We are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In an area that’s pretty modern. So naturally we found a movie theater and watched Jurassic Park 2….
My squad-mate Courtney and I decided that we were going to go back to our hostel and do a workout and possibly grab dinner afterwards.
We passed a man sitting on the ground in the middle of the side walk, who seemed to have hernia on his belly button. He was a beggar, among many others on the side walk of a busy metropolitan/shopping area.
We passed him and Courtney felt as if we needed to talk to him specifically.
I was very reluctant….
As we started to walk back towards him, the enemy immediately started to put excuses on my head on why we shouldn’t talk to him.
“You’re not even going to understand him, what’s the point?”
As we started to ask him what we can do to help, he began to speak. He was half Chinese/Malaysian. He was able to speak broken English, mandarin(a language that I was familiar with) and Malay(a language closely related to Tagalog, my mother tongue) and through mixture of these three languages, God aloud us to communicate with him. He needed 3 different medicine, and an inhaler.
After figuring out what he needed, and with a prescription that he received from the doctor, Courtney and I went to go find a pharmacy.
“That prescription isn’t going to work anyway, and you probably won’t find all 4 of those meds, what are you guys even trying to do?” Says the enemy.
Prayerfully, we were able to find all four meds within our budget, one pharmacy did not carry the inhaler we needed, but another pharmacy right next door did!!..
We bought him two water bottles and a couple large bandaids to cover his cuts from his hernia and other injuries.
On our way back to Ho (name of the man we met) we were passing all the other people sitting on the sidewalk, also in great need. One didn’t have an arm, his sign said he was injured at work and spent all his money in the hospital. There was also a family with two children, and a lot more just laying down on the side walk needing some assistance.
“What’s so special about this one person that he deserves your help more than these other people?” Says the enemy.
We sat next to Ho, he was so happy that we came back. We instructed him on how to take the medication. He was telling us his life story. He wasn’t interested in money, he wanted friendship and company. He was begging so he can travel back to His family and wife in Thailand who apparently were deported. We were going to give him some money and he said no. We talked to him for a while, we got a lot of weird looks from foreigners and locals in a very fancy area… I didn’t blame them. What we were doing looked different.
We prayed for him and asked him if he knew Jesus. He smiled and said yes! He was baptized when he was 20. ( he is now 62 y.o) We rejoiced with him. Hugged him multiple times, and we eventually said our good byes.
I loved everything about what God did through him and through that whole situation. But I also felt convicted. I realized that I’ve been missing opportunities to love.
I have let the enemy convince me that there are too many people in need for me to even make a difference. I have allowed the enemy to tell lies that says I have to pick my battles on whom to love… I ended up putting so much energy on figuring out whom to love, that I ended up not loving anyone.
But God says… “you only need to love one. It starts with one act of authentic love. Let other people see Christ-like love so that they may know who I am. It’s not about what you can do, it’s about what I can do.”
I have put so much pressure on my self to make all the difference in the world to help everyone in need… but in reality, it only takes one.
That one moment where you sit down on the dirty sidewalk, take time to know someone’s story, let go of your own plans, let go of yourself, love someone unconditionally and be a witness to others that this kind of love exist through Jesus.
The voice of the enemy starts to dim when we obey the whispers of our Heavenly Father. He is faithful to provide what we need, since it was Him who called us. It’s amazing how our obedience to Christ takes us deeper into understanding of His love. Our joy is to reflect that same love to this world. One person at a time 🙂
