The CFAM team in Pakistan is working to reach and serve the forgotten Christian communities and God has led them to the outskirts of the village of Ghaniyaki in the Kasur District of the province of Punjab. Here there is a small community of 25 to 30 Christian families who have become financially enslaved to the Brick Kiln owners. Sadly these families who are already extremely poor have taken corrupt loans from the Brick Kiln owners, often for medicine, food or to pay for a daughter’s marriage, and work at the Brick Kiln to pay off the loans. Unknowingly these families have entered into a contract that can never be paid by the work they do and when they start paying off the loan the Brick Kiln owner simply adds to the debt they owe and the families essentially become slaves to the Brick Kiln owner from generation to generation. As Christians they have very little opportunity are uneducated and often do not even know what they have borrowed and what they pay back, and they have no way to contest these loans causing generations of families into debt to pay off the never ending loans.
Thankfully in the face of much opposition and the threat of extremist persecution the CFAM team has been able to reach this community and is beginning to provide food, Sunday School for the children and the Hope of the Gospel back to this suffering community. Our team is helping Christians, like a man who is diabetic and now has gangrene spreading on his leg which he cannot afford treatment for. This man’s father borrowed 600,000 Rupies (about $5,200.00 Cdn.) and passed away so the owner passed the debt on to his three sons so this man now owes 200,000 Rupies and his work at the Brick Kiln barely pays for his food and insulin so he must fall further in debt or lose his leg.
Even in the face of all this adversity and persecution this community is thirsting for the Gospel of Christ and feeling the love of the Body of Christ. Please help us serve this lost, forgotten and neglected community of Christians.
