Today I had my first day out in Bangalore doing ministry. We met a pastor in one of the slum areas of Bangalore where we were planning on doing house visits to church members. The first house we entered we prayed that the family could keep their house as many people are trying to claim the property and they are in danger of losing their home. From there, we headed to the church building where the pastor explained that they have faced some persecution related to other World Race teams reaching out in the community. So, today we were going to prayer walk through the slums and if the pastor felt led we would stop at various houses.
It was a crazy experience to walk through the slums. The children chased us asking for us to take picture or men would pose in front of their shops with their families begging to have their picture taken.
I am sure I easily took 500 pictures in the first hour walking and it was hard to turn children down as they wanted their picture taken over and over and then to see the pictures. At one point I had the realization that for many of these children, this is the one opportunity to see themselves as the shacks they are living in definitely do not have bathrooms and so quite possibly they do not own a mirror.
We entered a number of other houses praying for a man who had surgery on his arm for the muscle to come back and for a Hindu family who just asked us to come in and pray for them.
The last stop was the most amazing stop. The family has multiple generations under one roof with a mother, her two daughters who are believers but married to nonbelievers who won’t permit them to go to church, and a son who is also a believer. The son’s story was amazing as he was depressed and drank poison to commit suicide. He was in a coma and the Dr.’s did not expect him to live when he says he saw the Bible while he was in his coma. The church was praying and he was healed without medical intervention.
Another member of the church was there and he has lost vision in his left eye. We spent time praying for God to heal his eye. It is strange. I have prayed for people to be healed of cancer or illness, but it is strange in my safe American faith to lay hands on someone and pray that sight be restored and in some ways expect that his sight will be restored. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is in Mark 9. It is the story in which a boy had an unclean Spirit and the father brought the boy to Jesus. The father asked Jesus to heal his son and said, “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus was a bit indignant and responded, “’If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
At this point the father fell on his face and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” This is me. I believe God can heal a person’s blind eye, but help my unbelief! At the end of our time, the man we prayed for said he could now see light where he couldn’t see anything before. I don’t know if he felt pressured or whether it was true. I don’t know whether he will be healed tomorrow or if God did not intend to heal him. Was my faith not enough? I don’t know, but I do know in that moment while we were praying and tonight when I am home my prayer to God is “God help my unbelief!”
