It’s hard to believe that it has been more than one month since our team returned from India. Reflecting on the trip, so full of experiences, seemed to extend it into the weeks that followed the last plane ride.
We were asked by many from the body of Newberg Friends to go as representatives and researchers, communicating the faith and hope of our people and asking scores of good questions.
This was not a vacation, though we all felt incredibly blessed to take a two-week break from our day-to-day lives. Nor was this a work team, though we were exhausted at the end of each day. Our mission was clear: meet some new friends and gather information and experiences that would help the people of Newberg Friends discern if God is calling us to partner with their ministry to children who are at risk of being sexually exploited.
So, I’d like to introduce you to our new friends, Arun and Shobba Massey. With a Friends background and three master’s degrees between the two of them, they packed up all of their possessions and offered their lives to God and to the poor of central India. In 1997 they moved, with their three-year-old daughter, Melissa, to Dharwad, India, where thousands of women and young girls are dedicated as religious prostitutes (devadasi) in an attempt to appease the goddess Yellama.
After being dedicated, the devadasi travel back to their villages to offer their bodies as agents of sexually charged rituals aimed at protecting the villagers from the wrath and curse of the goddess. It’s a cult that thrives on fear, and millions of people from the lower castes have become slaves to this fear. This lifestyle for the devadasi is incredibly cruel to their bodies and their well-being. By the time they reach their thirties they are so weathered and spent by disease and hardship that they must begin looking to their daughters for income. And because prostitution and fear is all they’ve ever known, their occupational options seem very limited. Most will inevitably follow in their mother’s footsteps shortly after reaching puberty.
Yet in the midst of this painfully broken system you’ll find Christ followers like Arun and Shobba, who are bringing light into a hopeless darkness. Most of the 67 girls that have become the Masseys’ family are the daughters of devadasi and would have found their own lives ravaged by a dedication to Yellama had it not been for Arun and Shobba, their “mama and papa.”
The Masseys do not move about in the shadows of night to kidnap girls, taking them away for a better life. Instead the Masseys go to the devadasi, listen to their stories, love them, earn their trust, and offer their daughters the option they themselves never had. As you can imagine, it takes a hefty amount of trust to give your daughter over to the care of others, especially when your daughter is also your retirement plan. But Arun and Shobba are patient, persistent, and loving. They have another powerfultool of persuasion: the girls who already live with them. Their joyful smiles, healthy bodies, and academic potential become the living proof that the devadasi need to trust.
Besides overseeing Joyful Children’s Home, where these 67 girls live, the Masseys have established (1) a network of house churches in the surrounding villages, (2) a Share and Care program that provides an after-school program six days a week for thousands of children, and (3) a Bible college poised to equip scores of faithful and useful Christian men and women for loving, Christlike service in the villages of central India.
After seeing these ministries with our own eyes and being affected by the beauty and simplicity of their lives and devotion to Jesus, our team would like to make a very bold and impassioned recommendation to the body of Newberg Friends. We recommend that NFC nurture a long-term ministry partnership with the Masseys that is relational, prayerful, and financial.
We envision a ministry partnership that involves so much more than simply having another address to send a check. We envision a ministry partnership that provides opportunity for the people of NFC to know the people of Dharwad so that if Arun and Shobba walked in and sat down in our pews on a Sunday morning, everyone around them would know who they were. We envision a partnership that compels us to fall on our knees in prayer, not once, but consistently; knowing the challenges of their ministry and the spiritual and physical oppression that preys on the poor and defenseless in central India. We envision a partnership that induces the most profound expressions of generosity and self-sacrifice that NFC has ever witnessed.
They are us and we are them. We are all friends of God and creatures fashioned in the image of our creator. Their plight is our plight. Their joy is our joy.
To voice your questions/concerns/approval of this recommendation please type your comments below in the “Leave a Reply” box and click the “Submit Comment” button so that we can hear your thoughts.
It’s exciting to see what God is up to in central India and to explore the possibility of being called by God to bring about “a mighty flood of justice, and an endless river of righteous living” (Amos 5:24 NLT).
Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. -Proverbs 31:8-9
