Northern Ireland was a difficult month for me. I would not choose to live it again. But it is probably the month when I have learned the most on the race so far… which may not be saying much, given that it was only month three.
We learned so much last month in Northern Ireland about healing and the authority we carry as we walk with the Holy Spirit. I saw God straighten and lengthen legs and heal hurting backs before my eyes.
Alas, I will write more about Northern Ireland later. I would rather you have an update on where we are now and what we find ourselves doing. This month, my squad gets the opportunity to walk in the faith that we grew in last month. And every night in ministry, we pray for these things.
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Today, I am in India. My team is alone for the first time on the race. We live in a large town with over 300,000 people. By my estimates, this is a city. I suppose in a country with over a billion people, this is still a town.
We live with a pastor, his wife and their delightful three children. They feed us massive quantities of spicy food and laugh at us and with us. They are teaching us Telugu, the local language and giggle at our mistakes. The kids clamor to be near us and wake us up early in the morning because they want to talk with us and be included in our days. Already today, I have played four games of Go-Fish, one of Memory Match, and five of Q-Tips (a modified version of spoons) and it is still fairly early.
My teammates and I just did some laundry in some buckets outside and immediately, I wanted to add in the clothes that I am wearing because they are wet, not from laundry water, but sweat. Lauren simply decided to put on her clean, wet clothes. I say it was a smart move.
Our ministry this month is to travel to the villages and pray with people and then lead a church service.
Just before leaving our host home on our first night of ministry, Pastor asked me who would be speaking. With a dumbfounded look on my face, I made no reply. He then asked me to have two people give testimonies and another two share a Word from God. My team had not been told anything about ministry other than we were traveling to the villages and praying for people. So the news that we would talk was well, new.
We piled into our Magic Martin (our choice name for the month) car and rode down bumpy roads for an hour with one of the pastor’s daughters and our translator and pastor friend, Darren (we get his name wrong all the time, but for security’s sake, I’ll call him Darren) and another pastor/driver, Jack (name changed). With an hour to prepare, we prayed for direction, boldness and for God to speak through our team and about who was supposed to share. Four of us prepared our messages and ‘finished’ when we arrived at the village.
We pulled up to a small house with a large porch area and open area with seating around it. We sat and waited for a while and learned some Telugu words from Darren. Then we got up and jumped into Magic Martin again and drove to a different side of the village. We climbed out and began walking, following the local pastor to visit homes of members of his church and praying for any ailments or needs that they had. Children began following us from everywhere, giving the pied piper a run for his money.
We visited several homes praying for healing and for God’s presence to be poured out upon the families in the homes. Several people had broken legs or hips and the only treatment they knew was alcohol. Another recurring ailment was paralysis. We prayed for one man with increasing paralysis in his extremities. After praying, we asked about how he felt and he voiced that he could feel changes in his hands. We wanted to pray again but we were told by the translator that if he wanted more prayer, he could come to the church service. This was a difficult thing for my team to do. And it raises some questions that I hope to expound upon in a future blog. We walked away from something and someone that the Holy Spirit was clearly working in. But this is where more faith comes in – God heals beyond our words. He could have healed the man after we walked away and I have faith that God will heal him.
After walking around the village, we traveled back to the church and waited for a few minutes as people began to sit down on the ground. We are the teachers, so we have to sit on chairs. If one of us sits on the ground, we all have to move to the ground. If one of us moves to the bench where men are sitting, the men have to stand or sit somewhere else. It is all related to the India caste or ranking system.
The service started with a series of Telugu worship songs and then we were asked to sing some as well. We sang the Revelation Song and realized that the struggle with slow songs for Indians is that there is no beat to add to it. In their worship sets, there is never a set beat and at least five rhythms being clapped to. Three of us, then, shared testimonies of God’s love and grace in our lives and two shared a short Bible lesson for the forty or so people that appeared. As soon as the lessons ended, we were swarmed with people wanting more prayer.
We were fed a delicious meal – more rice, chapatti and curry and then scrunched back into the car for the hour drive home.
This is a fairly accurate picture of what we do most nights for ministry.
I hope to add some photos of everything. But be on the lookout for an update about daily living here and definitely some Northern Ireland posts. And the post with questions that have run through my heart and mind during ministry here. So many things to write about… oh boy.
And with that I say Praise the Lord or [Wan-De-Nah-Lu] in Telugu.
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