Eunuchs Coming to Christ in India: "Giving Them a Name Better Than Sons and Daughters"
"We're seeing some significant changes in them personally, and then this desire to begin, in some way, to share their faith with fellow eunuchs and their families."
(India)-Eunuchs are males who are/were castrated for a number of reasons, such as forced celibacy, or to keep their soprano voices, etc. They are mentioned often in the Bible, particularly in respect to their role as guardians of women in a king's palace, and although the Jews did not allow castration, most ancient cultures did. (Map via Operationworld.org)
Surprisingly the practice continues today, where in India alone there are one million eunuchs who, shunned by society, have formed their own community to survive. Many of them, mockingly called "lady boys" are reduced to begging and prostitution.
As such, a ministry called Scriptures in Use (SIU) recently stepped into this spiritual void and is reaching out to the eunuch community.
"We introduce storytelling to cultures that are non-literate, or what we call traditional oral learners," said one SIU worker, noting that the outreach developed out of a conversation with a eunuch on a train which revealed a desperate need for the Gospel.
According to a Mission Network News report, as the workers contemplated doing their outreach, Isaiah 56:3-5 "came to mind, which specifically talks about giving the eunuchs, who keep God's Sabbaths, a memorial and name better than sons and daughters—an everlasting name."
Since then, an SIU "well-wisher" has been established in a eunuch community in Orissa State.
Describing their initial storytelling event which involved 14 eunuchs, the worker said, "For three days we literally shared stories and then asked questions about the stories. At the end of the three days, we finally got to the Gospels. When it was done, all 14 of them accepted the Lord."
