Why is it that God chooses not to heal certain people?
Why is it that women are left empty and abandoned by their husbands simply because they are unable to bare male children?
Why do people spend hours worshiping gods they created with their own hands?
Why do people believe that these gods have power to control any sort of destiny? How is it that some believe it enough to sacrifice their own children?
These are all things I have fought to understand in the short time I have been in Nepal. Our team, along with two others, has been traveling to different villages here. We have been able to share the story of God’s love to people who have never heard it before. The majority of the people here believe in Jesus but they believe He is just one of many other gods. They understand nothing of the love God so desires to give to them.
One night we had the opportunity to go to a children’s home close to Kathmandu called Mother’s Home. When we got there, we sat and played with the children who had been rescued by a woman named Dil Shova Shrestha. Some of these children had been left defenseless on the streets but all were victims of abandonment by one or both of their parents. After a while, we were able to meet this woman and she told us her story.
Many marriages in Nepal are product of arranged marriages. Dil Shova was one of few who married because of love. Her marriage was all that she hoped until they began trying to have children. She tried and tried but she was unable to have a son and, in their religion, it is vital to give birth to one son as it is believed that a deceased father’s soul doesn’t go to heaven without the funeral pyre being lid by his son only. Because of this, her husband left her and their daughter to fend for themselves out of fear that his soul would never find rest.
Dil Shova and her daughter tried to make it on their own. They struggled to survive and out of desperation, they tried to commit suicide twice. After the second attempt, God gave her daughter a vision. He told her to help the fatherless and give rest to the abandoned. It was after this vision that Dil Shova opened up the home given to her by her parents. She welcomed all children who were left without a father. She welcomed women who had been beaten and raped and left naked on the streets. She takes these people in, clothes them, feeds them and shows them love. She devotes her life to making sure the people in her community don’t suffer the way she and her daughter did.
When we showed up to this home, she had tears in her eyes as she told us she was encouraged. She told us that she could keep serving and devoting her life to these people because she knew she wasn’t alone in the fight. All we did was play with the kids she had rescued for a few hours and listen to her story.
Every now and then I have found myself thinking that I am a good person. That I am serving the way Christ would and that I’m devoting my life to it. I think about the minor sacrifices I have made to go on the World Race and think I’m something.
Yes, I miss my family and friends so very much. Yea, there are certain comforts from home I have to live without. Sometimes I get tired of going to ministry; I get tired of having lice in my hair and not being able to take a hot shower. All of these things are so incredibly trivial compared to the concerns this woman faces each and every day. She doesn’t get a day off from ministry. She lives with and provides for the needs of over fifty people every single day. She serves these people relentlessly and selflessly. She doesn’t get to go white water rafting or ride elephants. She doesn’t get to go back to a life of luxury after eleven months.
This is her life. She lives it with complete humility, thanking God that her husband left her. She thanks Him because she knows if he hadn’t, she would still be worshipping him rather than the one true God. If her husband hadn’t left her, she wouldn’t have been able to rescue countless young people and hurting women.
What would happen if we decided to abandon our own selfish desires and genuinely put others needs before our own the way Dil Shova has?
What would happen if we let our heart break for the pain and suffering we see in the world?
What if we stopped waiting for changes to happen and started making them ourselves?
