tears, Suma, and the Gospel

Our journey has taken us from Mumbai, through Chennai and a few days with our professors Matt and Danielle to the French inspired coastal city of Pondicherry. We find ourselves cramming into buses or shared autos as we journey to slums, villages, and a leper colony by the sea. Our guide into these impoverished and dark places is a former Hindu priest named Aaron who has been transformed by the Gospel. The Lord sent 1 year old Esther, more than once, to weep over Aaron while he was reciting mantras to false, lifeless idols. The little girl shed the tears of a Father who longed for a relationship with Aaron. Esther now studies 6 standard and Aaron proclaims the gospel to hopeless, idol worshiping lepers and slum dwellers.

The Father lifted us up to share the good news in one of these slums and even to shed, His compassionate tears for these who sit in hopeless darkness. The Spirit has convinced me that Christ is truly the hope of the nations, the depraved, and the hurting like Avon Marie a 78-year-old leper lady. Marie and Suma, a fisherman who had lost his wife after only a year of marriage, listened to the Gospel. The Spirit planted deep seeds as John shared, I prayed, and Marie and Suma listened intently despite the attempts of the enemy to distract from this freeing truth. The language barrier made it difficult for us to decipher what the Spirit was, and is, doing in their hearts, but Aaron was filled with joy at Suma’s response to the good news. By God’s grace I will see the wonderfully simple man in the Kingdom clothed, as I am, with the righteousness of our dear Savior.

As the Body pray for those who have heard the Gospel that the seed would not be snatched away but that the Spirit would do a transforming work in these lives. He saves, and we simply stand in awe of this great salvation pointing out its beauty, wonder, and truth to the hopeless and lost. Continue to pray for John and I that we would be filled with compassion for others and the joy of the Lord which strengthens us to overcome every cultural frustration or discomfort. Our Father is incredibly faithful as the sunrise on my birthday reminded me. All glory to the God who has raised me from the dead to abundant life, and may that life spill out on others through the Spirit that dwells within me. Strotum