's happening.
16:41 Anything that has to do with Christianity,
16:43 they try to shut down.
16:45 So they got a little group together,
16:46 and they were gonna come, and they were gonna
16:47 go into the school,
16:48 and they were gonna beat up the school master.
16:49 The local neighbors, they got together
16:53 and came out and said,
16:54 "No, these people, they're helping our children.
16:57 They have done nothing here but help our children to learn.
17:01 They're feeding our children, they're good people.
17:04 You leave these guys alone.
17:05 Go away."
17:06 And they protected him. Absolutely.
17:08 And so, this is in a neighborhood
17:09 where normally you'd have a high prejudice
17:12 against anything Christian.
17:14 But the school has been in there,
17:15 they've been serving the children,
17:17 they've been helping the children,
17:18 and the barriers have broken down
17:20 and now there's a bond.
17:21 And the people in the neighborhood
17:23 are appreciating this ministry
17:24 and they don't want to see the school close down.
17:26 So the first school has been going on for eight years.
17:29 Now these kids have been spending eight years
17:32 learning about Christ and reading and growing.
17:34 And some of them are gone now, out of the school there too.
17:37 Yes.
17:38 And we haven't had a chance to track them
17:39 to see what's happened in their lives,
17:41 see what differences it's made.
17:42 But it's this kind of thing
17:43 much more than a big evangelistic series
17:46 that talks to them for maybe eight days
17:48 or even a month
17:49 but this is a daily, daily, daily thing,
17:52 and what a powerful impact this is gonna have
17:55 in the long run.
17:56 I'm totally excited about this. Right.
17:58 So they learn memory verses, they learn songs,
18:01 they learn different things,
18:02 they hear character building stories
18:05 from the Bible and other sources
18:07 that encourage them to live a morally upright life
18:10 and to learn about God and what He can do.
18:12 And their families appreciate that.
18:14 Yeah. Absolutely.
18:15 Well, we want to talk a little bit briefly
18:16 about the "Saving the Lives" ministry
18:18 that James and Mary Ann started.
18:19 Well, you know, when my daughter was
18:21 four years old, and my son was six,
18:23 I was thinking, how do we get our kids
18:25 excited about what we're doing,
18:27 because the truth is that we're making sacrifices
18:31 doing this work.
18:32 Daddy's gone quite a bit.
18:33 We don't have the same kind of, maybe clothes.
18:37 We don't have the same kind of cars
18:39 that other people might have
18:40 because we're putting all this money, and resources,
18:43 and time into this project that we're so in love with.
18:47 Well, how do we get our kids involved?
18:50 My daughter was four, my son was six.
18:52 We got a whole group together with six different teams.
18:55 We went over did a massive evangelism series
18:57 in six different places.
18:59 Mm-hmm.
19:00 And we took our kids, four and six.
19:03 I'll never forget we were standing
19:05 in one of these little churches.
19:07 James is surrounded with kids, it's noisy,
19:10 they're playing and James leaned up against the wall
19:13 and says "Daddy, this is what I want to do with my life."
19:16 And they caught the vision, and then on the way home,
19:20 when we got home, Mary Ann, four years old came up with,
19:23 "let's start our own club.
19:24 We'll call it Saving the Lives.
19:25 She came up with this idea.
19:27 Right.
19:28 And they wanted to be helping the children
19:31 in India and Thailand
19:32 because we'd also been to the Thailand that trip.
19:35 But they realized that kids need to be involved
19:38 in helping other kids,
19:39 and they wanted kids helping kids.
19:41 It's part of their, you know, their plan,
19:43 and so it became a passionate thing
19:47 for them to do different things.
19:49 For example, every Christmas
19:50 they like to make cookies to sell.
19:52 And one year they were selling
19:54 cookies and hot chocolate on the side of the road
19:57 in the middle of winter to fundraise,
19:59 so the kids could have Christmas presents.
20:01 It's called Saving the Lives Club,
20:03 because that's what we're doing.
20:05 It's not just a program that we've got going.
20:07 We're actually saving lives.
20:09 Right. It actually saves lives.
20:12 It saves them for now and for eternity.
20:14 And for eternity, which is more important.
20:16 Right. Yeah.
20:17 They saw the poverty, they saw the need,
20:19 and they got excited about it.
20:22 And, Mary Ann,
20:23 our four years old came up with,
20:24 let's start our own club, we'll call it Saving the Lives,
20:26 their own ministry.
