“I’m in a place where I know my strength can only come from you, so I lay my life in your hands and commit myself to glorifying your name at all times. I’ve never stopped loving you, and I’m doing my best to be obedient to the call you have put on my life. I’m here ready and open to serve. Please use me to bring your Kingdom on earth. Thank you for always loving me and for never turning your back on me. You are a good father and I will never stop believing that… no matter what Satan throws at me!”
-Rachel Hunt-
This was a prayer that poured out of my heart on August 24th 2008. Ever since my dad died, life has been extremely hard (extremely hard really doesn’t even grasp what I’ve been through). The choice of coming back on the trip has been constantly doubted. Every day that slowly drags by I’ve wondered if this is really where God wants me to be. Was I supposed to stay home with my mother? Because I know for certain that a day does not go by without my thoughts being on my momma. My heart has been wounded and the truth is I’ve wanted to turn my back on God. The questions of, “Why did you let this happen”, “Why did you take a beloved father, son, and daddy?”, “Why when I’ve devoted a year to serve you non stop would you take my papa?”… the questions are endless and there are no answer in sight to put my mind and heart at ease.
I’ve spent 2 months not praying, not reading the Word, and not listening to the Lord (well at least trying not to listen to him). When you are mad at someone, the last thing you want to do is to spend time with them. But for some reason I ended back on this race. I sit here and think, “How did I end back here?” I left my family at home to fend for themselves to go spend 4 more months serving a God who I’m so angry with. Does it make any sense to you?
So I’ve been pondering why I chose to come back. And for some reason I remember when I was home I kept feeling like I was supposed to go back. Don’t ask me why… because the truth is I’m not exactly sure why. I hadn’t been spending time with the Lord, so to hear his voice during such a dry period of my life does not really make sense to me. Here is the dilemma I found myself in: Turn my back on the one thing in my life, God, who is the only purpose I have in my life to keep living, or to walk away from God and try to find someone or something that could fill that void. The truth is that I know there is nothing bigger or greater or more worth serving than God. Although I’m angry at him for what happened, and I don’t understand why he would let my family and I go through all of this, there’s nothing else that I can turn to except for Him. Satan has tried to make me get angry at him, and to stop believing that God is faithful and that he is a good father, and loving, and kind, and caring. And I almost gave into the temptation to believe such lies. But I would rather God get all the glory of a successful victory of a daughter getting through a horrible tragedy than for Satan to have a victory of breaking off a beautiful relationship between a Father (God) and a daughter (me).
So, here I find myself in India. Struggling to get through each day. Trying to truly believing all the above stuff that I had been wrestling to the ground. And here is where I had a break through… nothing really like an epiphany or anything, but a glimpse of the beautiful God that we serve. Like I said at the beginning my prayer was simple… a prayer to be used to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth…
A few days prior to this day I had had a dream that I shared the gospel with my babies at the orphanage (I like to call them my babies, because I have grown to love them all deeply, as if they were my own children). Shortly after this dream we had decided as a team to use our last week with our kids at the orphanage to teach them the gospel, the Holy Spirit, and their sonship and daughtership with God. And I think partially because I had had that dream I asked if I could share the gospel with the Kids on Monday August 25th. And of course my team had no objection so I began to prepare what I was going to share with kids ranging from the ages of 5-14 years old.
On our drive to the orphanage I was not prepared for what was about to happen. I knew that these kids had probably heard the gospel prior to our serving time with them because the orphanage is sponsored by a Baptist church. But as I thought about the parable of the sower I realized that many of these kids more than likely had not had the gospel plant roots in their lives. I myself was 12 years old when I finally became a daughter of God. I had heard the gospel multiple times prior but it was a stirring of the Spirit that Day that made me finally grasp what it meant to become a follower of God.
As I stood up to speak the only truth that I can really claim with 100% assurance, I felt a peace come over me. I knew that at that moment that God was going to use me and was going to speak through me to these kids and that the day was gonna be a day that the kingdom of God was added to.
What I shared with the kids was simple. I showed them that all of us our sinners and that that sin separates us from God. I showed them that without Jesus we have no way to be with God. And I explained to them that all they had to do was to repent, believe and have faith in who Jesus said he was, and to believe that he was the only way to be with God forever. Of course there were lots of verses shared and more said but that would be the short condensed version of what the Lord spoke to me to share with the kids.
After I spoke we had all the kids close their eyes, and I asked them if any of them wanted to become apart of Gods family, and to make the most important decision of their life. About 8 kids and 1 adult raised their hands, so we told the kids to stand up and go out the door and we would talk to them outside. As the few kids got up, others joined them, and we ended up having about 20 kids and 1 adult head to the back. We had the kids who stayed sitting do a craft and myself and 2 of my other team mates (Sarah and Robby) headed to go talk to the kids outside.
I explained to them that what they were doing today was so exciting and that today they would be added to God’s kingdom and would become sons and daughters of God. We didn’t have them say a corporate prayer because we really felt like this was an individual decision that they had to make themselves. So we explained to them again about repenting and asking for forgiveness, and about faith and believing who Jesus is. We had a time of prayer for about 2 or 3 minute and when everyone was done praying you could see Christ is their eyes. It’s so hard to explain to you what I saw in front of me. A transformation had taken place within those few minutes. I no longer was looking into the eyes of children without a father, but now looked into the eyes of 20 something kids who were now daughters and sons of the most high king.
The joy of the Lord was all over us! Smiles were all over the kids faces, and everyone’s eyes were blazing with a new since of life. So, we did a shout of joy together! We jumped up and down and let a joyous yell proceed from our mouths! Haha… it was such a beautiful moment…
After our shouts of joy, we talked about baptism being a step of obedience that they would all need to make a decision about it eventually (policy at the orphanage is for the kids to get baptized at 15).
So, there you go. That’s the story of how God heard the prayer of a daughter (me) to be used to bring the kingdom, and how that same God made it happen!
