"For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men..." Titus 2:11
Mani
“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted
Because they were no more.” Matthew 2:18
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“I have no remembrance of my home, my parents… I was on the streets from my earliest memory. We were a group of children that lived around the Marine Drive… picking, begging.. I don’t know how I reached the streets. Maybe I didn’t have to reach… I was already there from my beginning… maybe.”
This is my friend Mani. He does not know who named him, where or when he was born. He does not know any part of his beginning. At the age of 7 he was picked up by the police and sent to a “Relief Settlement,” a detention center for the wanderers and destitute. He was locked up with men, women, sane and insane, children and the aged. Life there was “difficult… very difficult.” Two years later a Catholic priest came and rescued him and 150 other children and began Sneha Bhavan, The Abode of Love.
Today Mani is a highly educated professional who runs the library at India Bible College and Seminary among other responsibilities. He has also returned to the streets initiating a mission for the rehabilitation of children in the town where he grew up. If you need a miracle in order to believe in God, now you have one.
It would be easy to paint a word picture of Mani. For one, he is always smiling. Second, he is always concerned about you. Third, there is a gentleness, sincerity and grace that is a part of every conversation. He makes you want to be like him. He is intelligent and well read, highly respected and confident. His life is the raw material of movies and books. Remember “Slum Dog Millionaire”? Well, that’s Mani without the cash.
Over 11 million children are living on the streets of India at any one time. Like Mani, most do not know how they got there. In a landmark study by the Indian Government on child abuse, a staggering two thirds of children in India were noted as victims of physical abuse and half are forced to work seven days a week. India has the world’s largest number of sexually abused children with over 50% of children having faced some kind of sexual abuse. A child below the age of 16 years of age is raped every 155th minute. A child below the age of 10 years of age every 13th hour.
Street children and abuse cannot be separated. Statistics are cold but none the less staggering.
- Overall incidence of abuse… 66.8% across India.
- Five million commercial sex workers below the age of 18.
- A half a million new children forced into sex trades every year.
- The world’s highest number of working children in the world, 12 million child laborers.
- The average working day for a child is 12-15 hours and they are paid less than 3 rupees, about 10 cents a day.
There is a story in the book of Mark about a cripple man who had four friends. Most likely he begged for his substance every day because that would be the only way for him to live. They brought him to where Jesus was and tore a hole in the roof because it was the only way to get him noticed. Jesus first forgave the man and then healed him and then sent him walking on his way, not requiring anything of him except to live life freed from his sin and affliction.
There is a wonderful sentence in Mark 2:12 that describes the marvel of what the people saw. They said,
“We never saw anything like that!”
That’s all they could say. We’ve never seen anything like that. Like they were describing an event that takes place so quickly that all you can say is, “you should have been there,” or “there are no words to describe it.”
That is the best description of a life like Mani’s. There are just no adequate words for God’s grace when it heals and sets free.
It is easy to brush off the misery around us by quoting, “the poor you will always have with you.” The problem is that we are called to bring the Kingdom of God to those same poor. The goal is not to solve the overwhelming problems in the world but neither can you ignore them. Instead, the goal is to bring the Kingdom of God… to bring “righteousness, peace and joy,” to every Mani possible.
The orphan.
The widow.
The disenfranchised.
The homeless.
The lonely, despised and rejected masses that Jesus commanded, “YOU give them something to eat!” Matthew 14:16
It is our job to do what we can. It is Jesus’ job to do what we cannot. The two combined usher in the Kingdom of God. And it is the only way for the church to let the Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.
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How can you help?
- Go to India Gospel Outreach at www.indiago.org and help support a slum church.
- Go to Prince of Peace Girls Home at www.princeofpeacegt.com and donate.
- Go to Sneha Bhavan at www.dbsnehabhavan.org and give.
Just do something. Now.