20:28 Yeah.
20:29 So they've done different projects
20:31 through the years and there is,
20:33 there are people that we have these
20:35 little self-denial boxes.
20:36 Self-denial box? What's a self-denial box?
20:38 It's a box where you put the money
20:41 that you would've spent on yourself.
20:43 You put it and you give it as an offering.
20:45 So instead of that five dollar ice cream
20:47 or that two dollar ice cream...
20:48 You would put the money in the box.
20:51 And then you would... But what can two dollars do?
20:53 What can two dollars do?
20:54 Well at our evening schools, for example,
20:57 we got these self-denial boxes at one point,
20:59 and we gave them out,
21:00 and other people have made their own
21:02 since then because we didn't have enough.
21:04 But basically what they do is
21:07 if they're gonna spend money on themselves,
21:09 instead of spending it on themselves,
21:11 they choose to put that money,
21:13 that two dollars or that five dollars
21:14 in the self-denial box, and then they send it,
21:17 and it goes to feed the children
21:19 in the Bethel Evening Schools,
21:20 or it goes to help with the orphanage,
21:21 depending on where the need is greatest that month.
21:23 And so we have these children that got involved
21:26 and there are still people that have those churches
21:29 or have the self-denial boxes, fill them up
21:32 and then send all the money at once
21:34 so we'll get these bags of coins.
21:36 We encourage people to get it converted into a check
21:40 because it's safer than sending money.
21:41 But if we see them, they bring us the church
21:43 and they empty the church right there
21:45 and then we have the bags of coins to carry around,
21:47 but, until we get to the bank.
21:49 But, it's such a neat thing because, you know,
21:52 anybody has five cents, ten cents, or a quarter,
21:54 whatever and it adds up to quite a bit.
21:56 The size that we have calculated
21:58 that it cost seven dollars a month
22:00 for one child to go to the Bethel Evening Schools.
22:02 So that translates to about a quarter a day.
22:05 So if you think about it that way
22:07 all these coins that people collect
22:10 in their self-denial boxes or the two dollar ice cream
22:11 that they denied to themselves
22:13 and put that money in there instead can do a lot.
22:17 That one two dollar ice cream, that's eight meals
22:21 and 16 hours of education for one child.
22:24 Right. That's crazy.
22:26 Right.
22:26 And it's amazing, the blessing that it is.
22:28 Yeah.
22:29 And it makes a huge difference.
22:30 Yeah.
22:31 Now you have a story of a starfish
22:32 that you'd like to share with us, I know.
22:34 You know, when we were first starting this ministry,
22:36 we were looking at the huge numbers,
22:38 it's like, my goodness, 120 million people
22:41 under the poverty line.
22:42 Now the poverty line
22:43 is different from country to country.
22:45 In America the poverty line is
22:47 if you make less than $1000 a month.
22:49 Okay?
22:51 That equals to about what $30 a day?
22:53 A little more about $33 a day in America?
22:56 If you look, make less than $30 a day,
22:58 you're considered under the poverty line.
23:01 In India the poverty line is $1.26 a day.
23:05 Okay. So...
23:07 That's not very much. That's not very much.
23:09 And you got 120 million people under that poverty line.
23:13 Wow.
23:15 And when we started thinking about starting this ministry,
23:17 it's like my goodness,
23:18 how are we gonna affect 120 million people.
23:21 How are we gonna fix that problem.
23:23 That's impossible, so just these ways of discouragement
23:27 were coming over us,
23:29 thinking how can we even make a dent
23:30 in a problem of that size?
23:34 And then this story, I found this story
23:35 that just made all the difference to me
23:38 and it's about this father and son,
23:39 they are walking down this beach, and they see,
23:43 during high tide, millions and millions of starfish
23:45 have been washed up on the beach,
23:46 and the tide had gone out,
23:49 and they were stranded up there.
23:49 They were dying.
23:51 And so the little boy picked one up and threw it in,
23:54 picked another one up and threw it in,
23:56 picked another one up and threw it in,
23:58 and the father says, "What are you doing that for,
24:00 you're not gonna save all these.
24:02 There's thousands of starfish out here,
24:03 you're not gonna be able to make it done
24:06 in all this number.
24:06 What are you even trying for?"
24:08 And the little boy says,
24:10 "I may not make all the difference in the world
24:12 but for this one
24:14 I will make all the difference in the world."
