Jesus 4 Asia Now

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

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Series Code: JFAN

Program Code: JFAN000019A


00:21 Hello, and welcome to Jesus for Asia Now.
00:24 I'm Natalie Wood
00:25 and I have my husband Jon here with me on the show today.
00:27 Hello, love. Hi darling, how are you.
00:29 I'm doing fine.
00:30 You know, here at Jesus for Asia,
00:32 we talk about how many projects we have and,
00:34 you know, a lot of ministries
00:36 just have one or two projects that they're working on...
00:38 That'd be great.
00:39 But we have so many
00:40 and so we just want to highlight one today and...
00:43 Yeah.
00:44 Well, having a lot of projects isn't necessarily better.
00:47 No.
00:48 It's just the way that Lord has let us.
00:49 Right.
00:50 And to promote and help
00:52 and to start as many projects as possible
00:55 because our overall purpose is
00:57 to see as many people in the kingdom of heaven
00:59 as possible before we die.
01:01 Right, and the Lord has the a lot of variety of ways,
01:03 He is trying to reach people.
01:04 Right, the verse that says, "Sow beside all waters,
01:08 " that's kind of our verse.
01:09 Yeah.
01:11 Well, we want to start out
01:12 thinking about true religion today.
01:14 Yes.
01:15 There is a verse in James.
01:16 One of your favorites. Yes.
01:18 Yes, James 1:27
01:21 and that is,
01:22 "Pure religion and undefiled before God
01:24 and the Father is this.
01:26 To care for the widows and the fatherless
01:28 in their affliction
01:29 and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.''
01:31 Yeah.
01:32 So our part is to be sin free in the Lord's strength...
01:37 Yes.
01:38 But our part also is to care for the widows
01:41 and the fatherless.
01:42 And we believe that there is spiritual widows
01:45 as well as physical widows.
01:48 And the physical fatherless
01:49 as well as spiritual fatherless,
01:51 who don't know who their daddy is.
01:53 That's right, and so the project
01:55 we want to talk about today is
01:57 dealing with the physical widows.
01:58 Yes.
01:59 But it's also in hopes of sharing with them
02:02 that they are also spiritual widows
02:04 that they don't know their father.
02:05 Yes, right.
02:06 And introducing them to their husband.
02:08 That is right. Yeah.
02:10 We started out and some of our viewers may have seen
02:12 a different show about our evening schools.
02:14 Yes.
02:15 And we started with the evening schools
02:17 and then in this one place,
02:19 the first place Chembarambakkam,
02:21 we had an evening school.
02:22 And I think we have a little video from there.
02:24 It shows where I become aware
02:27 or we become aware of the need,
02:30 huge need.
02:31 For the evening schools? Exactly.
02:33 Okay, here we go.
02:34 Okay.
02:36 In 2004, I was privileged to visit a small community
02:39 in India located beside a river.
02:42 I found them sleeping on the sidewalk
02:44 after a big flood that swept away their homes.
02:46 They are requesting:
02:48 "Our children are not studying, can you do some help for them?"
02:52 Do what? To get some education.
02:54 Oh, education, yes.
02:56 Even though they had just lost everything in the flood,
02:58 their only request was for their children.
03:00 So we started some evening schools
03:02 like this one near Chennai
03:04 where children from all walks of life can come
03:06 and learn reading, writing,
03:08 arithmetic and other subjects
03:09 and receive a free meal to help them fight malnutrition
03:13 that often plagues the young people growing up here.
03:20 So that was the start of our evening school program
03:23 and we were in this place
03:25 that you see in the video for nine years.
03:29 Yeah.
03:30 Yeah, nine years straight,
03:31 and from that came this next video
03:35 where Brother Israel,
03:37 who is the director for Jesus for Asia in India.
03:40 He started to get to know
03:41 some of the mothers of these kids.
03:43 Okay, here we go.
03:45 Some ladies, you know,
03:46 they doesn't have husbands
03:48 and because they don't have livelihood,
03:50 so they were forced to get into sexual abusing or,
03:55 you know, kind of prostitution to make their livelihood.
