thegospeltoindia.com

JYOTI AND OSTOMI SISTERS IN TROUBLE
I met a little girl named Jyoti today. Her name is the word for “light”. She is six years old. She was born in extreme poverty to a tea garden worker family In India. She has a nine year old sister whose name is Ostomi. The name Ostomi means “moon rising”. Despite their beautiful names of light and rising moon, these sisters face a bleak, dark and abusive future without the help of God's people, the Mustard Seed Village and THE LIGHT of the world—Jesus Christ.

I arrived in India on August 25th and then traveled on to our Bible school—The Theophilus Bible Institute. Before leaving the U.S. I had been asked to accept Jyoti and Ostomi into the Robbie Lee Goolsby Children’s Home at the Mustard Seed Village. We have thirty-two children at present and as we complete cottages we want to add twenty more in the coming year.

I had learned of these two children by a new sister in Christ who was converted out of a local Hindu tea garden through the efforts of our school and congregation in Dibrugarh. The new sister knew of Jyoti and Ostomi and the grandmother who was incapable both economically or mentally to care for them. She informed Tifusa Yobin, my administrator at the Theophilus Bible Institute who then informed me of this great need to care for these sisters. Most tea garden workers are Avadasi’s or Dalits and are considered untouchables in India. They are so low and disregarded as to not even be allowed to be a part of the infamous and discriminatory caste system perpetuated by the Hindu religion. The tea garden worker is tied to the tea estates from generation to generation. Their plight is not unlike the relationship of serfs and Lords of the Middle Ages. This “serfdom” is the Khonikhar Tea Garden Estate outside of Dibrugarh Assam, Northeast India. By poverty, ignorance and fear the workers are perpetually tied to this impoverished umbilical cord of economic deprivation and control. But it is the children and in particularly the girl child, who suffers the most.

Jyoti and Ostimo’s father died not long ago with stomach problems—perhaps cancer from the incessant chewing of the “poor man’s tobacco” - betel nut. Betel nut is crushed then mixed with lime and wrapped up in a type of leaf. It is then chewed to give its addict relief until the next craving demands to be fed. The cost of this highly addictive and highly deadly habit is about one rupee (2 cents) per chew. The cost in human life is untold. Jyoti and Ostomi’s mother died two years previous while giving birth to a third child. The child died as well. The two sisters are now living with their paternal grandmother in a filthy, dirt floor, mud walled, one room hut by the side of a trail wandering through similar huts on this large rich man’s tea estate.

On Friday, August 27th, I went to the Tea Garden to hopefully gain custody of the children. Right before arriving I learned that the grandmother had sold Ostomi to a local school teacher for 300 rupees (about six dollars and sixty-five cents). On coming into the village the grandmother ran away and hid somewhere in one of the mud huts. Little Jyoti was brought to me and she was a cute, inquisitive and obviously neglected child. When talked with she was eager to go to the Mustard Seed Village and live with the other children. However without her grandmothers verbal consent in front of witnesses I would not take her with me for fear of charges of kidnapping.

I learned from the villagers that she had tried to reclaim her older granddaughter but the teacher had already sent (OR SOLD) Ostimo to another family in Tinsukia—a town about 45 miles away toward the Mustard Seed Village. Supposedly the police have been informed and they have requested the teacher to bring the child back within one week. I have no knowledge that this is true and the selling of children to domestic child labor is a huge problem and mostly ignored by the local police. Now I fear that Jyoti will be sold by the grandmother. There is a real possibility that Ostimo has been sold to a slave broker who has already moved her to a large city for sale or use in a brothel system. I ask for all of you to pray that these two sisters may come together and live in the Mustard Seed Village. Our prayers are powerful and with them evil cannot stand.

In India there are 60 million child laborers and domestic child labor has been described as a „modern day form of slavery‟ and is, without a doubt, one of the worst forms of labor for children in this land of 65 million unemployed adults.

For seven years I have watched a domesticated servant girl work and wait on a middle class family living across the street from the Northeast Bible Institute in Shillong, India. I have often wondered about her well being. From the outside she seems healthy but always working but on the inside of her soul and in the inside of her owner‟s house I wonder about the conditions under which she is living. Many millions of Indians have and/or desire a domesticated servant to do their bidding. Millions of children are given from poor family members to wealthier ones to be fed and used as servants. This foster care system does not care for the child. Seldom will any be allowed to attend school. Most will work long and hard hours with little or no affection from their “adopted” parents. Most will cry themselves asleep at night and live a life of depression, lack of self worth and a sense of a cruel and unfair world.

Although illegal, 40 million people in India, most of them Dalits, are bonded workers, many working to pay off debts that were incurred generations ago, according to a report by Human Rights Watch published in 1999. These people, 15 million of whom are children, work under slave-like conditions hauling rocks or working in fields or factories for less than one U.S. dollar a day. The family debt will never be paid and that is the intention of such an ungodly system. Over fifty thousand children live in and roam the streets of this country‟s capital— Dehli. Over 10,000 children disappear out of Delhi each year. Most are probably stolen or sold into the domesticated slave trade or the sex brothels of the major cities.

