Pastor Susant, Joab’s coworker, with a thankful rice recipient

Dear Friends,

The difficulty of everyday life for the lepers living as the lowest of outcasts on the edges of Hyderabad, India, is beyond our comprehension. Last month, however, they enjoyed a Christmas celebration filled with love, food, gifts and the honoring of our Lord’s birth. This blessing was presented by Heaven’s Family partner Pastor Lohara and his team, and made possible in part by generous gifts to Heaven’s Family’s Lepers Fund. This special outpouring not only blessed them with seasonal goodies, but also buoyed their spirits with the hope of our Savior.

It seemed as though some have forgotten how to smile

Afterwards, Pastor Lohara shared with us these words:

Sixty-six leprosy victims with thirty-four children showed up for the event. They were delighted to see the place decorated and Pastor Susant welcoming them to this special service. The children sang songs before the worship began for the whole congregation. After the service, the remaining time was devoted to fellowship and distribution of gifts we had for them: new clothes, blankets, rice, soap, oil, lintel, bananas and spicy biryani (rice mixed with minced meat) for every one. Children had an extra share of chocolates for them.Thanks for the generosity of Heaven’s Family. You have brought smiles on the faces of these outcast, marginalized, poor and helpless victims.

On left, Pastor Susant gives gifts to some of the lepers’ children, and on right, Pastor Joab distributes clothing to the adults

Heaven’s Family is so pleased to be able to partner with this ministry, and has some very special plans to help the children of these families in the very near future. Be looking for an upcoming article in our magazine about this project. It is exciting to be a part of what the Lord is up to!

In His service with you,

Carole J. Collins
Director, Lepers Fund

Teryl Hebert ministering to Turkana tribespeople

Dear Friends,

I haven’t been blogging during this three-week East Africa trip because we’re intending to focus on some great stories from this trip in our March magazine. Our team of seven, however, has been keeping busy every day, teaching in pastors’ conferences, meeting with our micro-bankers and their borrowers, checking on safe water projects, visiting widows who have benefitted from HF grants and loans, distributing food, giving bicycles to church planters, and preaching the gospel, as in the photo above. Pastor Teryl Hebert, my good friend from Baton Rouge, did a great job preaching to a congregation of Turkana tribespeople who gather under an acacia tree every Sunday morning. After church, we distributed four tons of corn to Turkana believers who are suffering through northern Kenya’s drought.

We’re now in Rwanda. Below are few photos of beautiful Turkana believers. Thanks for your prayers.

David

Some of the persecuted Christians who live in remote villages in northern Laos

Dear Friends,

Laos, a nation that borders Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, is one of the world’s few remaining communist countries. The government runs a campaign against Christians in an attempt to force them to renounce their faith. Although their preferred method of coercion is to use the “stick” (beatings and imprisonment), they have also shrewdly begun to use the “carrot” (bribes of promised food and clothing). In a land of severe shortages and economic hardship, the latter can be hard to resist.

Heaven’s Family has been able to help coworkers in Thailand smuggle rice across the border into Laos for several months now to help feed our hungry brothers and sisters in Christ who have remained faithful. This generosity from their spiritual family abroad has provided a testimony of Jesus’ love to their non-Christian neighbors and the cruel government officials (who have yet to fulfill any of their promises to the few families who took their offer). We’ve also been able to help meet their hunger for spiritual food as well.

At left, life-sustaining rice is unloaded; at right, widows who benefit from Heaven’s Family’s “lifeline”

Twice a day the Khmu Christian Connection, our friends in Thailand, send radio broadcasts to strengthen and encourage our brethren across the border in Laos. They also train Khmu leaders in their Bible college and through teaching seminars. KCC can hardly keep up with their hunger for more instruction and guidance. As one KCC leader says, “The Khmu Christians [in Laos] cry out for our team to visit them and teach them.” Even their children are hungry to know more about the Bible.

Old and young are eager to learn: Bible classes are held across the border in Thailand (left), and in remote villages (right)

Your contributions to the Persecuted Christians Fund are helping to train leaders in 300 underground churches in northern Laos. Thanks to you, a generation of Christian leaders is being fed rice for their bellies and the Word of God for their minds and hearts.

In His service with you,

Carole J. Collins
Director, Persecuted Christians Fund

Men waste away in Munzenze Prison, awaiting some hope before they die

Dear Friends,

Quick question: What do doors, electricity, and mattresses have in common? Answer: They are all comforts most of us take for granted, but which haven’t been in Munzenze prison—a place some call Hell on earth—until very recently.

Located in the Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa and built in the 1950s to house 150 inmates, the crumbling structure now bursts at the seams with over 900 men. They sleep on dirt floors, and the smell of urine and disease is said to almost suffocate visitors. Many inmates are dying.

