FROM DAVE HEDDEN... I just wrapped up a wonderful trip to India with our partners at Forgotten Children Worldwide. Each time I go it seems that the Lord has something new, something fresh to show me, and this trip was no different.
While there are MANY things that I could write about, I want to focus on one particular experience that occurred at the tail end of the trip. Matt (founder & executive director of FCW) and I were able to meet 10 HIV+ Devadasi women that our partner & good friend Pastor Solomon ministers to. Devadasi women are only found in southern India & are temple prostitutes. Devadasi women are not selected out of the community; it is an inherited position. If you are a Devadasi, then your mom was a Devadasi, and your daughter will be a Devadasi. These women begin work in the temple at the onset of puberty, with the temple priests being their first clients. From there, these women are used and abused by any man that comes to the temple with a few rupees. Their bodies are degraded with the sole purpose of raising money for the temple. They are not valued for their worth, but for how many rupees they can raise. When the temple is finished with them they kick them to the curb with no regard for their well-being and they move on to the next young girl. In short, it's cultural trafficking.
Pastor Solomon, with support from Forgotten Children Worldwide, has rescued countless girls from this fate. It was so powerful to hear these women who have been outcast by their former religion talk about how they have value because they are made in Christ’s image. How they feel loved because Jesus followers have shown them kindness & mercy with medication & food. How they have hope for their own daughters because their daughters’ paths are now very different from the life of the Devadasi. All of this because of Jesus, the risen, living Christ. If changing the life of the least of these sounds like something you would like to get behind, please visit www.forgottenchildren.org today."
Learn more about International Missions at Crossroads here.
"It was so powerful to hear these women who have been outcast by their former religion talk about how they have value because they are made in Christ’s image." -Dave Hedden
