Tea Plantation Laborers Find Life

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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Tea Plantation Laborers Find Life

Gospel for Asia
For Immediate Release

These tea garden laborers harvest a plantation owner’s crop.

WEST BENGAL, INDIA (ANS) -- A whole village of Dalit (“Untouchable”) laborers was impacted when students from a Gospel for Asia Bible college in West Bengal, India, started visiting them on weekends. This Dalit village is in an area with many tea plantations.

A river flowing from the Himalayas wraps itself around the Toorsa tea plantation, known for its beauty. But the people working in the plantation see a different picture.

Low-caste tribals and Nepalese immigrants make up a task force of low-paid plantation laborers. The desperate circumstances have driven many to alcoholism and drugs. Most of the laborers are illiterate and unable to hold anything but manual labor jobs—if they have a job at all.

But the people working in the plantation see a different picture. The desperate circumstances have driven many to alcoholism and drugs.

In January, GFA Bible college staff and students heard that no one in the village knew Christ, so they started conducting weekend outreaches. Through open-air meetings and door-to-door evangelism, five families received salvation, and now 25 people regularly come to worship services. Many more are also showing interest in the Gospel.

The students ask that you please pray for them and that many more people in this Dalit community would receive Jesus. Also pray that as more lives are transformed by the Gospel, the Lord will deliver the villagers from their addictions and provide for their futures.

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Gospel for Asia is a mission organization involved in evangelism and church planting in Asia's unreached regions. Currently Gospel for Asia supports more than 16,000 church planters in 10 countries.