There are days in Kasur when the needs in front of us feel bigger than anything we hold in our hands. A brick-kiln family is carrying a debt they did not choose for their children. A parent is tired in a way sleep alone does not fix. A child should be learning in a classroom, and instead the kiln is the place they know best. If we started with our own strength on a morning like that, we would run out before the day had really begun. So we do not start there. We start with prayer.
That is not a nice phrase we put on a poster. It is how Rising Stone Mission tries to live. We are a small Christian mission working among brick-kiln bonded-labor families, led on the ground by Pastor Nemat. Before we talk about food, or schooling, or freedom from debt, we pray — with families in their homes, for parents by name where we know them, for children whose futures matter deeply to God. Through prayer, the mission nurtures spiritual growth. Hearts that have been pressed down for a long time begin to lift their eyes again. That matters, because a family needs more than a change in circumstances. They need hope that can stand up inside them while the circumstances are still hard.
James wrote it plainly, and we hold on to his words: “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” — James 5:16
Powerful does not always mean loud. Sometimes prayer looks very quiet. It is a few people sitting close together, speaking honestly to God about a sick child, an empty kitchen, a debt that will not loosen its grip. Sometimes it is Pastor Nemat praying with a father who has no words left of his own that day. We have written about this before, because it sits at the centre of everything — if you have read how we pray first because these families carry more than we can lift, you will know this is not an extra part of the work. It is the work, underneath all the other work.
From that place of prayer, the rest follows in its own honest order. On Sundays we gather for worship and Sunday school, where Christian teaching builds faith and children hear that they are loved and known. We share food where we can, because prayer and bread belong in the same visit more often than we admit. We help children toward education, we arrange medicines for the sick as far as our small means allow, and as far as possible we work to free families from kiln debt — one family’s Rs 300,000 debt was cleared, and that family now lives free, with their children in school. Prayer did not replace any of that practical love. Prayer is what kept our hands steady while we did it.
We will be honest about our scale, as we always try to be. We are small. Our food does not reach every table we wish it could. Our help with medicines is limited by limited funds. Most families we meet are still waiting for freedom. This is the work we want to do, and by God’s grace it is the work we are doing — today at a very small scale. We say what we do, and we do what we say. When partners stand with us, the work grows. Until then, we keep praying, and we keep showing up.
Would you pray with us this week, not from a distance, but the way James means it — really praying for each other? Pray for kiln parents in Kasur who are carrying worry quietly. Pray for their children, that teaching and schooling would open a different road for them. Pray for Pastor Nemat, for wisdom, protection, and strength to keep going back, day after day.
And if God puts it on your heart to do more than pray from where you are — to partner with this mission and help prayer turn into food, schooling, medicine, and freedom for a family — we would welcome you with grateful hearts. Some people give. Some people pray faithfully every week. In this work, both are needed, and neither one is small.