Lalita is one of several teenage girls in her village in India who has never been to school. It’s common for girls to drop out of school to support their families. There’s also the belief that education is a privilege for males only. In addition, Lalita’s family lived far from the school, so it was too difficult for them to get there.
Lalita and her four sisters work long hours to help the family. They travel to find work, living in makeshift tents as they move from place to place.
“Once I enrolled in the literacy class and started studying, I felt happy and confident,” she says. “I decided to pursue learning and began to think about my future and my family.” Her family was very happy for her when she finished the class. They noticed her behavior changes, and now they want to enroll her sisters.
But even with their daughter’s newfound faith, Lalita’s parents were still skeptical of Christianity until they saw the power of faith firsthand. “When we went to Gujarat for work, my mother fell ill. My father took her to many doctors, but we could not treat her due to lack of money,” she says. “I asked my father if I could pray. I prayed for her and she felt much better. My family believes that God answered my prayer. That incident changed my family’s attitude toward God.”
