Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen;
it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
Hebrews 11:1
Faith Day is an exercise in trusting the Lord to provide for your needs with only a few guidelines:
1.Take some form of transportation
2. Eat
3. Share the Gospel
We met at one of our contact’s homes this morning at 10:00am. We were instructed to bring NOTHING. No food, no water, no money. The only exception was medication if you needed it for a chronic condition or in emergency situations like an EpiPen, inhaler, etc. When directions were being given by our main contact, we realized we had apparently heard the water part wrong, but we went with it and decided the Lord would provide. Before we left the house, we sat down as a team (plus an addition due to a team overwhelmed by sickness) and prayed. We created a “spiritual map” of things the Lord showed us while we were praying. Here’s what we got:
1. Bus (revised to be the first bus that would let us on for free)
2. Taxi
3. Thamel (the touristy area we stayed in for Debrief)
4. Evergreen/ Christmas Tree
5. Old man with a beard
6. Deep, empty well
7. Brokenness
8. Stars (specifically a yellow one)
9. 2:00
10. Trust… Lots of trust!
11. Church
12. Bowl of Apples
To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t super excited about today. It was supposed to be an “Adventure Day,” but we were assigned a task instead of finding our own adventure. One of my teammates was sick, and I had a massive headache. My only prayer was a plea for faith because I was surely lacking. (Hey, at least I was aware of it!)
Today, we were a group of eight- we lost one, we added one, and we had two males from our contact ministry with us- a man and a young boy. We expected this to be a challenge because giving eight people food, water, or a ride was more difficult than giving three or four. We began by walking to a nearby bus stop. The first bus basically laughed at us, then a smaller bus pulled up. As we began talking to them, they stated it would be possible to give three or four of us a free ride, but not eight. We asked if we could still pray for them, and they said yes. Before we could even finishing praying, our local team member said, “Get in! He wants to give us a ride!” So, off we went to Thamel because that is where the bus was headed. I was officially excited about the day ahead!
We arrived fairly close to Thamel and walked the rest of the way there. Throughout our journey to Thamel, we kept seeing stars. To us, we decided the stars meant we were on the right track or where the Lord wanted us to be. We came upon, what I assume was, the China Town of Thamel. We saw a yellow star (part of the Chinese flag) and a green pine tree outside of a restaurant, so we decided to go in. Sara began talking to the woman behind the counter. She just moved to Nepal to be with her family and is a Buddhist. She had a hard time understanding what Sara was telling her, but we have faith that a seed was planted. Others will come into her life to water and harvest the seed planted today.
We began to wander the streets again, and I finally blurted out something the Lord showed me. In a restaurant I ate at during Debrief, there was a huge tree that reminded me of a Christmas tree on steroids. I led the group to this restaurant. After speaking with a few people, they told us they were unable to help us because the manager wasn’t there, but he would be back later. (Maybe 2:00 we all thought.) As we slowly walked out, a few of us prayed aloud for the men working for softened hearts towards Jesus and us. We turned to the right and stopped outside of the next restaurant to regroup.
As we stood there, a dog known by several names by our squad walked up to us, but we’ll call him Nepal. 🙂 Hannah prayed for Nepal to show us the way. Nepal laid down on the curb and fell asleep, so we sat down and waited. Lots of people passed by us, a few spoke. I turned to the right and saw a man standing nearby wearing shoes with stars on them. We definitely needed to stay! (I’m pretty sure he was a drug dealer, but I guess that’s not the point… Haha)
Faye and Courtney walked a couple of doors down and came back with four bottles of water for us to share, then a few of us started singing some praise songs. An old man with a beard was selling mangos on the street in front of us and began chatting with the man with stars on his shoes. About that same time a woman came out of the restaurant we were sitting in front of because she heard the singing… It was exactly 2:00. She was eating inside with a couple of her friends; they were also missionaries. After chatting for a few minutes she went back inside the restaurant to tell them about us. Twenty or so minutes later the three of them came outside. One handed us a $20. Soon after, another handed us $100 and the other handed us 500 Indian Rupees. We were blown away. Twenty dollars alone would have bought us a small bite to eat. The hotel they were staying at had a yellow star.
We happily went back to the restaurant we had just left and told them how the Lord blessed us with money and now we could pay for our food. We enjoyed our lunch and praised the Lord for all He had given us. We talked to one of the men about his faith. He was clearly confused about what he believed. He said there was one God, but he also said he was Hindu. I pray he will soon find his way to the one, true God. The discussion of “what now” started as we finished eating. Since Malorie was sick, we wanted to pick up something she needed from the store. We also wanted to stop by a bakery we ate at most mornings during Debrief to say hey to the man who worked there and buy a treat for the locals on our team. Kirbie and I set off for the store; we planned to meet up with everyone at the bakery.
Once everyone arrived at the bakery, we found the real reason we had been sent there, and it wasn’t to buy anything. We quickly whispered amongst each other and were able to share our blessings with others. While we were plotting how to best bless the people we encountered, Hannah was holding a water I just bought at the store. A woman walked up to her, and Hannah realized her intention was to beg. She offered the woman the water, and she happily accepted. Hannah heard the Lord tell her this woman was the broken, empty well and the living water of Jesus would fill her up.
Our local team member had to be home by 4:00 for a meeting. We jumped in taxis to make the trip home quicker, so he wouldn’t be late. We arrived back at the house full of so much joy and excitement. The Lord, once again, showed us how faithful He truly is.
The money we had leftover, we have decided to donate to the church we helped rebuild last week.
If you’re counting, we encountered most of the things that were on our “spiritual map.” We only lacked the basket of apples, but maybe we were too excited to notice them. 🙂
Y’all, the Lord is ALWAYS faithful… Even when we lack faith and trust. He didn’t have to show up today to show His faithfulness to me, but He did. The Lord is so good to me even when I’m not giving Him my best. Learn from my misstep; give the Lord your best today!
PS: This blog was thrown together as quickly as I could type because I couldn’t wait to share about our day. Please forgive my errors! 🙂 Make sure to read my team’s blogs for their perspectives on the day. You can find links to their blogs on the sidebar if you’re on an actual computer. Otherwise, click the menu button (three bars) on the top left corner and click “Meet My Team.”
