We went to an Indian church the other week. After the service, people started coming up to us at all angles asking for prayer. This went on for a while until one of my squad mates told us that there was a special prayer request. I saw that he had been talking to a girl for quite a while along with our translator. As we walked over to them, we found out that her name was Puja, she was almost 18, and she was a new believer. She comes from a large family of 27, and an even larger village of 6,000. She is the only Christian. As we continued to listen, we learned that she is deemed the “unlucky one” in her family and so because of this, she has grown up unloved by everyone and constantly pushed aside. But God does not see people how others do. Puja learned that God loves everyone, and that is how she became a believer. Faced with the threat of severe persecution from both her family and village, she now has to hide her bible and sneak to church every week. I felt such a strength and light from being in her presence. God really is all she has. Her story just makes me even more amazed at how God chooses those who are worth very little in the eyes of the world to be called his sons and daughters! And He absolutely delights in doing this, His Kingdom really is upside down. It’s a beautiful thing.
Please pray for Puja. Pray that she will never doubt her worth and the great love that God has for her. And pray that God would give her strength to stand up and be the light for her community. We are coming to find that persecution like this is much too common around the world.
