What are little girls made out of?

            What are little girls made out of?  Sugar and spice and everything nice is what the old rhyme says.  Jesus said “Suffer the little children to come unto me”.  He didn’t say just let the little boys come to me.  Girls were just as important to Jesus as were boys.  Traditionally and still true in some communities and areas of India girls are of no importance and worse yet they are dispensable.  They are a liability and infanticide of girls continues to this day.  New technology has made it even easier to dispose of girl babies before they are even born. 
            This verse written by an 11th class student in an Army School describes the plight of many girls and women in India.

           We have always had and probably always will have more girls than boys in our keeping whether orphans or boarders.  Why?  Because girls are more at risk.  Girls are overlooked for education in favor of boys.  Poor people will keep a boy and give up a girl.  They need their boys for social security.  There is no use for a girl as she will eventually become part of another family. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar-Jharkhand registration of births and deaths is very low.  The government pushes for 100% registration but there is no enforced law that you have to register a birth.  Medical care becomes a luxury for a poor family so girls may be ignored and boys treated though in all fairness some families are so poor they don’t seek medical treatment even for their boys.  There are very few schools in India that offer free education.  Fees have to be paid from kindergarten through higher education as well as books and other supplies have to be purchased.  If anyone in the family is to be educated it will be the oldest boy.
            Christ and the spread of Christianity in India have changed the way girls are treated.  More opportunities, Western influence and a more affluent economy have all helped change the plight of girls.  A recent survey shows that Christians had the lowest illiteracy rate both in rural as well as urban areas.  In comparison over twice as many Hindu and Muslim girls are illiterate.  In rural areas 31% of Christian girls are illiterate compared to 59% for both Hindu and Muslim girls.  In urban areas Christian girls are only 11% illiterate and Hindu girls 73% and Muslim girls 60%.  In Kulpahar Christian School the ratio of children enrolled are Hindu 114, Muslim 36        and Christians 81.  This is one of the main reasons that we began taking in boarders in 2001 in order to increase the number of Christian students.
            Christians who are discriminated against in most areas and walks of life in India know that a good education is important for them to be able to compete at all with the Hindu majority.
We always gave our children every opportunity to get as much education as they had any desire for and were capable of doing.  Now since 2001 we are assisting children from poor Christian families in the States of Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand to have the same opportunity.  Most of these children sent to us through another missionary are from farming families who have a little land and try to scratch out a living for their family.  They live in areas where militant communists terrorize the villagers.  This is a safe place for their little girls to attend school.  Except for their clothes and transportation to and from Kulpahar their education and boarding is free.  Sakshi pictured here is one of those fortunate little girls.  She came as a kindergarten student and now is in fifth grade. She is an intelligent little girl.  Our hope is that she and all the others that we may have in our hostel in the years ahead will be better church leaders, better Christian wives and mothers and better citizens of India because of their time with us.