Sheeba and Sanjay Verghese are one of our WIN Global Family partners in India. This week, Sheeba passed away following a long battle with illness. Her funeral is today, the 19th December, in New Delhi, India. World In Need has had the privilege of partnering with Sheeba for many years and her passing is a sad time for us, but also one of hope. Sheeba’s hope was always firmly in Jesus Christ, and as such we rejoice in a life lived well, lived for her Lord and for sharing His love to others. Our hearts go out to her dear husband Sanjay and their whole family.
Anne Symons, one of our Sponsorship Team, has known Sheeba over the years and reflects on her wonderful life.
Wife of Sanjay, mother of Mannah and Kevin, eldest of 3 sisters, daughter of Mariamma and Chandy Verghese.
Mariamma and Chandy took their 3 teenage daughters to live amongst Muslims in Kabul, Afghanistan in the 1970s. Here Sheeba learned to speak Pashto and gained a love and passion for sharing the Gospel with others.
Her parents created SPIN, Serving People in Need, affiliated to World in Need International. SPIN is a network of initiatives designed to relieve suffering, ignorance and oppression. It was after Sheeba repeatedly brought home abandoned children from the slums in New Delhi that SPIN and WIN built Ashray Bhavan, Home of Shelter, for boys, in the remote countryside of Haryana State, in Barouli, near Faridabad, a suburb of New Delhi.
The boys were now safe from the ravages and temptations of the city, where they had been abused and abandoned, by their own families and street gangs. They were offered safe shelter, education, and a fresh start to enjoy their childhood and build life skills, with clean fresh air, nutritious food, medical and health care, together with hearing the good news of the Gospel. A small townhouse was rented for girls from the slums, named Asha Bhavan, Home of Hope, where up to 14 girls with a house mother received the same opportunities as the boys, coming together each Sunday at Ashray Bhavan to worship as a community church.
Later an upper storey was added to Ashray Bhavan for the church, a computer suite and multi-purpose skills training areas, leaving two dormitories, office, kitchen, dining room, guest room, and Mariamma and Chandy’s living accommodation downstairs. The girls moved to a purpose-built two-storey home with secure accommodation and access to fresh air in a central courtyard, a few kilometres from the boys. In recent years, as Faridabad swallowed up the countryside and reached Ashray Bhavan, she re-registered Ashray Bhavan as the Ashray Deaf Resource Centre, no longer as a residential home, but a school supporting local deaf children with classes taught by Indian Sign Language teachers.
Sheeba was the driving force of both Ashray and Asha Bhavan. She laid down the foundations and rules of life there. She administered discipline when required, and she and Sanjay set the standard as role model parents and men and women of society. The children in the homes began their day in prayer together. They left each morning after breakfast with a healthy lunch to local schools, returning each afternoon to complete chores and homework, playtime and tv before supper, cooked, served and cleared by one another. Some of the children were given roles of responsibility as drivers, office staff and security guards. Inevitably some were too badly abused and traumatised to attend school but were loved and nurtured in the same way and found appropriate safe paths in their community.
She also took over leadership of SPIN from Chandy when his health declined. She was challenged by this responsibility, but there was no-one else and she proved again to be her father’s daughter, fully capable and equipped. More recently she became National Treasurer of YWCA, Young Women’s Christian Association, empowering women since 1855 and dedicated to developing the leadership and collective power of women and girls in their own lives, in their own communities and in public life.
When the children graduated from school, equipped to enter the world of work, Sheeba provided them with shared rental accommodation, driving licence and a bank account, and Sanjay sought employment opportunities in air conditioning, hotel service and accountancy. She remained in close contact with all the children. Many children took leadership roles in their local churches and are now married and having their own families.
Sheeba was the strongest, bravest woman I have known, full of love and compassion for those less fortunate and rooted in her love for the Lord Jesus. Sanjay was her faithful, right-hand man, quietly providing practical support, advice and finance in the background together with a full-time job. His testimony includes meeting and being blessed by Mother Theresa, aged 14 years, which changed his life forever to serve others.
It was my privilege to share life and fellowship at Ashray Bavan with Mariamma and Chandy and the children, before the city spread and reached them, and also to witness Sheeba at work both at Ashray and Asha Bhavan Homes, and also in Kabul, in 2014, as we visited families together, sponsored by WIN. She gave her time to this outreach, enabling us to engage with the families and truly understand their needs. Her ability to engage with the mothers was humbling to watch, and her love encouraged them to believe in a brighter, educated future for themselves and their children. I will never forget as they handed her their babies to cuddle. We continue to pray that these opportunities will be restored soon to Afghanistan women.
She continued to the end, with her sisters, to care for her mum, Mariamma, living with Dementia. That work in love continues and includes her daughter Mannah.
Sheeba’s legacy will continue with Sanjay, Mannah and Kevin, with whom we give our prayers.
Anne Symons
World In Need Sponsorship Team
If you would like to support the legacy fund set up by Sheeba’s family,
please follow the link here.
