I finally manage to compose myself and dry my tears. Meanwhile the rest of my team is across the room eating an afternoon snack of fried rice. They have saved me some so I get up and walk over to the table hoping they cannot tell that I've been crying. No one says anything so I think I'm in the clear. The whole time, though I keep asking myself what difference does it make if they know that I was crying? I don't know, but yet I continue to hope no one notices.
After snack we sit outside for our usual 5'oclock team time where we discuss the events of the day and give each other positive and constructive feedback. I decide that I will let them do most of the talking and I'll still keep quiet about what happened with the woman earlier in the day. I feel like the Lord wants me to share but I stubbornly push that thought away. Then, like the Lord usually does, He hunts me down and puts me on the spot. As everyone is sharing Courtney stops looks at me and says "I feel a heaviness in my spirit, SHELLEY is there something you want to talk about?"
("Lord… I thought I said I didn't want to talk about it and here you are using Courtney to make me do it anyway. Thats fine… I'll just weasel out again.")
I say "nah, just processing some stuff" crap answer. And then I don't know why I was surprised when Aubree chimes in and continues to press the issue. I go with my first instinct and brush it off but then I know that I am supposed to share whether I want to or not so I bite the bullet and through tears and sobbing I tell them how our visit with that women had affected me. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. Then something awesome happens. Everyone else opens up and shares how they had felt something different with this woman as well. Courtney suggests that we ask our contact if we can go back and visit her again the next day. What?! I am so dense sometimes… why had I not thought of that? Everyone thinks it is a great idea. So we come up with a game plan that involves buying some groceries and just going to sit with her. We decide to pray about it and see if the Lord gives us anything else by tomorrow. As I was falling asleep later that night I believe the Lord told me to draw her a picture and take it with us.
Fast forward to the next morning…
He didn't tell me what to put in the picture but I just go with it and trust the Lord will give it to me as I go. So When I get up I ask Samuel (our translator) for some paper and then I have him write 2 different verses in Nepali, then I doodle something like a 3rd grader might around those words. Usually I would be so embarrassed of a picture like this but it was simply to convey that she was loved and thought about and my elementary drawing said that, even if nothing else.
We finish breakfast and walk up to the road to catch the bus only to find out that the bus drivers are on strike and no busses are running today. (and if I've never mentioned it before I LOVE my team!) No one breaths a word of complaint but with smiles on our faces we start our 4 km walk to her house. We stop in town and buy a few groceries… rice, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes,bananas and crackers, and continue our walk. When we arrive at her house we find her in the nearby corn field. She sees us and with a huge smile heads back to her house where we are waiting. I am already blessed by this visit. Yesterday she was so dizzy and weak she could barely make herself a little breakfast and today she is walking up this steep little path to her house.
Once we go inside she begins to tell us that since yesterday that her dizziness is so much better and that her speech has improved a little as well. She says she is feeling better than she has in the last 10 months. I am so glad to hear that the Lord has answered our prayers. We give her the gifts we brought with us. She says she wants to hang the picture by her bed and that she would like to bless us in return for the groceries but she doesn't have anything to give us. We tell her that the Lord wanted to give these things to her. We sit and talk for a while (through our translator of course) speaking words of encouragement over her and then we pray for her again before we leave. Samuel tells us that she says we can "stay here with her for always" 🙂
