GFA Day 31 18 million street children

              It’s hard for me to imagine 18 million of anything. Oh sure we hear about athletes making almost that many dollars per year. But even that is beyond my grasp.  We live comfortably on a very small percentage of that amount. What would I do with $18 million? And even as that seems like a lot of money, would it be enough to deal with the increasingly large number of children on the street. Stats provided by Gospel for Asia suggest that there are 18 million street children in India. I can believe it. In fact this past summer I think they were all hanging out at the entrance to our hotel in Delhi.

                                                                

                For whatever reason, they are alone on the street. And things happen there that rob them of their childhood innocence, if ever they had any. They are sold into slavery: forced labor, and more disgustingly into the sex trade. Some avoid the traffickers, but most of them end up in gangs, they seek relief from their pain through alcohol and drugs. The concept of trust is totally foreign to them, and every day their main goal is to survive yet another day. Another day of darkness and despair. 

                There’s 18 million of them, and that’s just in one country. That $18 million salary seems paltry next to the need. It would be enough to give each of those street children $1.00 a year. Hardly enough to lift them from despair.

                The Apostle James wrote that pure and faultless religion is to care for orphans and widows.  Where is the church? Where is the pure and faultless religion? Who is caring for these “street orphans”? Many of them have parents still living, but they are separated from them. Many girls are abandoned simply because they are girls. In the true sense they are not orphans, but…

                But there is hope. Gospel for Asia has a home for runaways and abandoned children, a home where the children are protected from predators while the staff try to effect reconciliation with the birth family.

Your gift today will help even more children escape their street life, and offer them a chance to succeed.   When you click HERE, you'll be redirected to a page with a 5 minute video explaining the plight of Street Children in Asia. Heart strings will be touched, and hopefully purse strings will be opened!