When 7-year-old Suraj Thakur stopped attending Sunday school, Dr. Mang Shang Hu Dhar began to worry. Dr. Mang, a pediatrician, had started a class for street children at a Hindi church in Shillong, India. Each week she would invite those she saw on her walks to and from the hospital where she worked. Some children washed car windshields or sold newspapers, earning very little for their efforts. Others got into trouble. Nearly all lacked someone who cared.

Suraj and his 9-year-old brother Sanjay had been sent to the streets after their father died of alcohol-related causes and their mother turned to commercial sex work to support the family. She too started drinking heavily and began to abuse the boys. They were often sent away for long periods of time when men showed up at her door.

Dr. Mang had been thinking about the boys who disappeared from her class one night when a particular story on the evening newscast caught her attention. A boy had been taken to the hospital. He had been brutally beaten, and authorities suspected the mother of inflicting a large gash on the child's head. It was Suraj. Dr. Mang rushed to the hospital and convinced police to allow her to bring Suraj and his brother to Iingsara, a group home for troubled children. The home was started with money from Samaritan Helps, a Calcutta-based organization that has partnered with Samaritan's Purse since 1973. The home was established in June 2007 and employs a house mother who cares for eight children, the maximum the tiny house can hold, and brings them to Sunday school each week.

The boys are back in Dr. Mang's class and both have made a commitment to Christ. Their understanding of God's love and forgiveness is deep, Dr. Mang says, even at such young ages.

Suraj returned to the hospital again four months later. While his cuts and bruises have healed, there are still deep emotional scars. He came to the hospital to face the woman who had inflicted wounds on many levels to share with her the love he'd found in Christ.

His mother looked so different this time. She was thin and frail. Tuberculosis had taken away her strength. She could no longer walk and rarely roused when anyone entered her room. She could do nothing more than wait to die.

She did not stir when her sons entered the room. Dr. Mang watched as the brothers went to her bedside and prayed for God to forgive their mother.

"After they prayed, she opened her eyes," Dr. Mang says. "God gave her a chance to speak to them. She asked for forgiveness from the children and asked forgiveness from God."

She died early the next morning.

The boys are still living at the home and have started school this year. Suraj continues to pray for many things, Dr. Mang says, especially the women he believes encouraged his mother to turn to alcohol and commercial sex work. He asks God to help him forgive.

"He prays for them to come to know the Lord," Dr. Mang says. "The Lord really answers his prayers."

Samaritan's Purse , India , Children's Ministry , Learning to Forgive