God might not always show up in the way we anticipate, but He always shows up.
We spent the last three days in an Indian village where we slept on the floor of a church, ate chicken curry more times than we could count, and saw God in every moment through the people we encountered.
There are a million stories I could share about this village. I could tell you the story of the woman we prayed for who lost her daughter in a tragic tractor accident and is now living alone in a one room stone hut. I prayed blessings of peace over her, and was able to relate to her feeling of loneliness more than I could express through my native tongue.
I could tell you our prayers of healing over the man with Typhoid or the man who awoke from a coma and is now recovering, or the woman who gave us every last soda pop in her small fridge as a simple act of generosity and love.
The list is endless.
These people have nothing and everything at the same time. They have no material desires and are not bound by the want of this world. They are free to live out in abandonment and joy with the Lord. There is no greater example of that joy than the laughter we experienced when playing with the children of this village.
This story is about them.
We are working with an organization that gives children in the community a chance to have an education, breaking the cycle of poverty in their family, and preventing these families from seeking out labor in areas like sex work.
The kids go to school from 8am-6pm each day. They don’t have games or sports at their school and after school their time is dedicated to homework. We were able to give them a break each night for a couple hours and play games with them. We played counting games, ball toss, and musical chairs. We raced with them across the churchyard, sang songs and danced on the porch as the sun faded behind the houses. And in every moment spent with them there was laughter, so much laughter. There is no way you could look at one of these kids and not see God’s face. They beamed with joy and my heart literally almost burst with love.
In the moments when I feel lonely, or I pray for God to show up and show me what real love looks like, I only have to remember the faces of the kids we played with the past few days. God was so evident on their smiling faces and in their eyes.
There are a lot of stories I could share. There was a lot of pain and sorrow that we encountered. Most of it I’m still processing. It was hard. This is not an easy journey, and to be honest, I feel really unqualified to be here. But I’m choosing to press into the joy, to remember the good works that the Lord is doing in that small village, and not focus to what the enemy is up to. For the battle is already over, and the victory is ours. There was victory in those little smiles, and I know with certainty that God is on the move.
