Last blog, I spoke of instances that remained with me from the hut-to-hut ministry, this one broke me…
The other moment I remember clearly, broke me. I cried. It was the last hut we stopped at in the remote village of Naboa (they didn’t even have a Coca-Cola sign). We encountered many people that had never heard of Jesus, it was sad. There was a girl, so thin, she looked to be the ones on T.V. I’m sure the victims of WWII looked a bit like her. Skin and bone, no muscle. A shirt or something hanging off of her, but it did nothing to hide that she had no other clothes on. She sat and moaned at us when we greeted her. When we invited her over, her mom pulled on her and she cried out from pain. To see her standing made me realize she was about 12 and tall. I almost starting crying see her thin, long, limbs. We found out later that she came down with a sickness while a baby, her family believes it was cerebral malaria but the doctors don’t know. She is mute and barely responds to her name, Betty. We prayed and I cried to God for mercy.
Broken as I felt, I was asked to pray for an older man who had broken his hip bone. He was in so much pain. I told him of Jesus and how he did miraculous things. He healed the sick and gave sight to the blind. I wanted him to believe as much as I do that God still works, today! I wanted this man to hope. Yet, when we asked him if he wanted to receive Jesus, he said he wasn’t ready yet. My heart took a plunge. I know I can’t make people believe, but I wanted him too, soo badly. I prayed regardless for a miraculous healing of his leg and hip. I wanted him to see God’s power, not mine or anybody else, but that of the living God. I didn’t get to see an instantaneous miracle and I left even more downtrodden. But I don’t decide who is healed or delivered; God does, because at the end of the day I want his will more than mine. And that’s hard. There are so many needy and this is a broken world. I can’t fix everything, but I do release kingdom in whatever shape that might take.
Looking back, I see where my heart was not in the right place. We saw many people get saved as we went hut-to-hut. But I didn’t rejoice over their decisions, I was too consumed with weeping over the ones I wanted to help. I feel like I should have been rejoicing and praising God for new sisters in Christ and praising him because people who never heard of him, heard of him. The seed was planted and God is taking care of watering it and harvesting it.
