This past week was a lot of fun for me as we had the opportunity to bless the Church of Nazarene in Bishkek. We helped them do a lot of cleanup work in their back area. We demolished a building, made firewood, organized, moved coal and transported what seemed to be an endless mountain of sand for a children’s play area. We did these jobs faster than they expected which allowed us to do even more work for them in the end. During the day, many of the women stay to work at this church while the men go to their day jobs. As a result, much of the maintenance was put off and my new team had an incredible opportunity to be a huge blessing to this church We were also blessed by them as they gave us rides, fed us lunch and dinner at no cost, and gave us traditional Kyrgyzstani gifts at the end of the week.
During the week we interacted with them, we saw a change in how they perceived us. Instead of focusing on labels and outward appearances, they saw the love of God shine through us. In general, it seemed that the church in Bishkek was more conservative compared to Westernized church. They have very strict rules when it comes to drinking, tattoos, and appearance. This church in particular has either had bad experiences with Westerners or simply has a negative bias towards Westerners believing that they are too liberal in their Christianity. (It was hard to understand with broken english). They came across as judgemental about some of the tattoos on the people of my team and Ben’s long hair and beard.
Despite their misplaced judgements, were kept strong as a team and continued to work hard and show love to these ladies as we spent time with them each day. At the end of the week, the pastor shared with us that she was very happy that we came since she was worried about us at first. She was very happy to see Westerners serving God and said that she felt God’s love through us. God was able to change her perspective through us that she had based on past experiences over outward appearances.
So while we were able to accomplish a lot of physical work, the best work was what the Lord did in changing the hearts of the women in the church. We could have held on to our bitterness and let it stir resentment in our hearts towards them, but we chose to take the hurt and anger to each other and God and continued to work hard and love those ladies with the love that God has for them.
Love for others can break any language barrier there is. We must be ready to love at all times no matter who the person is because we never know the effect that we can have on others. Just as Jesus loved us as we were still sinners, we must love those that at times can be hard to love.
