“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” Isaiah 61:1
My heart is for the unloved, those who feel rejected and unworthy to receive any love and relational evangelism is one of my favorite ways of reaching people. Therefore, loving on the outcasts of society by spending time and building friendships with them is why I was most excited about the ministry in the leper colony before coming to India. The thought of touching people with such a visible disease never scared me but only tenderized my heart and gave me joy.
We are now half way finished with our time here and although we have built relationships with, prayed over, and truly loved the people of the leper community with the love of Christ, I felt that the Lord was telling me it was time to start sharing the gospel corporately. I talked to Victor Sir, founder of the Asha House and who is over all our ministries here, and asked of this would be possible. He gave us permission to once a week (we go twice) to share the truth of Jesus with them.
Thursday, when we arrived, the bell was rung for all to gather in what used to be a church but is now not used. Sitting on the floor, men on one side and women on the other, there was probably 25-30 people there, mostly lepers and some widows and children of lepers. I started to feel a little anxious about speaking, so Kendra said she would sit in the chairs up front with me and open us by singing “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”. She has an amazing voice and my nerves were immediately calmed.
I began to share what we believed to be the most important and most exciting things we could talk about. I spoke about the one true God, one who is big and powerful, Creator of the heavens and earth, but also a God who is close and intimate. We know that because of His son Jesus Christ. He created us because he loves us so much and desires to be in relationship with us. I told them that over the next few weeks, we were excited to tell them more about Jesus, about His love for us, why He died on the cross for us, and how He rose from the grave, so we can actually be in a relationship with a living God.
The struggle with sharing is the language barrier. Words get lost in translation and it feels as though we are watering down the Word of God. Also, some of the people of the community speak different dialects so there are barriers there. I just have to have faith that the Lord worked through my obedience in sharing, and what He wanted was communicated.
After sharing, I asked if anyone had any prayer requests. I was actually shocked to see how many hands went up. For the next hour, we entered into an intense time of healing prayer. The Spirit was so thick that you could have cut it with a knife. Our team was scattered throughout the church, walking and praying in the authority we have and declaring with our mouths for the Spirit’s power to heal pain and suffering and to release these people from bondage. One man, suffering from severe pain all in his body, received prayer for the whole hour. While praying for a woman who was sick and could not sleep, she began to weep. There was a certain man who caught my heart. His hands were completely destroyed from leprosy, and his legs and arms were frail and weak. He was blind in one eye with poor sight in the other. As Danielle and I prayed for him, I could feel the rejection that he faced, the feelings of being unloved his whole life. It was like I could feel his physical and emotional pain and I began to cry. The harder I prayed, the harder I cried. I wanted so badly for his pain to stop and for him to feel Christ’s unconditional love.
