Meet Ruth…
After last month spent in the Malaysian jungle doing a bit of bamboo farming, Team Pneuma was most certainly HUNGRY for a month of relational ministry. Last month in Cambodia, God totally and ABUNDANTLY answered this prayer!!!
The place where Pneuma was staying was in this building that serves as a church, a boy’s dormitory, and a nursery on Sundays for the church service. We resided in the nursery, up two flights of stairs, and were blessed with a month of air conditioning to keep us cool during the hot Cambodian days! Little things like that turn into huge blessings on the race.
The boys that lived at the dormitory were young men who desired to know more about the Word of God, and to live amongst his people. There were english classes, Bible classes, and times for fellowship, all of which became our ministry for the month. And then, there was Ruth.
I met her one of my first days in Cambodia, when I was sitting outside our room playing guitar, near the top of the stairs. She came crawling over to me on her hands. She said hello, and complimented me on my playing… I was taken aback, and desperate for building connections, I was so excited to see her. Her English was perfect, I could tell she studied very hard. I looked at my guitar and asked her, “Do you play?”. After I handed her my guitar, she strummed out a beautiful melody. Instantly, I had a heart connection with this Cambodian sister of mine.
She later told me her story.
Born with Polio, she grew up in a Buddhist family. At a very young age, she had some monks tell her that she was born that way because of sin in her past life. They told her that she was a burden, to family and to society, and that she needed to repent so that she doesn’t come back the same way in her next life.
Who would ever tell anyone such a thing?! LET ALONE A LITTLE CHILD?!
Needless to say, she was devastated.
That is, until she heard a radio program that changed her life forever.
Over the airwaves, she heard the*real* truth of her life: the message of the Gospel. She heard that she was born with a purpose and a plan. She was born to glorify God! She heard the truth: that she was precious, beautiful, and a daughter of the Most High. Her life has meaning, and her Creator, her God, cares deeply about her.
She gave her life to Christ and from that moment forward found a new hope.
I couldn’t believe that a religion I had always thought to be a religion of such peace, (Buddhism) could tell a little girl with Polio such a horrible thing.
I can’t help but think of the passage in John 9:
‘As (Jesus) went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” replied Jesus. “But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life”.
Jesus went on to heal the man.
The man went on to testify of the sight that Christ had given him; he went on to tell everyone, everywhere he went of God’s glory.
There are things we can never understand in this world. Sickness, disease, natural disaster. It *is* true that some of the devastation in the world is caused by sin. Yeah, sin has consequences. There are some things however that just don’t add up, that we can’t understand. There are things in some crazy way that exist simply to give God glory, like the man in this story, and like the life and story of my beautiful, precious friend and sister, Ruth.
Please join me in continuing to pray for her healing! ! !
