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World Outreach Podcast
World Outreach Podcast
EP 43 Fighting Child Marriage in Southeast Asia: A Story of Hope, Cultural Change, and Divine Purpose
In today's conversation, Indira will share about the challenges of fighting child marriage in Southeast Asia. Inspiring us with stories of hope, cultural change and finding our divine role in the kingdom.
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You're listening to the World Outreach Podcast Dynamic Conversations designed to empower community as we engage underage people groups everywhere. In today's conversation, we're going to be speaking with Indira from Southeast Asia. She's going to share about how her work amongst an underage people group also impacts social realities in that community, particularly in the area of child marriage prevention. So, indira, thanks for joining us on this conversation today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:So I'm excited to talk with you and learn more about how you're using this platform to engage underage people groups. But before we jump into that, would you just tell us about yourself a little bit? Introduce yourself to us.
Speaker 2:My name is Indira Devi. That's, yeah, not really my real name because of the nature of my ministry and where I'm serving, but I'm from Southeast Asia and I have been serving through and with these child marriage prevention programs since 20.
Speaker 1:Okay, so a few years now into this. How did you get involved in this?
Speaker 2:Well, I have been involved in ministries since I was in university, actually, and then I was doing English and outreach program with some friends and missionaries. And then, after I graduated, I work with a faith based, a Christian non-governmental organization that focused on community development and church empowerment, and these experiences have helped to shape the way I see ministry and the way I want to do ministry. And then, after my, this organization closed down all of its work in that country, in the country where I worked in, in 2019. I decided to take a break, to take a sabbatical year, and then that's when I felt the sense of call to return to that particular area, to be doing something more directly, like direct discipleship instead of like through a church or yeah, so I started, so I got that sense of calling in 2020.
Speaker 2:I started an internship program with Jack and Asha from World Outreach for six, seven months and then during that period of time, I visited this one particular area that got brought into my dreams and there was this need. There was this problem of child marriage, and it was during COVID lockdown. The number of child marriage at skyrocketed and it became a need for them to prevent that, and that's something that God had, like God, put in my heart. When I look back through my social media, it's something that I already had passion about since 2016. And so, yeah, it just happened to be that there was a need, there was a calling.
Speaker 1:And okay. So they kind of converged together this, this passion, this area, this need and God's calling bring it together. That's great. And then the internship helped kind of solidify what this might look like for you as you work through it and process it with other people, which is amazing. So why don't you unpack this situation? What do you mean by child marriage and what's taking place in this community that you're working in, sure?
Speaker 2:It's pretty self-explanatory Children are married when they are not supposed to be, because, especially like it looks different in different places. In different places, like sometimes it's children, or a child with an older, like with an adult getting married, but in this particular culture it's among children, between children, and so, and it's very heavily influenced by the culture, unfortunately, because this culture actually encouraged elopement, for so for a 16-year-old boy or a 12-year-old girl who think that they already found the love of their lives, they can just elope and then the culture actually allows them to be married. And it is not encouraged Generally, it's discouraged for a man or for a guy to propose to a girl's family because it's considered impolite to talk about the dowry, to negotiate about price. So it's better to just take the girl away. So that, yeah, that's the whole context of what it is in this culture.
Speaker 1:We don't want to always just go in and change culture for the change of culture. So what are the kind of reasoning or rationale behind wanting to prevent these situations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, the whole it's a good culture and actually, after talking with some like after talking with people who know the culture really well and who come from this culture, they said that in the past it was actually because those who want to get married should ask for permission from their own parents and the parents have to say whether or not. Yeah, of course, we think that you're ready to get married. But now it has changed and they sort of I'm being careful here like abuse the culture to fulfill what they want, instead of like using the culture to protect or to celebrate what's different. And, as an effect or the impact of child marriage is that being emotionally, physically, financially, mentally, unprepared for a marriage, the divorce rate is really high, neglect the children and then like Poor household and stunting.
Speaker 2:It's a big thing in this country and in this specific province where our ministry is I think it's at least a few years ago it's the third highest. It has the third highest stunting case. So yeah, it's, it's not like and yeah, it has this really big impact, not only for the family, not only for the child. You know like they, they cannot continue with school, they cannot get a better job and then they will have to work both of them, and then the children is with grandparents, and then, on the national level as well, it has this bad impact. It's it's a cycle of poverty.
