-India-October-Month 4-
India was a month full of immense heat, mounds and mounds of rice, and so much prayer. Each evening our team would head out with our ministry contact, his family, and all the boys from the boys home we stayed with at the church. We would go each night to a different village and put on a prayer meeting, which consisted of lots of singing, testimonies, a sermon, and prayer. If there is one big lesson I can take away from my month in India, it would be prayer. I have never prayed so much in my life. We got in the truck, we prayed. We got home after travelling, we prayed. We had food, we prayed. Someone shared a testimony, we prayed. Someone gave a sermon, we prayed. We met someone, we prayed. Someone had a cold, we prayed. A tractor needed to be paid off so a family could be provided for, we prayed. We prayed, we prayed, we prayed.
And after each prayer meeting our team individually prayed for each person there, each night praying for dozens and dozens of people. Each night praying for kids’ studies, for health, for healing, for jobs, for family members to know the Lord, for anything and everything. It taught me a great discipline in prayer that I am so thankful for. I learned what it truly means to depend on God, to turn to Him first, for everything. I began to understand that nothing is too big or too small for God. He cares about it all. Every. single. thing. He cares about huge problems going on in the world, and he cares about the random thought that just passed through your mind. And he wants us to talk to him about it all.
One Sunday after church, we were praying for the members of the church like usual. An elderly woman came up to me wanting prayer. I didn’t have anyone around me to translate her prayer needs, but it was okay because I had prayed for her previously and remembered she had stomach pain and a son who needed prayer. So I went ahead and put my hand on her and began to pray a generic prayer for these things. I honestly wasn’t expecting anything to happen and was just ready to rest from the long church service. But as I was praying, I felt there was more I should say. So I kept praying, not even knowing what I was saying, asking God to allow this women to accept his love for her, to accept forgiveness, to free herself from guilt and burdens she had been carrying, to herself as the beautiful woman that God sees her as. I continued praying these words, knowing they were not coming from myself, feeling the Spirit moving in that moment. And as I opened my eyes right before I said amen, knowing she couldn’t understand a word I was saying, I saw the stream of tears flowing from this woman’s eyes. Although she didn’t know English, it was as if she knew what I was saying, as if what the Sprit had been saying to me, He was also speaking to her. When she opened her eyes she looked straight at me with a look of deep understanding and gratitude. She took my hand, smiled hugely, bowed her head slightly and said, “Praise the Lord,” again and again. We stood there for a moment just appreciating what God had done. And in that second I knew our prayers mattered. That even though no amazingly spectacular miracle had occurred, God was there and he was listening and moving.
Although sometimes we don’t see the results we are looking for in the timing we want, God still hears, and he is still faithful. This is something we had to remind ourselves almost daily. Feeling exhausted many times after praying for so many people everyday and not seeing the specific outcome we prayed for. It sometimes felt like it didn’t matter. But I know it did. And I can hold on to the times where God allowed me to see him working, and know that he is doing so much more that we do not see.
“For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” –Matthew 7:8
