What happens when you serve? You are served. Think about it, when someone at a restaurant serves you and they do a good job, typically you serve them back by tipping them well. When someone buys your lunch, you typically thank them and buy lunch next time. That kind of serving is engrained into who we are. His steps are our steps now, and He was ALL about serving.
When Jesus died on the cross for us, He was serving us. He made Himself a humble human and took on all of our sins. That wasn’t a little feat. Think of all the sins you have committed in your life, then triple that for all the sins you unknowingly committed, and then think of how many people are in the world. He took all of those. He died the dirtiest of deaths and defeated it to show you just how sufficient His grace really is. And He did that so that we could love and obey Him. So that we could serve Him. He served us so that we could serve Him.
The ability to serve is a gift and privilege, not a right. You don’t deserve to be able to serve. You deserve to be self-centered, sin-indulged, and forever evil… but He gives us a clean and pure heart and a heart of service in His Name.
This week we put some of those acts of service to the test and the Lord has rewarded us fully with opening our eyes to how great He really is. We decided to sit down last week and map out how our last 10 days would look and came up with a game plan of ways we wanted to serve.
Here was our list:
Spa day for Pastor’s wife
Make dinner for the children
Have a dance party with the children
Have an afternoon with the girls
Wash the children’s feet
Visit our neighbors one last time
Write letters and print pictures for all the kids
So this list wasn’t extensive, but it was specific. We prayed about the things that we thought would leave most impact, show the most love, and produce the most opportunities to serve. I just want to share with you a few of the outcomes of our acts of service.
The day that we decided to do our spa day for Pastor’s wife, we knew that she really needed it. Up until just recently, she was one of two women who cooked three meals a day for the children AND us, cleaned daily, and had to focus on raising her own child. She has the equivalent of at least 2 full time jobs. She is a super-woman of sorts and leans on the Lord for her strength. She is a missionary in this place; she came with Pastor from their Christian state in India strictly to serve these children. She doesn’t have a single second for herself, so we decided to create one for her. We made face-masks, gave her foot and back massages, gave her tea and cookies, painted her nails, and cut her hair. We just had a great afternoon with the girls. It was a blessing to do that for her and she really enjoyed it. We were not looking for anything in return, just an opportunity to love her. However, that night she made us a home-cooked meal that was absolutely amazing and the following day she made one of our favorite dishes: tomato curry. Even though that sounds like a small act of service, when you think about how much time she already spends cooking for the kids, its such a huge blessing to us. Like I said, we weren’t looking for anything in return, but when someone is served, it is in their very nature and design to desire to serve back.
The next day we had a dance party with the kids and made them pancakes and home-made syrup. It was almost eight PM when we started the dance party and Emily and I had already fallen asleep on the floor (our days are long here), and honestly I just didn’t want to get all sweaty and stinky and exhort energy, but it was so refreshing to put aside what I want and to push myself to love those kids by going crazy on the dance floor. The laughter that was shared, the jumping and bouncing, the singing and memories… all of it was a treasure from the Lord that I couldn’t have experienced if I hadn’t stepped out of my desires and served those babies. The children served us by the love that they expressed on their faces and the thanks that they gave to us. We were blessed by their appreciation and it was so encouraging to see the way that they love us… especially since they are all boys and never want to come out and say they love their Aunties.
Yet another story… Saturday was our day off, as usual, and it was especially hot. We had plans to go out to lunch, go to the market, and then go to the store. Usually we do that the other way around because it is a long rickshaw ride from our house to the city mall where we eat lunch and so most rickshaw drivers don’t like going that far. However for some reason we planned it that way on Saturday. Our rickshaw driver was extremely small… probably weighing 100 LBS tops, he was old, his rickshaw chain kept breaking, AND he had five of us on the rickshaw instead of four like usual. I felt so bad for him because he was extremely embarrassed that the rickshaw kept breaking and he had to keep pulling over to the side to fix the chain. We almost got off to get on a new one, but he urged us to wait and assured us with a shameful smile that he could do it. So we stayed on and rode with him all the way to city mall. Like I said, Saturday was extremely hot, and he was sweating bullets. When we got to city mall, I asked him to wait and I bought him an ice-cream cone to let him know that we really appreciated his perseverance and hard work; sometimes gifts are all you can give because most people don’t speak English. When we finished at the city mall, we went to the market and then the store and then we decided to head back home. We waived down a rickshaw and ended up with the same guy! He had a huge smile on his face and welcomed us onto his rickshaw. He laughed at us the whole way home as we sang and joked around and pointed and laughed at our crazy Indian surroundings, and when we got the Check Post where we live, instead of dropping us off on the side of the road like most rickshaw drivers do, he drove us all the way down our street and onto ASHA’s driveway right in front of the door. He said goodbye with a big smile and Abby gave him some juice just to thank him once again for how hard he worked for us. That man blessed me more than I think I have been ever been blessed by anyone here. I think about the story in the Bible of the woman who has so little to give but is favored in the eyes of the Lord because she gives with a glad heart. That man gave his energy and time to us although we pay him a mere 20 rupees (40 cents) because we showed him Christ’s love.
Last story. This story is precious to my heart and will be a memory I cherish for the rest of my life. I will probably cry a little as I write it because it honestly shows what the bond of the Body of Christ ought to look like. Last night was the night we decided to wash the children’s feet. Kristin spoke about serving and loving each other before we did and then we had them sit along the wall and we each took a few kids and washed their feet. I washed Markus’ and Brij’s feet first because I have had a special bond with them while I have been here and I really wanted this opportunity to talk to them about the mission of service they are going to be called to carry out with their lives in Christ. As I washed their feet, they looked up at me with love and a little bit of laughter as it tickled their toes and they listened intently as I explained what serving is and asked them questions to provoke thought. When I finished washing their feet, they said, “Thank you Auntie,” and then did the universal sign for “I love you.” Then after I washed a few more children’s feet and got the same response of love and appreciation and honest understanding about serving, Saul came up to me and said, “AUNTIE! I wash your feet now!” And so it began. All the children started pulling all the Aunties to water buckets and washing our feet. Then a woman who works at ASHA jumped in and started washing our feet. It was a precious and beautiful picture of unity in the body of Christ. Holy Spirit revealed Himself to those children in that moment and love overcame their youth. They desired to serve us just as we desired to serve them.
Serving our brothers and sisters is a command and opportunity to love. My heart here has been overwhelmed with love on so many circumstances here and the Lord has opened my eyes to how beautiful the Body is and how wonderful it is to sacrifice myself to give to others. I love like I have never loved before because I love like Jesus loves. I don’t really know what else to say about India… and I don’t really know what else to say in this blog… so I guess this is it. I guess I have reached the end of my blogs here in India. I guess it’s time for a new season. I hope that you have been blessed by these letters to you. Each blog has been Spirit filled because none of it has been from me. I feel so blessed to have been able to serve you in this way and I pray that you are moved to acts of service and love and obedience to Christ because of what He reveals to you through these letters.
I hope that the grace and love and
service of Jesus Christ compels you
to live fully in the ways of the Lord.
I love you, I really love you!
In love and as a servant of Christ Jesus,
Heidi McCune