03:58 Then I saw these ladies,
04:00 because their children are coming
04:02 for the evening school.
04:03 So I have a very close rap over them.
04:07 That is how I came to know their personal problems.
04:10 They were uneducated, without a job,
04:12 and they were forced to do a lot of bad things,
04:15 but now by God's grace
04:18 this program has brought in a great change.
04:21 The status with the widow in India is that
04:24 they will never be able to remarry.
04:25 Nobody will really want to marry
04:27 somebody that has been married before.
04:29 And many of them have no education.
04:33 No way to take care for themselves,
04:35 no way to care for their children,
04:37 and so they are kind of forced
04:38 into doing these degrading things
04:40 in order to just survive.
04:41 Right and, you know, the widow in India is
04:44 traditionally been a very hard life.
04:47 Yes.
04:48 I mean, even going back to the days of William Carey,
04:51 when he fought against sati,
04:53 which was a practice of actually putting the widow
04:55 on the funeral pyre
04:56 with the husband when he passed away.
04:59 So it's been a long time, you know,
05:02 with these widows having a hard life.
05:04 Right.
05:05 And so to do something to help them.
05:08 Yeah, so Israel came up with this idea.
05:11 Israel proposed, we started sewing school for widows.
05:14 Currently we have a two hour morning session
05:16 with six sewing machines running full time
05:19 and ladies waiting in line.
05:20 They would like to add another shift in the afternoon.
05:22 They say to me that, "Sir, you have opened the door,
05:26 like we can do, we can take care of our children now."
05:29 So they are very happy,
05:30 they are excited about this project,
05:32 they thank the Lord for that.
05:33 You can see the smile on their faces, you know,
05:35 they are very happy, they are excited.
05:38 You know, they come well dressed to the classes
05:41 and they are like going to a job, you know,
05:44 they have something to do.
05:45 They have the future now,
05:46 so they are very excited, happy.
05:49 Okay, one, two, three.
06:00 Beautiful ladies.
06:01 Yeah, it bring me so much joy to see this.
06:03 Yeah, and they are so happy.
06:04 Yeah, people don't smile in India for photos.
06:08 No, they don't.
06:09 But they were smiling and it's so wonderful to see,
06:12 just a lot of joy
06:13 and we weren't there to convert them,
06:15 we were there just to bless them
06:17 and that gave me joy
06:19 because this is what Jesus would do.
06:21 Right.
06:22 And, but still the teacher,
06:24 we get some of the stories that are coming out of there,
06:27 the teacher was Hindu, okay,
06:29 and she was loving this job because she also was a widow,
06:33 and she supported herself
06:34 and put her children to school through her tailoring.
06:38 Okay.
06:39 So she was helping other ladies do
06:40 what she had to do herself.
06:42 Exactly.
06:43 And, but she was Hindu
06:45 and but her daughter had been married for two years
06:49 and had not gotten pregnant and this is a big deal.
06:52 Yeah, it's very big deal in India.
06:53 Yeah, her husband would leave, if...
06:55 Yeah, he will go and get another wife.
06:56 Right, but so she came and ask the Christians,
07:00 "Will you pray for my daughter?"
07:03 And they said sure and they prayed for her
07:06 and within two months her daughter was pregnant.
07:09 And so she,
07:10 the Hindu sewing teacher gave glory to God
07:14 saying that your God helped my daughter get pregnant.
07:17 Hopefully, He'll become her God too.
07:19 Absolutely, He already is, she just...
07:22 Right, she doesn't realize it...
07:23 She may not realize it completely,
07:25 but what a seed has been planted...
07:27 Right, right. Yeah.
07:28 Awesome seed.
07:29 With her and with all those widows
07:30 and whoever else she got the contact with.
07:33 And then the next part of the story is very hard one.
07:37 There was terrible flooding in that location.
07:39 Yeah.
07:40 And the building began to deteriorate very rapidly.
07:43 It was an old building in the beginning.