24:16 And he throws another one in.
24:18 He saved that one life,
24:20 and so that's been such an encouragement for us.
24:23 So we may not be able to save 100 million people,
24:26 but if we can save one, my goodness, we save,
24:32 we've done the world for that one child.
24:35 We may not be able to do something for everybody,
24:37 but for one
24:39 we can make the world of difference, just one.
24:44 Just one.
24:46 And since we started there's been over
24:48 200,000 meals served for these kids.
24:52 And that gives me such joy.
24:53 I mean I used to be into cars.
24:55 I used to have a Fiat Spider,
24:57 and then later I got a Alfa Romeo Spider,
24:59 and I had a Saab Turbo.
25:02 I used to like to drive fast
25:03 and I got pleasure out of those cars driving fast
25:06 and now I don't have those.
25:07 Top down and all that stuff...
25:08 Oh, absolutely.
25:09 And, but now I've got evening schools.
25:14 We were just there last year,
25:15 went down in some of these evening schools,
25:17 and these kids screaming at the top of their voices,
25:19 Jesus loves you.
25:21 You know, Sada Shiv Om Bhole.
25:21 You know, whatever the,
25:23 I'm not very good with that song
25:24 but it's like I got so much joy out of that.
25:27 Hmm.
25:27 Much more than those cars.
25:29 And also there's that joy of looking forward that hope
25:32 of maybe one of these kids or some of these kids,
25:36 or bunch of these kids will be in heaven some day
25:37 and we get to spend an eternity with them.
25:40 Yeah. Wow!
25:41 That, that's cool. That's really cool.
25:44 So before we close, we're almost to the end,
25:46 but I know that cost have increased a little bit.
25:49 It used to cost us about 400 to open one
25:51 and about 300 to maintain it every month.
25:53 But because of the cost of fuel and everything have gone up.
25:56 It's about 450 a month to open a new school
26:01 and about 350 a month to maintain it.
26:03 And that varies, we say an average of 350,
26:06 'cause some of them are less expensive
26:07 because we can hold them in local churches.
26:10 Yes.
26:10 And then the rent is less,
26:12 or they don't even charge us rent.
26:14 It just depends on the location.
26:15 Depends a lot on how many kids come from the community.
26:17 Right, right, If we have to rent a place
26:18 because there's too many children
26:20 or because there's not a local church,
26:23 then it costs quite a bit more.
26:23 So it's not that expensive.
26:26 And we had a kindergarten class in a church
26:28 that actually raised the $400 at that time
26:31 to open a new school.
26:32 And they were so ecstatic.
26:34 And then their church got into
26:36 providing monthly for that school.
26:38 And it was awesome to see them provide.
26:41 At this point, we have four schools.
26:42 And we have so many requests for more.
26:44 It's just heartbreaking to think of
26:46 how many more places would like to have these schools,
26:50 but we're not able to offer them
26:51 or we haven't been able to offer them to date.
26:54 So that's one thing that the Saving the Lives Club
26:56 has been doing is been fundraising
26:58 to open a new school.
27:01 And then, they will be fundraising every month
27:02 to try to support it.
27:04 But, you know, these kinds of things,
27:06 it's not that expensive,
27:06 considering how much other things cost,
27:08 and how much it cost us to live here.
27:11 We can make a huge difference for the children there,
27:15 and it's a lot of children at the time.
27:17 I mean, in some of these villages,
27:19 we have 30, 40, 50 kids coming...
27:21 Sixty, eighty, hundred. Yeah.
27:24 One school got so big they had to have it
27:26 in two locations now.
27:27 So the older children are in one place, but...
27:28 Right.
27:30 Anyway, we just want to remind our viewers
27:33 that you can make a difference,
27:35 a major difference in the life of one,
27:38 just by helping with these evening schools.
27:41 And it doesn't cost very much.
27:42 It's actually a pittance compared to how much it cost us
27:45 to live here.
27:47 So I just want to encourage you to be a part of the changes
27:50 that God wants to make of the witnessing
27:53 that God wants to do in the world today.
27:55 And may God richly bless you,
27:56 as you choose to make a difference
27:57 in the life of one.
28:00 You may send your tax-deductible gift
28:03 to Jesus for Asia, PO Box 1221, Collegedale, Tennessee 37315.
28:08 Or you can call us at 423-413-7321.
28:14 You can also find us on the web at Jesus4asia.org.


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Revised 2016-06-14