While on the race, I have been struck with how giving, hospitable, and servant minded the people I meet are. It’s a funny feeling- as I go to poorer countries where I’m expecting to serve people with less, I end up feeling like the one who is blessed. We’ve had churches dedicate entire services to us, been given handmade gifts, invited into houses of complete strangers for dinner, and received countless small blessings each day.
One of the most profound moments of service, however, happened here in Thailand. In the area, there is a missionary couple from Canada whose names are Jim and Marion. From the moment we met them, our team was blown away by the genuine love they showed us and how thankful they were to have us in Thailand. They invited us over to their house one night and as we were talking, asked if there were any prayer requests. I shared that I had been feeling distant from God and felt a lot of anxiety in my heart. They began to pray over me and everything felt normal until Marion looked up at me and asked, “can I wash your feet?” I was really taken aback, and to be honest, felt a little uncomfortable about the offer. But I said okay. She insisted on boiling water beforehand and got out a basin with soap. She had my teammate read Romans 10 and began to weep as she washed and massaged my feet. She kept thanking me for allowing her the honor of washing my feet and whispered, “I just love doing what Jesus did.” My only thought was, “wow, this woman is madly in love with Jesus.” It was such a physical manifestation of how upside down God’s kingdom really is. In Thailand, feet are considered the most dishonorable part of your body, it is frowned upon to even point them at another person. And here I sat with an adult women crouching down to wash MY feet, a girl who she barely even knew and who is in every way her lesser. I felt undeserving. I thought that she didn’t need to be doing this to me, as if my puny feeling of distance from God merited such a response.
But maybe that’s the point. Here in Thailand, people are very reluctant to receive gifts for free. They are used to having to make “merit,” which pretty much means giving money to credit more good Karma to themselves in order to work their way into Heaven or Nirvana. How much different is the Kingdom of Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7.) God doesn’t expect our good deeds to somehow outweigh our bad deeds in order to reach Him. No. Instead, he came down to us, in the form of a helpless baby, washing the feet of his disciples, and later appearing on the cross of a criminal, beaten and killed in our place. I’m so thankful this Christmas season to serve The King who humbled Himself as a servant, and that because of His love we have been given the free gift of eternal life!
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you,a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:14-16).