Sometimes I wonder how much good is being done by the small orphanage at the Mustard Seed Village! With millions of exploited children how can the MSV make any difference? But when you go to the Village and see the smiling faces of the children… when you watch them eat their rice until their hunger is satisfied… when you walk them to a small private school and know they eagerly soak up the knowledge of the classroom… when you see them sitting on wooden, backless benches singing about Jesus and Our Father in Heaven with enthusiasm, if not somewhat loud voices… when you walk through the bamboo cottages at night and see them studying quietly on their beds or soundly and contentedly sleeping in their hand-made beds, then…. then you know it does make a difference. We must do so one child at a time. The number of one million begins with one. If we can make a difference for one then with God‟s help one day we will have helped thousands. With the growth of Christian morals, values and the Church in India, one day we will make a difference for millions.

Thank you to all who support the orphans at the Mustard Seed Village. Thank you to all who support our work in India. Your care and support makes a huge difference in the lives of children, widows and the lost millions in India. Above all thanks be to God for the Word, His Grace and His providence as we labor together in India for children like Jyoti and Ostimo.

With our prayers, Jyoti and Ostimo may yet come to live in our Village for children. Let us pray that their names will come to have true meaning. That Jyoti will come to know the light of Jesus. She will experience His compassion, love and real help through His body—the Church. That also Ostomi will experience not only a safe existence under a rising moon but also she will walk in the light of God‟s word and one day dwell in the presence of light forever.

On September first our sister Shakun Dewan, who was badly burned in a kerosene stove explosion, was operated on at Woodland Hospital in Shillong. Extensive surgery was done on her neck and right arm. Hopefully after two months additional surgeries will be done on her left arm and hand. We are wanting to provide functional use of her arms, hand and neck and will not do any cosmetic procedures. I have been visiting her daily and while we cannot speak to each other due to her throat surgery and our language barrier the language of Christian love is apparent. There are three women in this room who have or will have surgery. Every time I go to pray for sister Dewan the other patients desire that I pray for them as well even though they do not understand a word I say. I pray for them that in some way they will live to hear about the real Great Physician— Jesus Christ. Hopefully, Shakun will travel with me by a night train back to Darjeeling and her home of Mirik on September 16th. I know she eagerly waits to see her husband and children. I will bring her back to Shillong in November for the second round of surgeries. The first two surgeries cost 30,000 rupees. This is equal to about $650.00 in American dollars. In the USA this surgery would have been in excess of $50,000.00. Sister Shakun is from a tea garden area in West Bengal. She is considered untouchable and our willingness to help this sister will open the door to many opportunities for evangelism. The nature of Hinduism is not to care about the plight of others since their condition in life is determined by the gods. Hindu’s believe they live thousands of lives and each is predicated upon the last. To interfere in a person’s life is to tempt fate and perhaps cause your next life to be somewhat unpleasant. I speak in generalities because there are many differing beliefs in the idolaters of India.

One of the reasons I am travelling to the Darjeeling area is to spend about four days selecting students from former denominational groups into the new school called Darjeeling Bible Institute. A number of these men were former “pastors” but now after studying the New Testament Church have come into the Lord’s church and are working to bring their congregations into the Church of Christ as taught in the New Testament. This school is located in a large tea garden area in the midst of hundreds of other tea gardens. The opportunities for a restoration movement among thousands of tea garden workers is at hand. At present this school is unfunded and we are stepping out on faith. A congregation could support and/or oversee this work completely for a thousand dollars per month.

At this time and through the month of September I am at the Northeast Bible Institute teach-ing Old Testament History to eighteen first-year students. For the first time we have three sisters in the class also studying along with fifteen men prepar-ing to be evangelist in India.

There is a great need to train the younger sisters in the Bible. In this way they will become strong Bible students, and help-ful Christian mates to their fu-ture husbands. Also they will be able to teach the children, other sisters and people who inquire about their faith.

On October first I will be back at the Mustard Seed Village. Hopefully the rainy season will be over and we can build two addi-tional cottages and complete the Administration building and medical clinic. During this time also I will be teaching the students who will come up from the Theophilus Bible Institute in the area of Bible Hermeneutics. At the end of the course the seniors will take an exit exam covering all two years of study. In addition they must turn in their senior projects which this year is a Bible tract on an assigned topic, translated into their native tongue and ready for printing and distribution. I will conduct graduation for TBI as well as our schools in Jarimpur and Ghandigram on October 16th at the Mustard Seed Village. We will have eighteen men graduate with two year degrees. These men will now return to their villages and other places to preach, become church leaders and be active in evangelism in their areas of life. The children are all doing well at the Mustard Seed Village. They look forward with great anticipation to my arrival and of course small gifts from their adopted parents in the USA. The baby dolls seemed a most delightful gift to them. They hugged and carried them everywhere—even to the church services where they made them sit quietly and listen! The boys really enjoyed their  matchbox cars and were quickly having racing competitions on the porches. The hairbows and barrettes were quickly divided up and the girls wore several of them in their hair at a time. They looked beautiful!

Until next time, may God be with you all.
Garry