Pakistan #2 - Intricate Details and Overflowing Abundance
Intricate Details and Overflowing Abundance
By Karen Winkler
First Presbyterian Church, Midland, TX
“Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you” (Psalm 9:10)
Our God is amazing. He is a God of intricate details and overflowing abundance, doing His best work through people with grateful, trusting hearts.
The Outreach Foundation team witnessed this during our day with the Presbyterian Education Board (PEB), Veda Gill and her incredible staff. Veda is remarkable. She is a faithful, bold follower of Christ. God placed a vision and mission on her heart many years ago and there is no force in this world that will turn her from her path. Veda leads PEB, a Christian non-profit organization serving the poorest of the poor for more than 150 years providing quality education to both Christians and Muslims with a special focus on building Christ-like character.
After a brief overview of PEB at its office, Veda and her staff drove us to a village about an hour and a half from Lahore. Martinpur is a Christian village set amongst brick factories and green fields. It is a poor community with great needs. But within the village sits the treasured jewels of PEB’s Boys High School and Girls High School. The schools were nationalized in 1972 and given back to PEB in 1998. They were in deplorable shape and PEB brought them out of rumble to become flourishing Christian schools.
PEB believes that if you educate a child, that education has the ability to shift the paradigm of the family. Teaching a holistic, academic, and single national curriculum, PEB believes it will have the ability to raise up strong Christian leaders in Pakistan to change the future of their country.
Our team had the pleasure of attending the groundbreaking ceremony for a new multipurpose building for the Girls High School. Every detail of the ceremony honored God and His abundant blessings. We were showered with rose petals as we arrived, greeted in English, entertained by lively performances, and shown what everyday life is like in the village through beautifully performed skits. Inside the tent, the choir sang Psalm 136, and prayers were lifted up in thanksgiving. More songs and dances followed. The team was honored with gifts – beautiful cloth stoles were draped over the women’s shoulders and the men were presented with hats! It was pure joy.
Under the afternoon sun, there was a groundbreaking ceremony, and the students turned the first shovel full of dirt to begin the next chapter of Martinpur’s Girls High School. We shared lunch together and heard stories from grateful mothers whose children’s lives have been changed by the education obtained at the school. God has a plan for these students, and He holds them dearly in His hands.
Another abundant blessing from the Lord is the newly opened orphanage on the grounds of the school. Hope Center is the vision of Eliezer, a German missionary, and his family. It is under the umbrella of the PEB, but it raises its own support through donations. The orphanage currently houses 28 boys who have lost either one or both parents and have no other support. They would be uneducated and wandering the streets were it not for Eliezer and his family’s commitment to children and the Lord. It is a little slice of heaven tucked into the corner of the school property and is a flourishing place full of joy and laughter (and badminton)!
There is hope and a future in Pakistan. We witnessed it. God’s abundance is at the heart of all that is being done through PEB and the children of Martinpur. All this brings to my mind the Psalmist’s words, “I will bless her with abundant provisions; her poor will I satisfy with food” (Psalm 132:15)
