There are moments in my life that I remember in vivid colors and sounds.
There are seasons which shape the ones that follow.
There are people who impact you so profoundly that you cannot, WILL NOT be the same.
In the four months that I have been on the World Race, God has showed me the value and importance of the latter category. In his book Radical, David Platt puts is this way, “Jesus has not given us an effortless, step by step formula for impacting nations for his glory. He has given us people…”
In the redemptive plan of Christ, God uses people. He uses believers to strengthen and challenge other believers, he uses the lost to wake up the “found” (see Old Testament), he uses the found to wake up the lost (Matthew 28:19)…
People.
Flawed.
Imperfect.
Fragile vessels of clay containing gems of great value.
So this is my attempt to bring their stories to you.
These are faces of the Race.
MALAYSIA
We arrived to our first ministry site after some seriously long travel days (see Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). Six women stepped of a bus trusting that the scrap of paper our contact handed us had communicated the correct drop off point to our non-English speaking bus driver. All we knew was Kuala Krai, near 7-11.
Near 7-11. How promising.
It’s 4:00am on Thursday morning. Locals are shouting at the futbol game playing on an outdoor restaurant’s projector screen. We cross the street and wait at the 7-11. Brittani reaches the Pastor once she is able to purchase minutes for her phone. He tells her he will be there as quickly as possible.
Accustomed to waiting, we were surprised when he showed up just minutes later. He is alert as ever after being awakened in the middle of the night and he instantly begins briefing us on ministry.
The next morning, he took us to brunch. He notified us of his presence by honking the horn loudly (something we would become quite used to over the next 10 days). As we sat there forcing curry down at 10am, we got a slightly less jet-lagged look at this man. He struggled a little to stand up and sit down. But never once does he complain. He wore thick glasses. Dark, raised scars lined sections of his skin.
This man intrigued me and I wanted to know more of his story.
“Wednesday night,” he told me.
As I mentioned in my last blog, we had one very full week of ministry here! His motto was go go go! At times, we got frustrated because our “rights” were not being acknowledged. The “right” to sleep, the “right” to say no, the “right” to eat what we wanted…
We would grumble into the sweatbox.
“Did you have a good rest?” he would ask.
“Good, but not long enough” or “not really” were frequent responses on our end.
He would then tell us how he had set his alarm for a normal hour, but the Lord woke him at 4, so he stayed up and prayed. Keep in mind, we rarely get home from ministry before midnight…
“You need sleep!” we’d say.
“The Lord will give me strength.”
This response didn’t endear him to us, it frustrated us. Because if he didn’t sleep, we didn’t sleep. It’s amazing how even being on a missions trip you can find yourself allotting sections of time to ministry, not your entire self.
The more time that we spent with him, the more I began to LOVE these things about him. This demanding nature he had when it came to ministry was really just a sense of urgency.
This man truly loves God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength! He depends on him for it.
Finally, Wednesday came. He picked us up at 9:30pm and took us to the land that his church is going to be built on. After warning us about the wild boars that might come down from the hills and instructing us in the proper protocol should this occur, we laid a large tarp on the earth and sat underneath the stars.
After some worship and prayer, he began to tell us his story.
His parents moved to Malaysia from India. His father was a drunk and sometimes he would chase Pastor and his siblings out of the house. On those nights, they would have to sleep in the jungle where you would see “eleven snakes in ten minutes”.
They began growing and selling vegetables in order to support themselves in ways their parents weren’t. He recalled going door to door to beg for food or eating scraps that were thrown out for animals.
He grew up in a “Christian” family, but he felt without hope, joy or peace. His 17th birthday was nearing and he decided we was going to end his life unless God gave him some revelation of purpose.
He was sick with grief and fear as the day edged on with nothing. Finally, God gave him a vision of a village hut held up by wooden pillars. The names of his family members were inscribed on each one. The one bearing his name was pulled out and as he watched, the whole thing toppled. God spoke to him and said “if you go now, your whole family will be lost.” So he chose to live. Soon after, God called him into the ministry (Oh, and each one of his siblings are in the ministry now!).
Then a series of tests came. People would approach him and threaten him not to share the Gospel, but he stood his ground and the Lord protected him. One day a group of men approached him. They were angry because a friend of theirs had given his life to Jesus and he no longer lived like they did. So they began to violently attack Pastor. Fifteen men beating, kicking, bludgeoning…and then they left him in a remote, dense thicket of jungle, bleeding, leg bones shattered from the beating. Miraculously, a train found him and took him into town for some help. He never could find the person that rescued him.
The police came to the hospital asking for names of the attackers and though he knew, he remained silent. He said he must forgive as Jesus forgave. The lawman called him crazy and left. Church officials came to visit and left the same way. But three days after it all happened, the very men who had nearly killed him came, weeping, and begged for forgiveness.
He left the hospital and continued to minister, full of vitality despite these new physical limitations. Some years later, he was doing ministry that required him to travel a lot. One day as he was traveling to preach, his motorbike was struck by a car full of young people (who shouldn’t even have been driving). His leg bones were once more shattered. He has no ankle on one side, tons of pain, and a lack of mobility ( he used to be a runner).
But this man is IN LOVE with Jesus Christ. He gives and gives. Every time he says something about how much we’ve sacrificed to serve the Lord, I’m nearly brought to tears! It’s so humbling! We’ve suffered nothing near the things he has! We pat ourselves on the back for “surviving” without internet, Starbucks, and running water.
This is just a portion of his story. To this day, people make threats against his ministry, but like Paul, this guy would preach in prison. The Word of God is a fire in his bones that cannot be contained. He lives his life with an acute awareness that people need Jesus. And as one who knows, he goes. Everything he does is centered around bringing the kingdom.
He and his lovely wife teach, take children into their home, run a missions centre, go door to door…The schedule we could barely handle for a week, they live every day. I want that passion! I know it’s a risky prayer, but I pray it with everything in me.
Revelation 12:11
“And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.”