07:45 And it had started having some cracks and things.
07:47 Yeah, some of the parts of the ceiling were falling out
07:50 and they were worried about having people there
07:54 and the ceiling falling in.
07:56 Right, so we had the widows there during the day
07:58 and we had the children there at night
08:00 and so they become more and more concerned
08:03 and you did a video about that with Israel.
08:05 Let's see that one.
08:07 If it falls on the ladies here, it'll be a big problem
08:10 and during the evening times here there are 60 students,
08:13 children, small kids seated here.
08:15 Yeah.
08:16 Imagine if it falls down
08:17 and you can see the ceiling there completely broken,
08:21 completely broken.
08:22 These places during any season, it is falling down.
08:27 That's leaking, water is coming through that.
08:28 Yes, water is leaking.
08:30 So why doesn't the landlady fix it?
08:33 It is, now she has to break it completely
08:36 and she has to fix it.
08:39 So the whole building has to be taken down.
08:41 Yes.
08:42 So that was the sad thing
08:43 and we didn't own that property
08:45 and we looked around for places to own
08:48 and we found one building
08:49 that was a lot smaller and the property,
08:52 it was just right around the building like
08:54 one foot on either side and it was $50,000.
08:57 Yeah, and it wasn't big enough for the 60 children
09:00 that go there every evening.
09:01 Exactly.
09:02 So unfortunately, we had to close that location.
09:05 Yeah.
09:06 So we were very sad
09:07 and we've been praying that the Lord would enable us
09:09 to buy something in that village.
09:11 Unfortunately we haven't found anything yet
09:14 or have the funds either to purchase
09:16 but the Lord has opened another place.
09:19 Yes.
09:20 And so the old place Chembarambakkam,
09:23 we don't have anything there right now,
09:24 we are still praying,
09:26 but the Lord has opened another place,
09:28 He shared with us another place and this is a neat story,
09:30 I want you to share.
09:31 Yeah, Israel had shared with me earlier,
09:34 several months before
09:35 that there was a request for a new school being open,
09:38 a widow school and this was special
09:41 because it had been opened, started many years ago
09:44 by our dear Dorothy Watts,
09:46 who was the wife of the president
09:48 of the Southern Asian division Pastor Ron Watts,
09:50 who was such a great guy, such a wonderful couple,
09:54 gave many years of their lives to service in India.
09:58 But she unfortunately had to go home
10:01 and she passed away.
10:03 And so the school fell into kind of disrepair and...
10:07 People forgot about it, it seems like people forgot...
10:10 Yeah.
10:11 And she wasn't there to remind people.
10:12 The funding dried up and so when we heard about it,
10:16 we were in the position to start it and open it.
10:19 But then just recently I went over there on a tour
10:24 and I just had this impression from the Lord I believe saying,
10:28 it's time to open a school, time to open a widow school
10:32 because the truth is that maybe even
10:34 if we don't have the funds,
10:37 we have to do something,
10:39 we have to do something for God.
10:40 We have to obey the word of God,
10:42 even if we don't clearly see the road ahead of us.
10:44 We've to just take a step in that direction.
10:48 And so I told Israel, yeah, let's open that widow school.
10:52 So go ahead and call the section president
10:54 and let him know that we want to open the school.
10:57 So you have some video from there.
10:59 Yes. Okay, good.
11:01 So what's the first one?
11:02 The first video we have is the first night
11:05 we went there just getting to know
11:06 the people seeing the building,
11:09 seeing the situation and stuff like that.
11:11 So I put together a little video
11:13 'cause I fell in love with these people
11:15 there a gypsy colony, okay.
11:17 So they're very boisterous...
11:20 Flamboyant. Flamboyant, yes.
11:22 We'll see them dancing. Yes.
11:24 And they make jewelry for a living...
11:26 Yeah. And things like that.
11:27 And they used to do all kinds of stuff.
11:29 So this video is just kind of a like a collage
11:32 of different shots
11:33 that I got the first evening that I was there.
