“Jyothi and her parents belong to a poor Ratwa tribe in the Gujurat State of India. They live on the mountain top and depend on natural resources such as flowers and produce to earn their living. Jyothi is an active child and is interested in going to school, but the financial condition of her family is very miserable.”

This is Jyothi’s story, unique in some ways, but also remarkably similar to the stories of 31 other little girls who are living at the Crystal Agape Girls’ Home in India – a recent addition to the Word & Deed sponsorship program. Like Jyothi, all of these girls come from homes of abject poverty. Their parents cannot afford to provide them with nutritious meals on a regular basis, and they also lack the resources to send them to school. Also, many of these girls come from Christian homes and their parents are serving as missionaries in the North where they are in constant danger of persecution. The Home provides these girls with a safe place to stay.

A unique plight of the girls that stay here is the fact that they are girls in a culture that is traditionally oppressive to women. Even in Christian homes, girls are seen to be of a lower social status than the boys of the family. For this reason, rather than spend the resources to send their daughters to school, parents leave the girls at home to tend to cattle and look after domestic chores. This Girls’ Home seeks to offer girls the same opportunities that are available to boys.

The Gilead Agape Home for boys (among others) has been operational since 1982, and it has been no small problem that when the young men graduate they are unable to find educated, Christian wives. As a result, they usually marry women who do not share their faith. This is another key factor in the decision to establish a Christian Girls’ Home in India.

For many of the girls, it was not an easy task to adjust to the Crystal Agape Home, but their house parents “cracked jokes and acted funny to break the ice.” They were counselled and encouraged constantly, and are now enjoying the many benefits of living at the home.

The girls enjoy nutritious meals each day, have all they need to attend school regularly (stationary, books, bag, school uniform), and have a safe place to come home to at the end of the day. A senior student and a new graduate from the Gilead Agape home (a similar school for boys) conducts devotions for the girls. He teaches them praise songs in Gujurathi, tells them Bible stories and encourages them to pray and to learn more about Jesus.

The Crystal Agape Home in India was established as a way of ensuring that girls like Jyothi are provided food, safety and education, but it provides for much more than the physical needs of these girls. It recognizes the worth of each of them as God’s image bearers, and it introduces them to the knowledge that they are “precious in His sight.” In the words of our project partners, as “‘Crystal’ is one of the previous stones in the Bible...we desire that these little girls will one day become like precious stones in the crown of our Lord.”

Can you help by sponsoring one of these children?  Please see the sponsorship page in this issue.