I will start out by giving a little background as to what my team is up to in India this month. We are working with a local Indian pastor, going out to surrounding villages (there are over 1000 villages in this one region alone), and praying for members of the churches that are in those villages (while they feed us insane amounts of tea and food… I could write a whole blog about Indian hospitality)!
Last night, we arrived at what I thought was just another village. We got out of the car and people started gathering around (this is fairly normal for when we arrive in the villages- white people are not such a common commodity here). All of a sudden a bell was ringing, and then it seemed like the whole village was sitting in front of us. Everyone was smiling and welcoming us, and the atmosphere of the village just seemed completely filled with joy. One lady even brought me a little yellow lab puppy to hold. That’s when I just knew it was the start of a great night 🙂
As we started going house to house, I noticed we were visiting EVERY house (usually this had not been the case). Our translator then told us that all the families in this village were Christians. As we continued visiting the homes, the rest of the villagers followed us, one man playing the tambourine, and others singing and clapping. I wondered if this was their version of Christmas caroling! Again, just an awesome sense of joy filled the community.
After visiting a few homes, one of my teammates mentioned us laying hands on every person since these were the “untouchables.” I was a little confused, but figured she was just talking about the man she had prayed for, because he had some sort of skin issue. Then, another teammate asked me how leprosy spreads. I said I didn’t know, and we continued on. We kept going into new homes, and I noticed that many of these people had some kind of physical issue- many had nubs for fingers, and we met several people who couldn’t walk. I finally asked my teammate if she had seen someone with leprosy, unsure why the question had come up earlier, and was informed by all of my teammates that we were at a leprosy colony. Still not sure how I missed that information (the language barrier is real here)!
Okay, so now I knew that we were at a leprosy colony. We continued walking from house to house praying. We prayed for healing, we prayed blessings over the people, and we just prayed that God would continue to reveal Himself to them. We didn’t see any miraculous healing, which was disappointing for us at times. But we continued to witness the joy and gratitude on the faces of these people we were praying for. I saw some of the biggest smiles I’ve seen in my life on their faces. My teammates and I preached and got more applause and “Hallelujahs” than ever before. And as I looked around in the church, I realized WE couldn’t stop smiling. The joy was contagious.
So I want to end this blog by encouraging you this Christmas season. Here in India there are no decorations set up, there are no gingerbread houses or Christmas cookies in the oven- actually, there’s no oven at all. You wouldn’t know it’s Christmas time just by looking outside. But the Christmas spirit is alive and well in the Christian community we are reaching out to this month, and nowhere is it more evident than at the leprosy colony we visited last night. So wherever you are this Christmas, here’s to remembering the real reason we celebrate. I pray that the joyful atmosphere, so evident at the leprosy colony here in India, would fill your homes this Christmas; that your families would be filled with the joy that comes from knowing our Savior in Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas and God’s blessings to all of you from India!