11:36 The next day, we did the grand opening
11:38 of the widow school and we'll show that later.
11:41 But right now, I just want you to meet these people.
11:43 So this is the introduction?
11:44 Yes. Okay.
14:47 "I'm a disco dancer."
15:07 Joyful, happy people.
15:08 Yeah.
15:10 They are a lot of fun.
15:11 Beautiful children. Yeah.
15:13 Sweet smiles.
15:14 Yeah, the least of these my brethren.
15:17 That's for sure.
15:18 Very poor,
15:20 they're not worth much in the world's eyes.
15:22 Yeah.
15:23 Making little beads for living. Yeah.
15:25 Going out and catching rabbits...
15:26 Chewing the beetle nuts.
15:27 Yeah, all that stuff but in God's eyes,
15:29 in heaven's eyes, precious.
15:31 That's right.
15:33 That was neat to see them
15:34 moving the sewing machines in there.
15:35 Yeah.
15:36 And to think that that's gonna be reopened.
15:38 Yes.
15:39 Okay, so that's not just a widow school.
15:41 No. We saw the children there.
15:42 Oh, my goodness.
15:43 And they're gonna do a feeding program,
15:46 they're gonna do the evening school for the children also.
15:48 Yes, yes.
15:49 Okay, so that building will be used for the widow school
15:51 and the evening school.
15:52 Well, you notice in that overview that
15:54 there was a church and the school
15:56 right next to each other.
15:57 So in the church,
15:58 they're gonna have the evening school
16:00 every evening...
16:01 And then of course,
16:02 the widow school during the day.
16:04 They don't have the evening school
16:05 and the widow school
16:07 because of all the fancy equipment.
16:08 Machines, they have to move the machines all the time.
16:10 Right.
16:11 Well, at least they have a church there
16:13 and they can have it both on the same property.
16:15 Yes. Yes.
16:16 It's ideal situation.
16:18 So we have another video, what's this one?
16:20 Okay, this is kind of self explanatory
16:24 but when you are traveling through India, sometimes,
16:28 you're not feeling so good.
16:29 Getting little bit sick.
16:30 Yeah, I am.
16:32 What's funny is that
16:34 we had been eating at regular restaurants
16:36 and regular places
16:38 and in people's homes throughout the whole trip
16:40 and I had no problem.
16:41 So we came to this town and the president says,
16:44 well, I need to take you to a nice place
16:46 because you are an American.
16:47 Oh.
16:48 He told me once that an American had come
16:50 and he put him in a normal place
16:52 and he'd got yelled out.
16:54 You know, that American was upset with him
16:56 for putting him in, you know,
16:58 anyway so he was very careful.
17:00 So we ate at a really nice restaurant
17:02 and I got sick.
17:03 You got sick, okay.
17:06 In that nice restaurant.
17:07 So this is talking about that,
17:08 but then we meet some of the people there
17:10 that are gonna be going to the school as well.
17:12 And you get to do some coconut water.
17:15 We got coconut water.
17:17 Okay, here we go.
17:24 All right, so this is some of the joys
17:27 of traveling in India.
17:29 This morning I woke up with a little
17:32 rumbling in the stomach,
17:33 and I spend some time
17:35 in the smaller part of our hotel,
17:40 the smaller room.
17:42 And so I'm a little bit uncomfortable this morning.
17:45 Skipped supper last night
17:46 and had about little couple of bites of idly
17:49 and I'm just not that excited.
17:51 So they're making some coconut drinks for us,
17:54 which normally I'd be all over that.
17:56 But right now, I'm kind of, well,
17:58 I'm kind of all over that.
17:59 My mind goes out to our
18:02 brothers and sisters in countries
18:03 where they're actually feeling real discomfort
18:05 like in China where they are getting persecuted,
18:08 in other countries in the Middle East
18:10 where they're actually getting persecuted,
18:12 killed, beaten, all this kind of stuff.
18:15 I'm suffering nothing.
18:16 Hello, hello, hello, hello.
18:22 What is your name?