Speaker 1:So it could. It propagates a cycle of poverty, sacrifice, abuse, domestic violence and domestic discord. So, like there's no peace in the house. Cheap kids are neglected, so then that trickles on to the societal impact of a society that now caves in on itself, and this is less stable and not doesn't fit in into the bigger picture of the desire of the nation you know, and dreams of the nation as well, and the future of these kids and the people who are involved in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or just the way it got designed a family or marriage, or, you know, the shalom condition that that was present during the creation.
Speaker 1:Right, ok. So what does it look like for you as you try and address it? What are you, what are you guys doing?
Speaker 2:So back in 2021, what I did is that I because I already knew these communities based on, like my previous work with the previous organization I went to these communities and then I saw the need and then somebody said that they needed help with their children and I said why don't we do some sort of assessment with some key people, some local leaders in the village and with some representative from the teenagers, from the children, so that we know what it is exactly going on and what costs this problem? And then what are the impacts of from that assessment? We were able to formulate some programs that we think will directly impact or non directly impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would that look like exactly, and can you give a specific example?
Speaker 2:So, for example, we asked them what costs like child marriage, and someone said it's because they don't have money to go to school. And because they don't have money to go to school, they just stay at home and they get married. And so we come up with these saving programs. We teach the children about savings, about the motivation of it, the purpose and how to do it. So every week now, whenever we go there and whenever we start the activities it's an after school, non informal activities we would begin by asking them, like anyone wants to come and save their money for the future, for education, for their hobbies. And then, yeah, lots of them are, lots of them are invested in it and their parents have been saying like, oh, in the past they just asked money to buy for snacks, and now they ask money for snacks and for savings Two things and they have been using some of them, a lot of them have been using this money to buy school, like backpack for school or shoes, or just like to buy for gasoline for their transportation to go to school.
Speaker 2:And then another thing that we've been doing is that we have been running English clubs and sport clubs because, based on the assessment people are, people were saying that there was no any positive activities to keep them busy after school or even at the time because of covid Like, yeah, nothing, there was nothing, and so they would run to their phone and they would make friends with people that they didn't know and they would elope, and so by running these activities they will have something positive. But they can also like explore their talents and try something new and think, oh, I actually like this, oh I actually can do this, whereas in at the beginning they would be hesitant to even try something new.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's, that's great when you look at that. From the, you know now the kids are going asking their families for money and various things. What's been the response to the community as a whole, to parents, to village leaders, to, to those types of things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there, I would say there are. There are different responses, reactions, but one is that the first one is that they are very thankful, appreciative and supportive of this initiative and they would like encourage their children or allow their children to come, which is good. And then there's this other side, a different side of response, where, because they know that I'm a believer, I don't announce it, but they ask and, because of my previous organization and work, they already knew and they would be like, initially discourage some people to like or be questioning people that are inviting us to stay with them, like what are you, what are you doing with them? Why are you letting them to stay with you? Or letting your children be taught by her and her friends?
Speaker 2:And then, as time goes by, for example, this one man, he would, he was very skeptical of us, he would tell other adults in the community to not be hanging out closely with us. But then his niece last year went to university in the city and needed a camera to work, like it needed something for her study, and so I had it. I had it and I let her use it, borrow it for her study, and then from then on he was like, oh, she's very kind actually and she's really helpful. And so she told her niece, he told her niece that whatever this, whatever Indira said, do it. Whatever Indira said, do it, follow it, because she's she, she cares for you, she knows what's good. And then and then now he would actually encourage the adults in the community, like from the neighboring community, to actually he would promote this, as opposed to initially he was like standoffish, and so the result is that there's more community by and there's more belief in what you're doing.
Speaker 1:What's been the positive kind of social impact that's been taking place?
Speaker 2:I love seeing how the children just grow in their confidence and character. Yeah well, initially, when I started this, they were all shy. They didn't really believe in themselves, in the sense like, oh, I can't do that. Whenever we try, we wanted to try something new. But now they are becoming more confident. Whenever there are visitors, they will be engaging them in English even now.
