Love & Compassion Bring Redemption — Gospel for Asia Sisters of Compassion
WILLS POINT, TX — Gospel for Asia (GFA World and affiliates like Gospel for Asia Canada) founded by Dr. K.P. Yohannan — Discussing Prisha and the Gospel for Asia Sisters of Compassion, women missionaries who dedicate their lives to bringing hope and God’s love to the most needy and disenfranchised.
The place was filthy. The people who lived there struggled daily to subsist. Their situation was desperate. They needed help, but it would have to come from someone willing to sacrifice their own comfort to come alongside and provide the relief the disenfranchised needed.
What would motivate someone to do that? Only love and compassion. Love can compel you to go. Compassion will compel you to dwell among them.
That’s what happened after Prisha committed her life to serve Jesus with the Gospel for Asia Sisters of Compassion and volunteer to go to the people in the remote village of Punya Basti.
The people of Punya Basti lived in squalor and the stink of rotting animal carcasses, burning garbage and waste that littered the entire village. Outsiders would do their best to avoid the village because the stench was so onerous. The village had no electricity, no running water and no toilets. Prisha knew this, yet she chose to go there.
When she arrived, the reality exceeded her grimmest expectations. She found naked, hungry children, people covered in filth, mothers preparing meager meals in dirty pots and vessels, and drug and alcohol addiction rampant even among the children. The first drink of water offered to her in Punya Basti was in a glass so dirty that it broke her heart to realize what life was really like in the village.
Yet, when her Sisters of Compassion mentor suggested that she commute from another village where she would be safer, Prisha responded, “I don’t want to live in a different place. I want to stay in the midst of them, in the village, so I can understand their feelings … and they can understand the love we want to show them.”
Prisha’s story is more than one of compassion. It is one of redemption. Compassion is a feeling of empathy. Prisha knew that compassion motivated by love opens a way to redemption. She knew that the people needed to know that someone loved them and that those who loved them cared enough about them to help them learn how to live healthier and more productive lives. Living among them was the first step in demonstrating her love and compassion.
It was not a difficult decision for her to make, but there were times she wondered if it would be one that was difficult to keep. She and the Gospel for Asia Sisters of Compassion who joined her spent their first week in the village fasting and praying for the Lord’s guidance to show them how to build loving relationships with the villagers. They knew that they had to draw close to them in order to build relationships of trust.
As they cleaned the village streets — one of the lowliest of tasks for the lowliest of people in their country — and as they helped women with their daily chores, and as they helped take care of their babies, those relationships began to develop. Eating meals the locals cooked helped as well. Especially the mouthwatering tortoise and mongoose.
The relationships engendered the kind of trust that caused the people to listen to their advice. Prisha and the other Sisters of Compassion taught them how to bathe, brush their teeth, comb their hair and dress neatly and modestly.
Learning these valuable lessons led to the people accepting them as part of the family. As one of the villagers said, “We love them because they love us.”
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