Do you know what your name means? Parisudha does! She just recently learned that her name means “one who is holy.” She is nine years old and she heard about Jesus at a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school in southern India.

Pari, as teachers and friends call her, already loves reading Psalms 23, her favorite Bible passage. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me.”

Pari has been walking through her own valley of the shadow of death. Her father, a truck driver, was killed in an accident when she was one and a half years old. A while later her mother abandoned her, leaving Pari in the care of her grandfather.

After the truck crash killed Pari’s father, her grandfather searched for answers, and her aunt told him about Jesus. She was an Adventist, and she told him that Jesus always hears our prayers.

The grandfather, who lives in a small hut, is 82 years old and has poor eyesight. He also has little money to support his granddaughter. At the aunt’s recommendation, he agreed to send Pari to study in the fourth grade at the James Memorial Higher Secondary School. While Pari gets a Christian education, her relatives are helping pay for tuition and other fees.

Pari smiles brightly when she thinks about studying here. She likes living in the girls’ dormitory, although it is an old, run-down building. One hundred girls can fit but they still need more room. This school needs a new dorm so that more girls can come here to study. So the children and faculty are praying for a new and bigger girls’ dorm.

During her time here, Pari has seen several students get baptized, and she tells her grandfather about the baptisms and her new love for Jesus when she visits during vacations.

She knows that Jesus hears her prayers for her grandfather and He can answer them. Pari loves reciting her favorite psalm from memory in the Tamil language...

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“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want, He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”