Hope: a feeling of trust; a feeling of expectation; a person or thing that may help or save someone.
Our team has been living in Bangalore, India and we are partnered with an organization called Rise India Ministries. Since being in India we have visited different ministries such as a boarding school for the visually impaired, a training center and home for girls rescued from prostitution, orphanages, nursing homes and have done manual labor at a hospice center for HIV/AIDS patients. Being in India has exposed me to real life pain that I have never experienced and the moment I entered Bangalore I felt the country’s weight of despair and need for hope.
Even though we have seen so much there is one ministry that blows my mind every time I talk about it:
Home of Hope. The name is so simple and yet so weighty.
A man who goes by the name AutoRaja has opened this home for homeless men, women, and children who are sick, dying, and living on the streets of India. They are the people that nobody will assist, touch or love in this culture. AutoRaja shared with us that he was once in prison and it was there that he met the Lord and became a Christian. He now lives to share the same hope that the Gospel has given him with others and the way he does so is inspiring.
The Lord gave him a heart for the sick and the hopeless and a passion to love them. He offers them a roof over their heads, clothes, food, medical attention and most importantly, the hope of the Gospel. AutoRaja told us that Home of Hope is not his house but God’s house, so the ones who come can stay until death. They are given security and community and while it’s heartbreaking to lose them they die with peace, dignity and the love of Jesus.
This ministry started in his home but over the years has grown into something even more incredible and there are now 450 people living there in the men, women and children wings and they will never turn anybody away. The medical attention that many of the residents need is very extensive and some are unbearable to hear about. Many are wounded and infected and while doctors could help them, AutoRaja says that the doctors and nurses there don’t want to touch the patients, “There is no love in the hospital, they wont touch them like we do with Jesus”, he says, which is why AutoRaja and two other nurses take care of the medical needs of all the residents as best as they can. In addition to AutoRaja, and the two nurses, there are 30 volunteers that work at Home of Hope and they tend to the needs of all 450 residents.
Hope is experienced through Jesus and the transforming truth and freedom of the Gospel. AutoRaja is healing the sick, he loves the unlovable and in doing so he is sharing the hope of Jesus Christ.
Please pray for this incredible ministry, for AutoRaja and his team, and for the rescued who are living at Home of Hope. Pray that those who are living there will feel the love of Christ and know where their hope comes from, pray for Home of Hope to receive the adequate supplies and resources so that they can continue giving people a hope and a home.
“We are all chosen by God and we should choose to do more for Him. Jesus lived with the sick and since I live with His Spirit in me, I will do the same.” –AutoRaja
If you would like to see more about the work that AutoRaja and his team are doing at Home of Hope, I would encourage you to check out their website:
http://www.newarkmission.org/thework.asp