18:24 What is your name? My name is Shyam.
18:25 Right, Shambu.
18:26 Glad to meet you. Shyam.
18:27 Oh, Sam.
18:29 Yeah, this is a fresh young coconut and there is...
18:33 Yeah, tender coconut, it's got water inside.
18:35 It's filled with water as you can see,
18:37 I don't know if you can see that.
18:38 I'm gonna drink some of this and see how it goes.
18:54 I do not have a problem with fresh, young, coconut.
18:56 Yeah.
18:57 What is your name?
19:01 Shailaja.
19:02 Shailaja, very glad to meet you.
19:04 What is your name?
19:06 My name is Vignesh. Uh.
19:07 My name is Vignesh.
19:09 What? Vignesh.
19:11 Uh?
19:13 What's his name?
19:15 Vignesh, okay, glad to meet you.
19:17 You are Vignesh too?
19:19 Brothers?
19:21 Okay, all right.
19:22 Lalu, Lalu.
19:26 Jagan, okay.
19:28 That's your son?
19:30 Your boy?
19:31 Okay, what is your name?
19:32 Kushboo.
19:34 Kushboo, Kushboo.
19:35 Kushboo, glad to meet you, Kushboo.
19:38 What's your baby's name?
19:39 Balu. Balu, hello.
19:43 This is the traditional dress that they wear,
19:45 the traditional clothes that they wear.
19:47 He hunts foxes.
19:50 This community is kind of tradition,
19:52 hunts foxes and whatever else,
19:55 flying foxes as well as walking foxes.
19:59 He got his gun here, it's like a muzzle loader.
20:02 He got his bag here, got his pot,
20:04 good to go.
20:05 So Bhaskar has a boy and a girl
20:07 that are gonna come to this evening school
20:09 and learn about Jesus and a new way of life
20:12 and eternal life.
20:14 I think he is cooler then I am.
20:17 This is too hot.
20:19 Is this your daughter?
20:20 Daughter? Daughter, daughter.
20:22 Oh, yeah, this is her daughter.
20:24 Her daughter is suffering from polio.
20:26 Her previous case of polio, so she doesn't walk properly.
20:30 So pray for this family.
20:31 Bhaskar and his family as they start the school,
20:35 the widow school, the sewing school,
20:38 as well as the evening schools with the meals.
20:41 Wow, that's neat, they're beautiful people.
20:43 Yeah, and it was so hot there,
20:46 just functioning took everything I had
20:48 but, you know...
20:49 Especially when you are not feeling well.
20:50 Oh, yeah.
20:51 But just meeting with those people
20:53 and hanging out with them,
20:55 spending time and getting to know who they are,
20:57 trying to understand their names was a lot of fun...
20:59 Yeah.
21:00 I miss being there.
21:02 Yeah, beautiful people, beautiful children.
21:04 Yeah.
21:05 And so neat,
21:06 when we get to be a blessing to them.
21:07 Yeah, just to be able to help...
21:09 Yeah, and to think about there,
21:11 they're gonna be learning more about Jesus
21:15 because we found out about the opportunity
21:18 and we were able to say yes.
21:19 Yeah, that's right. It's awesome.
21:22 Okay, the next part of the story,
21:24 it kind of goes back to the beginning of the story.
21:25 Yeah.
21:26 And that is when the headman found out.
21:30 It's so cool how God brings people together
21:34 and not just one person gets to have all the joys
21:38 but that he is able spread it out.
21:41 So it's like, I get to go and meet the people
21:43 but then I can bring their story back
21:46 and then other people can partner
21:48 and be a part of their lives.
21:50 Right.
21:51 And receive some of that joy of seeing
21:53 others blessed which is...
21:57 That's where the joy is.
21:58 I was reading today that
22:02 being able to give the light that
22:04 we have received from the Father is the highest honor
22:07 and the greatest joy
22:09 that is possible for God to bestow.
22:11 That's pretty strong.
22:14 So of all the joys in the universe
22:16 sharing the light that we've been given,
22:18 the blessings we've been giving with others...
