Faith Day is a day when we leave everything at home (no cell phone, no money, etc.) and go where God is telling us. We make no plans for transportation or food and just go. It is modeled after Matthew 10:5-10 and we try to stick to that as closely as possible. I’ve heard about other teams doing Faith Day and read blogs about it, but this was my first experience. I was a little nervous about how God was going to supply everything for us, but I was excited and encouraged from the other stories I had heard.
My team spent time in prayer that morning and listened to where God wanted each of us to go. I felt God telling me to go to a school that was close to where we were staying and also felt like He was giving me the color red. I paired up with Kristine for the day and she heard God say “sit and listen” and the color blue. So around 10:30 we headed out for the school. The first thing we see as we’re getting closer is the school uniforms. The students were all wearing white button up shirts, blue pants, and red and blue ties. Red and blue ties! This would be the first time God blew my mind that day.
When we got to the school, we didn’t really know what to do. We noticed it was an all boys school so we couldn’t figure out why God wanted us to come here. We asked the security guard if we could come in and he said yes. We walked around a little while and eventually met the principal. He took us to meet an American that was working for them. We thought this would be the person that we sat and listened to, but he had to be at a meeting so we didn’t get to talk to him very long. However, we did get to share with him what we were doing in Sri Lanka and I believe God will use even the short time that we had with him.
After we left the school, we didn’t really know what God wanted us to do next. After more time in prayer, we felt like God wanted us to go to the home of a pastor we had met in Jaffna. We knew the pastor was not home that day, but his mother-in-law (Ms. Navita), who was homebound with a broken hip and couldn’t walk, would be there. When we got to their house, a lady pulled up on a red motorbike. She saw that the gate was closed and didn’t want to go in. I knew we were welcome anytime so I opened the gate and motioned for her to follow me. The pastor had told us to walk into the house because his Ms. Navita couldn’t walk to the door. So when we went in, I told her she had a visitor. She didn’t know who it could be. She came out of the bedroom as far as she could and the lady handed her a note. She tried to communicate with her, but the lady never spoke. She just motioned to her ears and her mouth. Come to find out, this lady was deaf and mute and had a note for the pastor. Ms. Navita asked us how we knew she was there and we told her we didn’t know. She asked us how we knew to come at that time and we said we didn’t know. She told us that if we had not been there at that exact time, she wouldn’t have been able to receive that note. That’s when we knew this was exactly where God wanted us to be. This is the second time God blew my mind that day.
After the visitor left, we sat down and chatted with Ms. Navita. She told us stories about her family and about the civil war in Sri Lanka. We ministered to her by simply sitting and talking for a couple of hours. It was nearing 1:00 and I was beginning to get concerned for her about lunch. Our house wasn’t too far away so I was going to offer to bring her some food. She said her grandson brings her lunch when she is by herself. A little while later he came with lunch and asked us if we had eaten. We told him no, and he went back to the restaurant to get us some too. This was the third time God blew my mind that day.
Faith Day completely exceeded my expectations. Starting out that morning I wanted to have faith, but my flesh still doubted that we would find people to minister to and food to eat. But God showed up in ways that only He can. I’m still amazed of everything that happened that day. Overall I learned that God truly cares about every detail of our lives. He wants to show us how much He loves us if we will only take the time to notice.
Fundraising update: I am just $3,895 away from my goal due at the end of this month! Anything and everything counts! Would you consider giving up your morning coffee for a week and donate that amount toward my World Race journey? Or how about keep the coffee and match the amount you would normally spend? PS: morning coffee time would be a great time to pray for me, just sayin!
Fun fact: My team is in India now, and in a couple of days we’ll be in our third city within three weeks! We are covering India in prayer this month and taking the name of Jesus everywhere we go!
