It’s day number 10 on the World Race, day number 4 in India and day number 2 in ministry.
This blog, however, will have very little to do with our ministry, and more to do with how grateful I am in this moment.
India is a land of many, many gods and religions. Hinduism is the predominate religion followed by Islam and then Christianity. As you drive the streets in India, you see temple after temple, statue after statue, all glorifying obscure gods built from wood and stone in the shapes of various animals.
On one of our crazy tuk tuk rides to lunch this afternoon, I was struck by an overwhelming demonic, spiritual feeling in my gut after looking at one such idol too long. I quickly reminded myself, and the spiritual forces, that I belonged to Jesus and no such icky thing was welcome in my body. The “icky feeling” left immediately and I continued to ride down the crazy streets of Andhra Pradesh and focused on making sure our driver knew where he was supposed to take us.
Tonight, my team and I had an ipod led worship time on the roof of the building we are staying in. After singing a few songs, teammates started to trickle off, heading down to our room to have some personal time. While I so enjoyed the time of prayer and worship with my team, looking out over the city, I was secretly glad when I found myself alone on the roof. I had looked around earlier and found the roof a beautiful place to do something I hadn’t done in ten days, dance my heart out in worship. So dance I did, crying out for the spirit of God to invade the city I could see so well from my rooftop.
As I was dancing however, I heard the approaching sound of some sort of parade. Loud music blaring from speakers, drums and even bottle rockets. I stopped dancing to peer over the edge to the street 4 stories below and saw a car covered in lights and flowers with a precessional of drummers and people. I wasn’t exactly sure what this little parade with celebrating, but I was sure it wasn’t celebrating Jesus, so I started to pray over it.
Shortly, I heard someone behind me and found a local who was working with the same ministry up on the roof to see what all the commotion was about. She told me it was a burial parade. I was perplexed by the amount of celebration that was going on over someone leaving this world, it looked more like a 4th of July parade to me. I began to grieve for the amount of confusion in this place, the amount of spiritual deception and darkness.
These people do not have a big, protective God/Daddy that protects and heals them when they call. They are wrapped up in bondage, there is a marked absence of joy in this place. I continued to listen to my ipod and declared the words I heard over what I was watching and the two hindu temples I could see from my rooftop. I asked that these people would become aware of their brokenness, aware of the pain, aware of a lack of hope and identity. I prayed this because without this awareness, they will not seek out truth and that is what I desire for them.
I left that roof tonight with a full awareness that I am wrapped up so tightly with my heavenly Daddy, that nothing can approach his great love for me. I left thankful for his comfort and protection, and I left pleading for the million or so of this city to know the same.
P.S. If you want to learn more about what we have been doing for ministry, read one of my teammates blogs below!
Lindsey Farmer : http://lindseyfarmer.theworldrace.org/?filename=babies-and-nurses-and-prayers-oh-my
