India Part 5 – Rejoicing

Saturday in India was our last day with the children. We had so much fun with them, singing, dancing, laughing and playing. They were so beautiful, happy and well behaved.

The wind had picked up that morning and there were some threatening clouds in the distance. We began praying for God to direct the storm around us. The winds continued to pick up and sand was blowing through our tent at one point. At first our leaders had sent all the women inside the church, out of the storm. Soon though, they realized they needed our help. The wind was blowing so hard the tent poles were pulling out of the ground and they needed us stationed at each one as anchors. Flattering isn’t it? As soon as was possible we moved the children to separate locations out of the wind, sand and rain. The rain wasn’t coming down heavy, but all in all it was a bit uncomfortable. The large banner at the front of the tent was soon torn to shreds from the wind, the sound system had to be put away and the refreshments tent was nearly collapsed. The children sang together in small groups, recited Scripture and had a snack until the wind calmed down. When they congregated again under the tent things seemed better but then the wind started to pick up again. The Indian children’s workers prepared a skit each day and on Saturday it was the story of how Jesus calmed the storm. They performed and then encouraged the children to pray. Mere moments after their prayer the winds calmed for the rest of the day. The sun came out and we heard later that flooding north of our location had stopped just a block or two away from us.

There were lots of pictures and awards and performances before we said our final prayer and lined them up to get on the buses for the last time. Our team lined up in two rows so that as the children left they could file out between us and we could pray for each one as they left. Some of them giggled as they passed between us, some of them just looked at us with those huge dark eyes and many of them said “thank you ma’am,” or “Jae Masih Kee,” which means “Praise the Lord.”

The church has pictures of the event posted on their website here. Click on the slideshow for the Young Citizens Festival. Among those pictures you’ll see some of the trouble we had keeping the tent from flying away.

Lunch with the team was a little more quiet after telling them goodbye. We were certainly not in a somber mood, but everyone was a bit more thoughtful knowing what they were going back to and that we wouldn’t be seeing them again the next day.

We rested again in the afternoon and then got dressed up for a nice dinner out, courtesy of the church staff at Grace Assembly. They presented gifts to each of us and showed slides from our week of activities. It was very nice and the conversation around our tables was so interesting. We ended up with Pastor Uday at our table. He is one of those people who doesn’t attempt to dominate conversation in the least, but when addressed he seemed to draw us all to listen without effort. By the end of dinner we were all leaning in toward him trying to catch every word. He talked of Scripture, ministry, discernment and spoke to us as individuals while including everyone at the table. He was fascinating. He was formerly the administrative pastor at Grace and Pastor Ivan’s (the senior pastor) right hand man. Now he is leading one of the satellite churches and reaping some of the things he had sown so diligently in serving Pastor Ivan.

At one point he looked at me and said, “you are troubled about your children.” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He didn’t ask. He told me I was. I didn’t think I was, but I wasn’t tuning him out. I asked him about it later because I didn’t want to leave without some clarification. I said, “I don’t know what you mean…I don’t have a lot of problems with my kids.”

He said, “just wait and see what the Holy Spirit tells you,” and he gave me some advice. Not about dealing with my children, which is where my mind went immediately. Rather, he told me how I should be praying for them.

“Pray prophetically, always prophetically,” he said. I haven’t been able to get this out of my head since. I began to listen to my own thoughts a little more and realized that I try really hard to see God’s direction for my kids. I want so badly for them to surrender to Christ, to know Him and serve Him that sometimes I do get worried about them. I realized that praying prophetically for them is a way to achieve peace of mind about them.

Our time with Grace Assembly was fulfilling, productive and humbling. We were there. We had served and the harvest was indeed plentiful. In four days of ministry there were over a thousand souls introduced to Jesus Christ for the first time. Here are the stats via Pastor Jeff’s facebook post: “12 home church meetings: 196, 4 days with over 1,200 kids attending: 1116, mothers attending last day 20, total of 1,332 new Christians left in the hands of a great Pastor and Church to disciple and train to fulfill the Great Commission.”

To be continued.