Meet the neighbors: The Gupta Family

Meet the Gupta family!

These are some of our dearest friends. We met in the fall of 2021 when Adelaide and Enoch struck up a casual "hello how are you today" conversation. Hema invited Adelaide into their apartment for a few minutes, and later that afternoon they were spending time in our apartment as well. Our friendship with the family has grown greatly over the last 2 years as we have shared our lives together. We regularly share food, tea, and gifts. We go shopping together and have gone on out of town adventures together. We share our work, parenting, and family frustrations with one another. We share parenting values and support each other when the kids can be difficult or frustrating. When Adelaide was pregnant with Ellette, Hema and another lady in the community threw a baby shower. We have also celebrated all of our children's birthday's together.

These are our dear friends and it brings me to tears to write that they are lost.

They are Hindu. In their main bedroom is an altar with several gods on it. They usually have fruit there being offered, and we have had to pull Enoch away from the tempting snacks on several occasions. We see Hema being bound by having to keep up with pleasing her gods lest something should happen to her immediate or distant family members. Ambrish seems apathetic in his faith and is content to let Hema do the "religious things" for the family. The kids realize they are "different" than many other kids and feel  awkward when trying to explain their faith or that they are vegetarian. They are willing, excited even, to attend Christian events (they invited us to go to First Baptist's Christmas special), but it seems their interest is based in novelty, there is no heart searching. Whenever we share our faith with them we see their eyes glaze over and they are quick to say "as long as everyone just believes what they believe, that is okay."

Every night when putting our kids to bed, they are in our prayers. Would you please join us in our prayer that the gospel gets through to this sweet family?

Who are the people that are close to you, yet are lost? It would be very easy for us to turn a blind eye to the fact that the Gupta's are lost. I know it is easy for you to do the same with those around you. Who is that person you see every day that you know is not in good standing with God? Be bold enough to share your faith with them. Even if you do not see "results" per se you are planting a seed that someone else may harvest.

I would love to pray for that person as well! Please let me know how I can be praying for the lost around you.

In Christ,

Daniel Maggard