As I mentioned in my previous, part of our ministry this
month would be to the men in the prison nearby. However, when we showed up at
the prison, we were told we could not minister to the men. Something about a
secret. Our contact, Maricel, later said something about six prisoners
escaping.
So instead of going to the prison, we decided to do a prayer
walk through a Muslim village. Maricel gave us a big pep talk before we left.
She told us that it was a very unfriendly village, particularly to Christians.
A missionary had been living in the village and had gathered 10 converts to
Christianity, but was then kicked out and the converts returned to Islam. Also,
she told us something about a previous prayer walk where one of the men got hit
for no reason. She painted a very dismal picture of the village and did her
best to prepare us for our walk.
When we go there, we went two by two, and simply walked
straight down the street praying (hence the phrase “prayer walk”). As Casey and
I walked, we were met with huge smiles, waves and shouts of greeting. Children
ran up to shake our hands and everyone paused and smiled and giggled as we
walked by. As we were nearing the end of the street and the designated meeting
point, a little old woman walked up next to us, and took me by the hand. She
continued to walk with us and then eagerly motioned for us to come into her
home. So, despite years of being taught to say no to strangers, we did. She
didn’t speak a word of English, but brought out bottled waters and tried to communicate.
We laughed and tried to use sign language, and she started making a cross with
her fingers. She got up and drew a cross on the wall with chalk and spoke the
Khmer word for Jesus. Casey and I nodded eagerly, and she proceeded to hand us
her bible and song book.
At about that time, the rest of our group found and joined
us, and via our translator, we began to learn about this previous woman. She
has been following Jesus for 10 years, and has a heart to teach the word of God
to the children in the community and to bear fruit from the Spirit in her
community. By some miracle, the leader of the village signed a bunch of papers
for her declaring that she was allowed to preach the gospel and hold Bible
classes.
As we left her home, I was struck by the turn of events.
Here we were, prepared to bring light to a dark community void of the love of
God, and we were met with smiles and warmth and a lovely Christian woman eager
to serve.
