I have found the answer to the question that people have been asking themselves for centuries:
“What the heck is even the point of mosquitoes???”
Let me back up a bit. We’ve been in India for about two months now. It’s been a hectic time, to say the least. We’ve bounced around to three or four separate locations, complete with living and working at schools, interceding, and building relationships with the locals interspersed throughout.
At this present moment, I am sitting in the principal’s office at the school we are living at, in a tiny village in Southern India. If I’m gonna be honest, I’m trying to write this blog in haste because often the wifi will just cut out and that will be it for the day (there’s no other wifi anywhere near where we are located). So I’m racing the clock, haha. We’ve been here close to a month, since right after Christmas. We sleep in a few of the unused classrooms on our sleeping pads with blankets and sleeping bags.
As small as the village is, it is not for lack of noise. Motos, tuk tuks, and trucks are not afraid to use their horns liberally. Dogs bark constantly and will get into fights late at night. Loudest of all, since this community is home to Christians, Hindus, and Muslims, there is usually something religious playing over an intercom. The Christian churches often play drums late into the night, the Hindus play music and sing on speakers, and the Muslim call to prayer takes place five times a day between 5am and 8pm at the Mosque right across the street. India is not a quiet culture, but that is part of the beauty of being here.
What with the volume of the cultural coupled with the noise of living with 30 other people, I’d say I’ve gotten pretty good at tuning the background noise out. Not to toot my own horn or anything 😉 This month, however, there was one particular sound that I did not have a dream of tuning out: mosquitoes.
They plagued me.
At two am, three am, four am, they would buzz in my ear, hovering over me until I waved my hands wildly to bat them away. In my half-awake state, I wondered if they were even real, or if they were a figment of my imagination. A few nights I would sit up and turn on my flashlight, poised and ready to kill. But as soon as the lights came on, they would all disappear. Of course, the moment I turned off my light and laid back down again, the buzzing persisted. I wore my beanie, my hoodie, and pulled my sleeping bag liner and sleeping bag over my ears layering all that I had to block the sound out, but I could still hear them clearly. They were too obnoxious for me to go back to sleep and I was too tired not to. It became a nightly routine, this war against the mosquitoes did, and I’m ashamed to admit that the mosquitoes always won.
Then, it all clicked. I had access to the Almighty God of the Universe. The Creator of heaven and earth and yes, even mosquitoes. Before I lay down to sleep every night, I started to pray that He would keep the mosquitoes away (I have no idea why it took me so long to figure that out, hahaha). And I began to sleep all the way through the night.
A week or so later, I was woken up at about midnight to the sound of buzzing in my ears. Instead of becoming instantly irritated as was my usual reaction, I felt in my heart that this was very intentional. I had prayed before I went to sleep that He would keep the mosquitoes away, and I knew He had been answering my prayers because it had been a while since they had plagued me. So if He let them wake me up, I reasoned it was for a very specific purpose- He wanted to communicate with me! I began to intercede for the people that came to mind. For two hours I prayed, until I felt Him confirm I could go back to sleep. I did so and was not woken up by mosquitoes again that night.
The following evening, I woke up at 2am to that same old buzzing sound. And the first thing I thought of was an idea for a session. As a squad leader, I have the privilege of teaching sessions to the squad when the Lord reveals a truth to me that He wants me to impart. Honestly, speaking to the squad might be one of my favorite parts of the role (I learned this year that one of my spiritual gifts is teaching, so that might be why, lol). At 2am in the morning, I immediately rolled over, opened my phone notes, and began to type. When I had nothing left to say, I went back to sleep. I have not been woken up by mosquitoes since.
The session stayed in my notes for a while. I couldn’t decide if it was worth it to present to the squad. I mulled over how choppy it was, how disconnected and maybe even exaggerated, how maybe it only applied to a few racers and I didn’t want to waste their time with it. I honestly don’t know what compelled me to say that I wanted to give a teaching, as all those thoughts continued to roll around in my head, but as soon as the announcement was made, I knew I had backed myself into a corner.
When the day of the session came, I was filled with dread. As I read through my notes and put some finishing touches on it, a heaviness weighed on me. I doubted the significance of the teaching, if it would be applicable, and if there was any truth in it at all. I regretted the format it was in, how wordy it was, the way I used scripture in it. The dread, the heaviness, the doubt, the fear were all so palpable, I seriously considered calling the session off, right up to the minute before it was scheduled. The only reason I didn’t was to stay true to my word for the racers and for the sake of their day.
I was nervous as I sat in front of them. I had the squad pray over me, felt the peace of the Lord, and (would you know it!) the Spirit took over. When session was over, the dread, heaviness, doubt, and fear left me instantly and didn’t return.
The next morning I found an anonymous note on my bed from one of my racers thanking me for the teaching. She wrote how she was engaged the whole time, how it spoke so clearly to her, and how the Lord used it to reveal a passion she had been pushing to the wayside for a long time. She thanked me for being obedient in sharing the message, for being a truth-teller, and encouraged me by saying that I’m making more of a difference than I know in the lives of the people around me.
This testimony is small, but it spoke volumes to me. Everything inside of me screamed not to give the session. I was fighting so hard leading up to it. But the Lord used every small moment of obedience to knit this story together: I didn’t have to write the idea down in my phone notes when that mosquito woke me up, I didn’t have to give the teaching in the midst of overwhelming dread, and my racer didn’t have to thank me. But because I did what the Lord asked of me and my racer did the same, we were both incredibly encouraged in the Spirit, His truth was spoken, and another piece of His character was revealed.
The Lord is present in the smallest details of life, interweaving every moment together. He does not waste time, resources, or energy. He uses everything.
Even mosquitoes.
I will continue to tune my ear to the hum of His commands to take part in the greater narrative He is writing in my life and the lives of the people around me. I pray you are encouraged by the simplicity of this testimony and are strengthened in your spirit that God is still moving today, in the big things and small things alike.
Thank you for reading!
Until next time,
Diana
