There are moments in a kiln family’s life when words like ‘debt’ and ‘work’ do not cover what is really happening. A parent sits quietly after a long day with nothing left to say. A mother worries through the night about a sick child and money that is not there for medicine. A family that has carried the same burden for years begins to wonder if anyone sees them at all — if God sees them. Heartbreak does not always cry loudly. Sometimes it just goes silent.
That silence is one of the places Rising Stone Mission tries to go, gently, in Kasur. Led on the ground by Pastor Nemat, we visit brick-kiln families bound by debt bondage, we pray with them in their homes, and through prayer we nurture spiritual growth and hope. On Sundays we gather for worship and Sunday school, teaching children and adults alike. We share food where we can, we encourage children into education, we arrange medicines for the sick as far as our small means allow, and as far as possible we seek freedom from kiln debt — the kind of freedom one family found when their Rs 300,000 debt was cleared, and their children could go to school instead of living under that weight.
David wrote words that have comforted God’s people for a very long time: ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ — Psalm 34:18
Close. Not far away, watching from a distance. Not waiting for people to pull themselves together first. Close to the brokenhearted, present with those whose spirit feels crushed. For a family at a kiln, that truth matters in a very practical way. It means their tears are not wasted. It means prayer in a small, dusty home is heard. It means that when we sit with them, we are not bringing God to a place He had forgotten — we are joining Him in a place He already cares about deeply.
We need to be honest, as we try to be in all we publish. Our presence is small, and our help is small in scale today. A visit does not pay a debt. A prayer, on its own, does not fill a plate — though we share food as far as we are able and help with medicines within our little means. What we can do, faithfully, is refuse to let people suffer unseen. We can name their pain truthfully, pray it aloud to a God who is close, and then do the next kind thing in front of us. This is the work we are doing, at a very small scale, and with partners beside us it is the work we will grow — more families visited, more children in school and Sunday school, more freedom, more care.
If your own heart has ever felt crushed, you do not need this explained to you. You know how much it means when someone draws close instead of turning away. Would you draw close, from wherever you are, in prayer this week? Pray for brokenhearted parents in Kasur, for comfort that is real and not just words, for health, for daily food, and for freedom for families still waiting.
And if, while you pray, God moves you to give or to share this mission with your church, please know that you would be standing very close to people who need to know they are not alone — close in prayer, close in kindness, and close in the love of a God who does not keep His distance from the hurting.