Speaker 2:And then they, whenever there's an activity on the village level or in the school level, they'd be like oh, indira, I want to do this, can you help me? Can you help me? How do I do this? So they are more proactive instead of like being passive. And then other things is that, like the village is even more aware and supportive of child protection, of the development of their child, and so those are positive impacts of this. And one teenager who wanted to go for universities is the eldest in the family and they're from very vulnerable, poor family. She wanted to go to university. She didn't have the money, the family couldn't have the money, and so, because of the connections that I have, somebody wanted to support her and she's now fully supported. She just needs to go to school.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's fantastic. So you're seeing a shift in people's self-belief and the children's self-belief and their confidence to be able to do things. The community is seeing a positive spin of like positive ambition or desires and dreams of their children coming about, and seeing the other side of that is also their own willingness to invest in their children. That would have maybe not been there. Maybe you've helped create an environment of hope versus just a I'll just get older, I'll become a teenager, get married because there's no other options, and so that's really exciting to see that. How has that shift in kind of perspective as a community brought about? What other types of changes has that brought around in people's lives in that as well?
Speaker 2:I would like to add that a lot of children have actually come to me and said Indira, I will not get married young, I want to pursue my dream I believe in, yeah, yeah, I want to explore more about the world and I want to experience a lot of things. And then the parents are becoming supportive of that as well, like other things that we see. Not only that another example is that these two teenagers they found a missing, like. They found a phone, a hand phone, on the way back from school and they saw the phone, like on the side of the street. They picked it up and thought, oh, I'd like this one. This is a newer phone and they didn't know what to do about it at the time. And then they brought it home. One of them brought it to her elder brother who, without hesitant, said just take it as yours, take out the numbers, throw it away and take it as yours, reset everything and make it yours.
Speaker 2:And that has been the norm in this culture, because I know someone, an adult, who found a phone and didn't even give it a chance like a day wait for someone to call it, but just reset everything and make it made it his.
Speaker 2:But then they came to me. After they took out the number, they were still not sure. And they came to me and they asked me what to do, and I told him what he saw, masi, what Jesus Christ teaches in the Bible, and that is, treat others the way you want to be treated. And if it was your phone, what would you want people to do? Oh, we, of course, want them to return it back to us and so, building up from there, teaching them the truth and teaching them that blessing is not always in the form of things, but also in the form of how you grow to become someone who is a man of integrity, someone who believes and also apply the truth. Finally, they decided to return it and the blessings that they got was the joy, the joy of doing the right thing and becoming this man of integrity, and that's the highlight for me, that's a positive impact and that becomes a way to share even more of the gospel with the older children and their family.
Speaker 1:Right. So that does a great transition, because we were going to move into this idea of what does it look like to bring the gospel when you have kind of two things taking place. You have a social thing where you're trying to really impact positively the social thing, but then also beyond that, you also have a desire and hope for them to come to know Jesus or Islam. I see, in this case, tell me about that how do you balance those two out and what's been your experience with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, my experience with it is that I don't necessarily see it as two different things. It's not a social program and then spiritual gospel. It's one thing. It's very I can't really say. This is during the day, this is what I do, but not this is what I do, although that looks that way. But it's one thing. It's like a coin with two sides.
Speaker 2:It's what Jesus did. He teaches the truth he had the sermons on the mountain but he also feeds. He fed these people. He taught the truth, but he also healed these people. He tried with them, he spent time with them. And that's how I see this ministry is that we go because we love people and they have needs, and they have physical, social, mental, emotional, spiritual needs. It's all together in them.
Speaker 2:And the way we do it is that we go and this is the need that we see. And actually, child marriage prevention routes. One of the routes is to believe that they don't have hope for the future and that they are not created for bigger purpose, something higher. And so, yeah, that's so we do Whenever we go to the village it's. We think it is important to spend time with people, because that's what Jesus did.
Speaker 2:He lived with the disciples. He walked with people, he spent time at people's house, he had dinner with people, and so we go and we deliberately spend two nights, three days and two nights. Because it's far. One because it's far from where we live, the city, and so, and also because we want to have intentional time with families, with children, and then, as we talk, we would engage them in spiritual conversations. If we see that they have a need, we would pray for them, we would command healing, we would help them to go to the hospital if needed, and then we would share our testimonies and see if they are open to it. And whoever invites us to spend the night at their place, we would go and you know, like Jesus sent, yeah, exactly, and then we would stay there. We would stay there, we would greet them and whoever received that greeting, we would stay with them and we would do Bible study with them.