Simeon Muhunga, a Heaven’s Family partner who ministers in this prison, tells me that the government sporadically issues a small ration of food for the inmates, but if they do not have family or a church to feed them, they slowly starve to death. Besides slow starvation, many suffer from dysentery, malaria, and other fatal diseases.

We believe that this prison is a place where Jesus would go and minister hope, love, healing and salvation to all who would come to Him. That’s why Heaven’s Family is joining with Simeon and his team to minister to the basic needs of these prisoners and bring them the Good News of Jesus Christ, the only one who can truly set them free. Gifts to the Heaven’s Family Prisoners Fund help make this work possible. Our prayer is that many will come to a saving knowledge of our Lord before it is too late.

As director of the Prisoners Fund, I and my wife Carole plan to go to DR Congo next month to visit inside this infamous prison. We will be bringing food and medicine but, most importantly, we will be going in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to bring hope, healing and salvation through his gospel. Please pray that many will be saved.

Thank you so much for your support of “the least of these” in prisons.

Blessings,

Bob Collins
Director, Prisoners Fund

Haquri and her husband, with blankets from Heaven’s Family, are now keeping warm during cold Pakistani nights

Dear Friends,

When Samuel, our ministry partner in Pakistan, sent photos of how Heaven’s Family is helping Pakistani flood victims this winter, I was happy to see a familiar face. Haquri, in the photo above, was the woman who served me and my team some tea when I visited her impoverished settlement, now known as Hope Village, back in September. She’s got a great smile, and it’s not difficult to see the love of the Lord in her face and through her actions.

While winter continues to hold America and Europe in its grip, our spiritual family members in Pakistan are also experiencing their cold season. In many regions summer flood refugees are still living in tents. Temperatures regularly drop below freezing in the most heavily-populated areas, and even in the warmest areas near the coast, temperatures often plunge below 50 degrees at night.

With your help, we’ve sent $20,000 so far to assist Christian families with blankets, food, safe water, and clothing to help sustain them through the winter. There are many more who need our help, and we will continue to do what we can as God provides. Below are some photos to encourage you—because you are making a difference!

Some of the believers in Hope Village who are being sustained through the winter because of your kindness

On left, our ministry partner David distributed blankets in the Quetta area; on right, one of the many blessed with clean, safe water

Please let me urge you to pray earnestly for Pakistan. Millions continue to remain displaced by last summer’s floods, and the nation continues to totter on the brink of social and political disaster. God is their only salvation. Pray that God uses His people in a mighty way to defeat the spiritual forces of darkness that reign there. Thanks for your partnership and compassion.

Because of Him,

Jeff Trotter
Director, Disaster Relief Fund

Dear Friend,

Thank you so much for giving to the Food Fund. Here are a couple stories—written in fairly good English by one of our national missionaries, Khamh Lian Thang—of how your gifts have benefitted very poor believers in the nation of Myanmar. Their photos and short stories below will touch your heart, I’m sure. On their behalf, thanks for your compassion!

The people in this first photo are U Pho Wi and his family. They are a Karen Christian. There are five member in his family and they struggle a lot this year. Since they are new to the community, they were afraid to ask their neighbor for any Christian who would share them food for a couple of days. I arrived there in the right time when
there is no single seed of rice remain in their barn. A full bag of rice we gave them will help them survive at least a month….It will be an unforgettable Christmas for them

The woman in this second photo is a widow, Daw Mary Nu and her son. Her husband died last year. He was a wood cutter and the tree he cuts fell on him and he dies on the spot. She goes home to homes and ask if someone would give her a work and give her some food in return. But unfortunately she was sick for a week and she and her little son ate only one meal a day for a week. When I arrived there, she was not recover yet from her illness. She could barely stand for a photo shoot. Hopefully she will recover soon and the food that we gave her will keep her strong enough to continue her daily routine.

The people in this third photos are Malar Win and her three students. She is a missionary and she trains teens for discipleship program. They run out of food to celebrate Christmas and the food that we gave them will do a very happy momentum Christmas.

The woman and the girl in this fourth photo are Won Khan Daung and her disable daughter. The daily income she has almost goes for her daughter’s medication every day. They have never had a full bag of rice in their life time, she told us. This year’s winter seems to be colder than any, and she said, she now could save the money which she would have spent for food and buy a new blanket for her and her daughter. What a warm winter night they will spend together!

The people in this fifth photo are Eris and her brother and sisters. Their parents died two years ago. They were Roman Catholic before. But when their parents died, they ask their Bishop and Priests for a proper burial and their Priests said that they were busy for Christmas preparation and they wont be able to do a funeral. But a Protestant Pastor, who is a friend of mine did everything for their parents’ funeral and since that day, my friend is using their home for a house meetings to convert Catholics. They are the first family whom I met and speak a pure British English.