NnnMinistry this month looks very different then in the past couple of months. My team and I find ourselves with a lot of time on our hands during the day. Malaysians function on a different time schedule then we are accustomed to; scheduled ministry doesn't typically begin until around 6pm, and we don't even have dinner until after 10pm. The malaysians I am told typically don't eat dinner until after 11, and I personally have seen all the shops and restaurants full at almost 1am.
Presented with so much free time, my team and I have decided to find the ministry within the ministry, and seek Gods heart for the area around us in the hours we have free in the mornings. Daily devotionals and prayer walks have given us amazing opportunities to connect with the families who live near us, and give us the chance to share the gospel in a closed and often intimidating country.
Our primary ministry this month however consists of hospital visits. We spend our evenings cooing over sweet babies, and showing love to those forgotten by their families and ignored by the nurses.
When I found out that our ministry was visiting the hospital, I was so excited. Walking up to the first little baby, I was ready to pour out love on her and cover her in prayer. Looking into little Glory's face however I was reminded of another helpless little baby girl fighting for her life, that I hadn't thought about in months.
It was our second night in nepal, and we were just about to start feedback. Running outside and down the little hill I hurried to the bathroom, not wanting to leave my team waiting on me too long. On my walk back up to the house, I saw our host family all standing outside in the kitchen huddled around this couple. It seemed odd to me that they had come over this late at night (it was around ten) so I walked over to see what was going on. There was a man sitting on one of the stools, holding a little girl of about 2. Our translator turned around and told me that the little girl was very sick, and that we needed to pray. Running inside I grabbed the rest of my team, and we began to pray.
I sat down in front of the father and his daughter and began to cry out to God for healing. I begged Him and pleaded with Him to come down and touch this helpless little baby before me. I had seen Him heal many, many people in India, and I yearned to see another healing, only this time one to save the life of His precious daughter.
Nearly an hour passed as we begged God to free his daughter from this sickness. As we prayed the little girl got worse and worse, her mother weeping silently in the background, her father rocking her helplessly before my eyes . The family was extremely poor, and couldn't afford an ambulance or doctor costs, and we lived nearly two hours from the nearest hospital. After confrontation with our pastor, our team gathered together along with the pastors family enough money for the ride to the hospital, and the doctor check up. We then waited for the ambulance, praying even more desperately now, not only for healing, but also that the ambulance would get there in time. The ambulance finally arrived, and we rushed the family into it, our hearts going with them as they drove away down the pothole filled road, toward their last hope.
The baby died that night on the way to the hospital.
My team and i spent a long time talking about her, and about how God has a plan that sometimes we can't understand. Sometimes things happen and we don't know why, but we have to have faith that everything happens for a reason. Everything that happens is part of God master plan.
I stood there on that first day in the hospital looking at Glory and all I could see was the face of the sick baby from months ago. When my team began to pray over her for comfort and healing I couldn't join then. All I could thing was 'what's the point? We prayed for a baby for almost an hour, and she still died. I know that was Gods will, then who am I to say that Gods will is not the same for this little girl before me? Or the little boy in the bed beside her? I can pray for them all day long, but God decides who lives and who dies, and what I pray doesn't matter.'
I am starting to realize however! that I am looking at only a small section of a much bigger picture. You can look at a word for hours and come to a complete understanding of what you think the word is, and what it means, but until you look at the whole sentence, you will never be able to understand the context of the word. In the same way I am looking at the life of a child, and begging for their healing, because that is what I think would be the best possible outcome in that situation. When you take a step back and look at the bigger picture however things look a little different.
In the case of Glory, the baby in the hospital here in Malaysia, she was born to a 14 year old mother who didn't want her. She was then adopted by a Christian woman who already has 14 children, but wanted to give this little girl a better life. Because glory's mother is a Christian, my team and the world race team that lived here before us were invited to come and meet the family, and join them in prayer for precious Glory. Because of Glory having so many visitors come around her and covering her in prayer, the many families in the beds around hers have gotten to whiteness the love of God first hand. In a country where converting people to Christianity is illegal, and in most cases it is dangerous to even proclaim your faith, Glory has been able to spread the love of God like none other. Even though she is sick, God is using her life and story to bring hope to those around her.
In the case of the little girl in Nepal, I had to look a little harder, but could still see the love of God through her life. Her family was Hindu, they had visited many witch doctors searching for a cure for their little girl, before coming for prayer in the last hour. They were lost and desperate, but they finally sought after God. What the received was love. unlike when they called on the witch doctor who asked of them money, and chickens as payment for his spells, our pastor offered them hope, and a way to get to a hospital. When the unthinkable happened to their baby girl, our pastor was right there with them, showering them in sympathy and compassion. Over the next couple of weeks our pastor continued to visit the family and pray for the family and love on their family. He showed them the constant and constant love that God has for his children. Something horrible happened to the baby girl in this family, but in this painful situation God was ale to do good, and show the family a hope that they had rejected and been closed off to thus far.
You see we live in a broken world. God doesn't want us to get sick, he doesn't want us to have to live through the loss of a child. But because we live in a world dominated by sin, horrible things happen. It is when these things happen however we are able to seethe sovernity of God. he takes every bad and terrible thing that happens in this world, and in our lives, and uses it for our good.
God never wanted those babies to be sick, but because we live Ina fallen world they were. We just need to trust him and believe that in everything he is going to make it out for Good. It might not be the good that we are looking for, or the good that we wish to see, but it is without a doubt the best good there could be. It might just be that we have to take a couple steps back, and realize that we are only looking at one word when really we need to be looking at the entire sentence.