Speaker 1:Because it's integrated and it's not denied from the very beginning. This is who I am, or this is who my team is. You're not. It's not abating switch. You're not giving them one thing and then switching something else, but this is the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's really awesome. Why don't you share some of, maybe a testimony of, some of the things that you've seen Jesus do in people's lives there and their families' lives?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 2:So remember about the teenage girl who wanted to go for university but didn't have like money. So we had been studying with this family, so this family had been studying the Bible with us in a big group like 11 people, and so at the time we were already. We usually go from the Old Testament just to build the foundation, and we were already in the story of Jesus. Now we are in the New Testament, and then we were studying the story of how Peter caught lots of fish, whereas that night he couldn't get anything. He caught a lot by listening to what Jesus said. And so at the end of that study, we asked everyone, like, what sort of miracles do you need now from God? What are situations in your life that need miracle? And this family, the father, said that yeah, my daughter wants to go to university, but we had no money. And da, da, da. And so we prayed, we said, well, with our own effort we can't. It's seemingly impossible. It's like Peter all night long. But if we ask to Jesus in his way, he will provide. And then, like, about a month after that, I got the money, the exact money that this daughter needs and that helped to solidify their faith.
Speaker 2:And this man, the head of the family. A few months before that, we were already having that Bible study group and then he asked for the Bible for himself and he began reading the New Testament. So when I started this ministry, I visited his family back in 2021. He didn't believe that Jesus died on the cross. He said he like, yeah, the, his religion taught him that he was lifted up to heaven and he will come back later, later, at the end of the day, the end of the world. And so when I presented him with the gospel at the time, back in 2021, he didn't believe.
Speaker 2:But then, after we went through this Bible study together and then he asked for his own Bible to read. He read it and then he wept at the part where Jesus said I am in you and you are in me. I think it's from John 15. And then when I asked him, well, in the past you said you didn't believe. And now that you fretted, what do you think? And he said, oh, I believe it. This is written by those who are around him at the time. And then, even after he first read the Bible, he had a dream, and in that dream, the Bible, just like the papers from inside the Bible flew out and sort of like covered his house and he felt peaceful about it. And so, yeah, this experience with his daughter helped to solidify that God actually cares. Jesus actually cares about his family, even when it comes to this. You know things that seemingly worldly.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Education.
Speaker 1:I think God still is concerned for him and his family and will provide ways for him. That's amazing to see the journey of faith of people as well how that plays out and how this opportunity comes together to create opportunities for spiritual conversations, which I love, that idea that you talked about, Like we don't deny who we are, but we're also intentionally looking for ways to create spiritual conversation and see are people open or are they not?
Speaker 1:And if they're open, let's continue the conversation. If they're not, we'll respect them and move on just like in Luke 10,.
Speaker 2:You know just kind of moving on.
Speaker 1:That's really fantastic. What have you learned personally through this journey of walking through God, of starting a ministry bringing social change, bringing spiritual change to people's lives? What have you been learning?
Speaker 2:Personally. Well, I was coming from a very like nobody in my family. I served as missionary, so this is new for my family, like even for me, and I have come to learn that when God calls, he equips, he empowers, he prepares and he leads. And if you're okay, I'm going to share another story.
Speaker 1:Please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so last year well, yeah, two years ago I expanded. So we started with one community and then the neighboring community asked us to also minister to their children. So we expanded to two communities now, and then in the second group of children, one of the children had been asking me and my team to actually spend the night at her house. But because we were focusing so much on the first community, because there were already people that we were discipling, we kept on postponing her until sometime last year we decided okay, we are going to spend a night at her place because one of her, like her neighbor, is someone who had been also asking us to stop by and we were able to pray for him. He was not in good condition, so we'll make that excuse Like we will spend the night at her so that we could visit this family, because they were not offering us to spend the night at their place.
Speaker 2:And so we, on our first night there, we found out that the father of this girl had seen Jesus' movie 20 years ago but couldn't make sense of it. But it stayed in his mind and his wife and in his wife's mind, and so after a month or two of discipleship they came to faith. The husband came to faith. We baptized him. The wife came to faith, he baptized her and now the husband has been reaching out to the neighbor Amazing.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:And that comes from this child that had we ignored her request, which we did initially, it wouldn't have, like we wouldn't have met this family. And initially I was also skeptical because they spoke. They didn't seem to be able to speak very well and I'm just learning to speak. I'm still in the process of learning the local language. So, yeah, it's just, it's a big lesson for me that God is preparing, has already preparing people for us to minister to and all that we need to do is to obey. And also it's like that first inefficient to chapter 10 that we are God's workmanship.