22:20 Sharing Jesus.
22:21 Is the highest,
22:23 is the best pleasure that he could find anywhere.
22:26 And it's the highest honor. Yeah.
22:28 So it's pretty important work that He has given us.
22:32 Yeah, and that's why I love it so much
22:33 'cause we get to do that, but it's not just us doing it,
22:36 so it's nothing about us.
22:37 Right.
22:38 You know, we share with the people that we know
22:41 and with our viewing audience
22:43 and we all get to be a part of this.
22:45 So it's a win-win. Yeah.
22:47 Blessings all around.
22:48 Yeah, plenty of blessings.
22:50 God has lots.
22:51 It's a fistful of blessings.
22:52 That's right.
22:54 Okay, well, we want to step back a minute
22:56 to before you told Israel,
22:58 to go ahead and call the section office
23:00 and tell them that we would start the widow school.
23:02 There is a story before that. Okay.
23:04 This is what's really cool because remember I said,
23:07 told Israel to go ahead and call the president
23:09 to say that we wanted to open it.
23:11 He called on a Thursday afternoon to the president.
23:14 When we got there,
23:16 we found out that there was a story behind that,
23:17 that the headman had gotten with his wife
23:21 in a auto rickshaw, in a bus,
23:24 whatever it took to get
23:25 to the president's headquarters.
23:28 Two hours travel.
23:29 Yeah, he had basically fallen on his knees and begged him,
23:32 please open the school for my village.
23:36 Because he had seen how it had blessed the village
23:39 before and now had closed and it wasn't doing anything.
23:43 And so he is begging him.
23:45 That was Thursday morning and Israel called
23:49 and talked to him Thursday afternoon,
23:51 because the president told the headman,
23:53 he says, there's nothing I can do,
23:55 I don't have the money.
23:56 Yeah, just go back and pray.
23:58 Yeah, go pray.
23:59 So the headman went back and prayed
24:02 and that afternoon,
24:03 he was able to call and say, we are gonna open it.
24:07 So this is kind of his reaction.
24:08 Okay.
24:25 So you can see the emotion that he experienced
24:27 while he is thinking about and hearing them tell the story
24:30 of how God moved in the timing,
24:33 you know, he comes and begs Thursday morning,
24:36 prays, Thursday afternoon they get the word that,
24:39 that's gonna be open and the following Tuesday
24:41 we were there in this opening ceremony.
24:44 Okay, here we go.
25:01 I planned to be there in your village.
25:31 So to the glory of God, we pronounce this open.
25:59 Okay, we've just opened the widow school
26:01 and the sewing school here in this village,
26:04 and you can see that
26:06 these ladies are just going to town,
26:07 it's like pent-up desire and energy
26:10 to learn sewing to better their lives,
26:13 have an income provide for their families, their kids.
26:15 So I'm so excited,
26:17 just gives me a lot of joy
26:18 to see these people doing this work.
27:16 What a blessing?
27:17 Yeah, it brings a lot of joy
27:18 back to me just seeing that again.
27:20 Yeah, to see the joy. Yeah.
27:22 And to know it's going to make a difference.
27:24 Yeah.
27:25 And the children will be having regular meal every day,
27:28 they'll be having a meal there.
27:30 Yeah.
27:31 And the ladies will be learning sewing,
27:32 so what a blessing.
27:34 Yeah, and that village will be blessed.
27:35 Yes.
27:37 I would like to invite our viewers to be a part of this
27:40 by praying for these schools
27:41 and for the ones that had to close
27:44 that we could open them again
27:46 and that the blessing will continue.
27:48 If you are impressed to be a part of this financially,
27:51 you can send your tax deductible love gift
27:54 to Jesus for Asia, PO Box 1221,
27:57 Collegedale, Tennessee 37315.
28:01 Call us at 423-413-7321.
28:05 Or check out our website at Jesus4aisa.org.
28:09 May God richly bless you
28:11 until we see you again on Jesus for Asia Now.


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Revised 2016-12-20