By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Arpita Bhosale, a 14-year-old student at a Seventh-day Adventist school in western India, lost her father when a truck rear-ended his ox cart.

The force of the impact caused her father, Roasaheb Bhosale, to fly forward, over the two oxen, and onto the road, where he was struck by another vehicle.

The shock of his death resulted in her mother, who is deaf and mute, to go into labor prematurely. Arpita Bhosale was born a month early.

“But God was able to use my father’s death to lead my mother to Jesus,” Bhosale said in an interview at the Alate Seventh-day Adventist School, located about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Kohlapur, a bustling city of more than 1 million people.

Bhosale spent the first few months of her life in the hospital with her mother, Akkatai. Both she and her mother were sickly, at times hovering between life and death.

The grave situation worried the rest of the family. The mother’s brother, Satish, visited the hospital daily.

One Saturday when Satish arrived to encourage his sister, he saw a stranger going from bed to bed, praying with the patients. Satish curiously approached the man and learned that he was an Adventist pastor.

“My uncle was not a Christian,” Bhosale said. “But he was desperate to help my mother, so he asked the Adventist pastor to pray for her.”

The pastor prayed for both the woman and her baby. Satish used sign language to interpret the pastor’s words to his sister.

The pastor visited the mother and baby and prayed for them regularly. The hospitalized pair started to recover.

Amazed, Satish quizzed the pastor about his faith, Bhosale said. After several months of Bible study, both Satish and his sister were baptized. The mother dedicated her daughter to the Lord and, from the time when the child began to talk, taught her to pray at 7 p.m. daily.

“Every day at 7 p.m. I fold my hands and pray no matter where I am,” said Bhosale, now a seventh-grade dormitory student at the Alate Adventist School, one of five projects in India that will receive funds from the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in third quarter 2017. “I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember.”

Bhosale herself was baptized at 13.

“I decided to be baptized because I’ve seen how Jesus has blessed my family through the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” Bhosale said. “I want to follow Jesus because of my mother’s life story. I’ve seen everything that Jesus has done for her.”

A portion of the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in third quarter 2017 will be used to construct a building with at least 16 classrooms for Alate Seventh-day Adventist School, allowing the K-10 school of 260 students to replace dilapidated classrooms and increase enrollment. School principal Manohar Karnad hopes that any overflow from the offering can be used to repair and expand the dormitories, which currently house 35 students and, he says, play a vital role in leading students like Arpita Bhosale to baptism. undefined1Q24 AY.pdf and 1Q24 Children.pdf.