Speaker 1:Create an image to do the work to do the work to do good work.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that I've learned is that I've had this passion since 2016, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was involved with other organization and that was not their focus really, but it's still. It's something in me, it's something that God created in me or put in me for this good work, and it is my, it is my part to pay attention to whatever good work around me, to whatever needs around me, so that God can meet them, god can answer them and connect that passion he has put in my heart with whatever is around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. That's a great lesson as well. I was struck by the innocence of God working in small situations. That then, grow into something else. And even Paul's words, where he says one might water, the other might plant, and one waters, but God is the one that actually causes the growth.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and we were actually teaming with God and we're teaming with other people, in this case this young girl who brought something forward, and just how important that is. Are we on the lookout? Are spiritual antennas up to what is God doing and calling? What other lessons have you kind of learned in this process?
Speaker 2:As a body of Christ, we need each other. Well, initially I did it. I started it with God, on my own, meaning that I went there alone, of course, with the supports of lots of other people. But as the time went by, the ministry grew because the needs are high. There are lots of needs and I couldn't. I learned that I couldn't do it on my own. I needed others. I'm maybe the hen and I need feet and I need ears, I need mouth, and that's something that I've come to realize. Okay, this is something bigger. God's work, God's calling is big and we need lots of people. We need each other to work toward the same goal, yeah, and be prayerful about, of course, people that we are ministering but serving, but also people that we are ministering with. Serving with is important, and that's something that I've come to realize is important in learning about.
Speaker 1:That's good, because it is bigger than us. I often talk about missions being a team sport. We all have different roles to play, but each one's vital in doing it. Excuse me, otherwise it doesn't happen if we try and do it on our own. It's just too great of a task, as you've worked and you've grown a team now, and it's a culturally diverse team. How has that impacted your work, like some pros and some cons and some of the challenges that you've had to work through, but to what end?
Speaker 2:With more people in the team, of course, we can do more things. Initially I was only doing value lessons with children, but now that I had more people in the team I was able to do sports activity and now that I have someone who is a nurse, this friend is able to help immediate needs of sick people. We pray for people, we take them to the hospital, we come back healing and that's been helpful to just be meeting more people and have more possibilities of meeting those who are ready to follow. The challenges is that more head, more ideas, and that's inevitable. I think that makes it rich, but also it's slow-steering down. I'm noticing that I was not, as when I was on my own, I could just decide this is what I'm going to do today, but now with the team. Communication is important, agile is important. We need a sort of structure, some type of structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, but the benefit is that you have a greater impact into actually seeing what you want to see fulfilled as well.
Speaker 2:I think we go lower, but more in a directed intentional path. Intentional, yeah, purpose.
Speaker 1:That's good. When you look back over this journey, what have been some of the key highlights or lessons that you've learned? That think oh, if I could encourage other people in what God's calling them to do, what would you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it goes back to that.
Speaker 2:I would encourage people to be more aware of the things that move your heart this is something that moved my heart, like girls, children, and that probably has something to do with the story of my life and so be aware of how God is using our life and the things that he put in our heart to actually reach out.
Speaker 2:There is this great need in this world, and it's often like even social needs or physical needs. It's often very closely related to spiritual needs. They need Jesus, yes, but often we can't always go right there, and then it may manifest in like children getting married or in poverty, in not knowing how to steward the things that you've been given. It's all very closely related spiritually, and so I would love to encourage everyone to pay attention, to be aware of where God is calling and the skills and talent that he has given you. It's not for just you, it's for other people as well. It's for the kingdom of God To bring, to use that for God's kingdom and to be aware of the needs of the world, and that's very, almost always very closely related to spiritual.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good and it's so important that what you just said is so. It's really powerful, and I think people need to sit back and reflect on that and even pause and re-listen to that, because it's the truth. God's moving in our hearts. He's equipped at each one of his skills. He's calling us, each one, to make an impact in the world that we live in and, oftentimes, the people that we need more. Jesus is the answer, but that answer can come through different avenues to reveal.
Speaker 1:Jesus to reveal himself fully to people. So I think that's so good. Let's wrap this conversation up there with this idea that we all have a place, we all have a calling. God is stirring in our lives, and whether that's child marriage, or whether that's poverty alleviation, or whether that's a completely, you know pastoring a church, we can all do this to the glory of God.
Speaker 1:or running our business and stewarding resources to the glory of God. So, listener, I hope that you found this conversation inspiring, encouraging to consider. What is God calling you to? What gifts has he given you to steward and to use for being a blessing to your community and for his kingdom purposes? So thanks for tuning in. If you have any comments or questions on this podcast, you can email me the email is in the description and always feel free to share this with those who might find it interesting and be benefited from listening to it. Thank you and God bless.