It was a typical Sunday in India; my team attended a local church where we shared two messages and a testimony. This is called a prayer meeting, which is what ministry looks like on a daily basis. We arrived to the church that was just behind our flat and the attendees had already started worshipping. They sang a few songs it was then our time to shine bright like a diamond! The service will then be handed over to my team and we begin with a few songs. Our translator then comes up with us to share our two messages and the testimony. This will go anywhere from one hour to an hour in a half. When we are done with the meeting it is then time to go into the audience and pray over the attendees. It was a very typical day and everyday was going, as it did like any other day.
Until I had the opportunity to pray over a very broken woman and have her wept on my shoulder. Our translator had come over to ask her for specific prayer requests. Her husband had left her and she was preparing her two daughters for marriage. These were all the details I ever got but as I laid my right hand on her to pray for her, she began to weep. As I finished asking the Lord for blessings for her life, she continued to cry. I wasn’t sure what to do and I did what I felt was the most appropriate thing to do, which was to sit with her. It was my opportunity to rub her back, hug her, and finally I embraced her to lay her head on my shoulder. The culture in India is very different and I don’t know if what I was doing was appropriate but I did it anyway. As she laid on my shoulder her tears increased and I had no idea what she was thinking or feeling due to the communication barrier. But in this moment I felt her pain and knew she was hurting.
I still don’t know the full details to this lady’s life or situation but that she is very broken and I had the opportunity to extend love to her. Women are viewed a lot differently in the Indian culture and I may have spent too much time with this lady. I don’t think so because I had the chance to be Jesus to this woman. She remains nameless to me and I will never know her name but I offered her peace even if only for a few minutes. God has given me the gift of feeling others’ pain around me, in ways to comfort and offer peace through Jesus. I ask that you remember this Indian woman in your prayers and ask the Lord to bless her family.
So next time you have the opportunity to reach out to others around you, rather stranger or not, extend Jesus to them. This may be in a prayer, hug, tears, or just your presence. Becoming more Christ like means putting on His characteristics and one of greatest of these is love.
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
Sunset, celebrating a Indian birthday, Team Leo in ministry with our squad leader Patrick, and we made it in the local paper.
