It was another morning of manual labor. With the rays of sun beaming down on my back and the dirt starting to build under my fingernails, I was starting to get lost in the task ahead of me… pulling weeds in the garden. We had been at an NGO called Compassion in Action, a Christian clinic for HIV and Aids patients, helping out in the kitchen, fields, and with cleaning.
My feelings towards manual labor have changed many times. Before the Race, I was eager to serve. Eager to get my hands on any way I could help others, whether that meant pulling weeds or picking up trash. To me missions trips always included building homes or painting walls or produced some sort of tangible evidence of your “good deeds”. So I was shocked when on the World Race Exposure trip to Rwanda, we didn’t do a single thing involving manual labor. I hated the daily door to door evangelism, preaching, and house visits. I felt unfulfilled and that the trip had been a waste of time. I was there to serve, so why hadn’t God used me?
Well a lot has changed since then, including being able to see all the many ways God moved on that Exposure trip. But mainly in discovering my worth in my Father and not in my own works. In finally believing the imperative truth behind Christianity, that there wasn’t a single thing I did or could do to earn my salvation. That salvation was gifted to me by a Father who is madly, completely, and unconditionally in love with me! A father who I could do nothing more to make Him love me more or less. I no longer cared about my works, it was so much more exciting and fulfilling to watch God work. To see how He moved.
And oh how I have seen Him move on this Race! From casting out demons to sharing the gospel with hundreds of students at an all Buddhist school. From a miraculous healing in a van on the way to the emergency room to rescuing a prostitute off the streets. I have been privileged to see God move in BIG ways! So much so that I realized I began to dread manual labor, that I had begun to place little significance on it and even began to view some of it as a waste of time (raking dirt in Nicaragua). And with the perspective from all of our extremely thankful hosts, that it’s all for the Kingdom and it’s all for Jesus, I have been able to get through manual labor with His joy. But I still couldn’t help but feel I was missing out. Missing out on the big things God was doing. And so it all came back to my favorite word on this Race…expectations.
While in the garden, my teammate Stephanie asked me how I was enjoying India. And in practicing vulnerability, I opened up to her about how I was struggling with all the expectations I had for India. That I had heard so much about all the unbelievable ways God was moving in India, especially in the spiritual realms, and here I was pulling weeds. Being one of the most joyous persons I know, Steph smiled at me and said, “well you never know, those things can still happen.” I smiled back at her, “Ya, you’re right,” I said, struggling to believe it. And just as I was starting to zone out, determined to pull out every weed around me, I heard her voice. “Auntie, auntie…..auntie.” I looked up from my work and noticed she was talking to us.
Her name was Radha. She was seventeen and beautiful. In a beautiful white sari, she came over to us, knelt down and started helping us pull weeds. “Thank you aunties for helping,” she said with a smile. She was a patient at the hospital, she had been there for three days. After a few minutes of the usual small talk that takes place between people who speak different languages, it was clear that something was troubling our new friend. She was all alone at the hospital, all of her family members had passed away. We couldn’t quite understand where or who she had been living with before arriving at the hospital but something didn’t seem right. I then asked her if she went to chapel in the mornings at the hospital. She said no and that she didn’t like. I asked her if she knew Jesus to which I got the same reply. “I don’t like God and I refuse to go to chapel Auntie,” she said angrily. I smiled at her and told her that was okay. I then asked if she was Hindu. She nodded. We asked if she liked it here and if she had made any friends. “No, I don’t like it here Auntie.”
One of the administrators of the hospital came over to see what we were talking about. They exchanged what seemed like angry words. He told us that she was brought here by the Child Welfare Committee of India but that she wanted to leave. “We’ve tried our best to convince her to stay but she wants her freedom, she desires the things of this world,” he said sadly, “And she refuses to let us pray for her.” He then told us the tragic story of her background. Of how she had runaway from countless of children’s homes, since the age of three. And how she tested HIV positive at the age of ten, after she had runaway from one of the homes. She refuses to stay at Compassion in Action and is set on finding her friend,whom she had ran away with. Her friend who had been previously found and rescued out of a brothel.
“We don’t want to see her leave. If she leaves it is almost certain that she will be back on the streets where she will have no choice but to get involved with trafficking or where she will get abused and taken advantage of. But this isn’t a prison. God has given us free will, it is up to her to choose to stay.”
My heart broke, to envision the future that lay ahead for this beautiful young girl. To imagine her on the streets, totally and completely vulnerable to being trafficked. When all she had to do was just stay. It didn’t make sense to me. Why she would leave. Here she was offered a free place to live, free food to eat, and free medical treatment. I wanted to convince her to stay. But I could tell my efforts were unsuccessful. “You don’t understand Auntie,” she said with tears rolling down her cheeks. “No one understands how I feel.”
All I could do was sit next to her and rub her back as she cried. “You are so beautiful, special, and loved and I know you don’t like Jesus but He wanted me to tell you all that and that He loves you.” She smiled.
It was clear that she sought us out to talk. That it wasn’t by accident that we were in the garden pulling weeds. That God had ordained this meeting. I went into that garden thinking it would be another day of manual labor not knowing I was walking into a divine appointment. I went into that day thinking that I was missing out on God doing something big not remembering that God works in all things, big and small. It was so clear that God’s handprints were all over my time in that garden and that He is fervently pursuing Radha. Indians rarely show emotion or vulnerability. And for her to not only open up to us but to cry in front of us was a huge deal. It was God doing something BIG in her heart. I’ve never felt more helpless in my life, I had no idea what to say to her. No words to take away the pain she has endured for years, no words to convince her to stay, no power to make her choose Jesus. And there in that garden of weeds, I was in my favorite spot, completely helpless…the perfect spot to watch God work. I don’t know what Radha will choose. If she’ll chose to stay or go. But I do know that God loves her more than I could ever know and that He is relentlessly pursuing her.
