JFA Evening SchOOls

MINISTRY: JFA Evening Schools

LOCATION: India

TYPE OF MINISTRY: Schools

WHO IS BEING HELPED: Indian Children

MISSIONARIES INVOLVED: Various

JFA Evening Schools provide education and nourishing meals for children in poverty-stricken situations. These tutoring centers operate in the evenings and are a much-needed resource to help these children gain a better education and fight the ever-present challenge of malnutrition.

$7/month is all it takes to provide two hours of education and a healthy meal six days a week to a child at our evening schools!

Every poor child growing up in India faces two main predators: hunger & lack of education. Jesus for Asia currently has 51 evening schools operating in India, which serve an average of 2,000 kids per night. We estimate we have served more than two million meals since the program began in 2007!

Millions of children in India do not get adequate nutrition and education, and we do all we can to help as many as possible.

SAVING A STARFISH

This story is a good reminder that we must do all we can, even if we impact only a few:

A father and son were walking down the beach after a large storm had stranded thousands and thousands of starfish on the beach where they would dry out and die. The son started picking one up after another and began throwing them back into the ocean.

His father looked at him and said, “Son, you can’t throw all those starfish back into the ocean. It’s impossible! You’re not making any difference at all to these thousands of poor creatures.”

His son paused, looked at the starfish he had in his hand, and said, “Yeah, but to this one, I will make all the difference in the world.”

TESTIMONY FROM EVENING SCHOOL

Subash and his brother grew up in a very poor family. Both of their parents were without work, and their family often lacked enough food. After the brothers started attending the evening school, they began sharing everything they learned with their parents. The school’s care for her family won the mother’s heart so much that she decided to attend church with her boys. Then, the father joined them after God answered Subash’s prayer for him to get a good job. Now, the entire family is baptized.

HISTORY OF JESUS FOR ASIA EVENING SCHOOLS

While Israel Prasad, our Jesus for Asia India director, was working as a Bible Worker, he entered a particularly dirty village. He noticed that there were lots of children running around him. They were undisciplined, dirty, and poorly clothed.

He learned that sometimes, these children didn’t get even one meal in a day. For some of them, it was because their fathers used their wages for alcohol instead of feeding their families. Many parents wanted to take good care of their children, but they simply couldn’t make enough money.

Israel was burdened by the devastating condition that these children were in. He felt God impressing upon his heart that he needed to start evening schools for them. When Israel told Jon Wood what God had impressed him to do, Jon said to him that God was impressing him with the same thing. From that moment, Jesus for Asia began to plan to establish the first evening school.