To Be Humbled.....

I had the very humbling experience of teaching at a women’s prayer meeting this past Monday. I am always humbled to do anything in ministry, especially when it comes to teaching, and I was admittedly very nervous when Auntie Prema asked me to speak on prayer.

This instance was particularly humbling for several reasons. These women meet every Monday in someone’s home for three hours that are filled with testifying to the Lord and what He is doing in their lives, singing praises to Him and praying at His feet. These women are truly warriors in prayer. To be asked to speak on the topic of prayer to a group of women who are so committed to prayer and so faithful to testify the Lord in their lives was amazing to me.

Monday morning came, and Lydia and I walked to the end of the road and waited. After about ten minutes, a small three-wheeled auto pulled up with Auntie Prema inside. I, in my salwar, and Lydia, in a ballerina tutu, crawled in beside her. The small open auto weaved through the bumpy dirt roads to another house. We stopped, and though we had no more room, another ‘auntie’ climbed into the auto with us. The four of us sat very close to one another in the back of the small open car, and continued our trip.

After braving the insane Indian traffic, we were dropped off among some shops along side of a busier road. We continued on foot on smaller dirt roads that led us to rows of long one-story cement buildings. We stopped in front of a set of stairs and took off our shoes. We entered a doorway, one of many along the yellow cement building, which seemed to go on forever as one structure down the dirt road. The room we entered was not quite ten feet by ten feet. This was the living room. There were already about twelve women seated on furniture and on the floor in this tiny space. To the right was what I assumed to be the bedroom. To the left was the kitchen, a very tiny space. I had to take Lydia to the bathroom when we arrived, which was also off to the left.

The bathroom was so small that even Lydia and I felt crowded in the room together. There was little plumbing, except for a faucet coming from the wall. Buckets filled with water were in the corner of the tiny room. In the middle of the wet floor was an Indian style toilet. Only those with the financial ability have western style toilets in their bathrooms. Here was a porcelain hole in the floor. After trying to get Lydia to squat over the floor, I finally took all of her clothes off and had her straddle the floor to pee. This whole ordeal took us ten minutes. Finally, we emerged from the bathroom and the meeting began.

Lydia sat at my feet and played with toys, as there was no room besides this for her to sit and play. By the time the meeting began, there were 22 women sitting side by side, and the floor was filled. The entire meeting was in Tamil, as most of these women do not know English. There was singing, praying and women gave testimonies of what the Lord was doing in their lives and the lives of their families. The Indian people are very careful to make sure they give public praise and testimony when the Lord chooses to bless their lives and answer their prayers. If only I was so faithful in my thankfulness to God!

I spoke on prayer for about an hour to this group of ladies, and Auntie Prema translated for me in Tamil. I was humbled. These ladies may not be very academically versed in Scripture, but their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and their faithfulness to prayer could rival most. They were attentive and while I had to leave the meeting early, right after teaching, to get Kayla off of the van from school, Auntie Prema told me later that the ladies enjoyed my teaching. That whole experience taught me more and blessed me immeasurably more than what I could have possibly given in that meeting.

I was struck by the hospitality of the woman who owned the home we met in. She did not apologize for the very small size of her home. No one thought twice of sitting on the hard marble floor shoulder to shoulder. Though it was obvious the family had little, she offered Lydia bananas to eat throughout the meeting. And afterwards, she planned on serving lunch to the ladies in attendance. I thought about my own hospitality in the states, and how I was always concerned with how clean my home was or what people would think of where I lived. This woman was not concerned with impressing people with her home, nor was she embarrassed or apologetic about its size. She was concerned about serving the Lord and serving her sisters in Christ. She wanted to be a part of God’s work, without regard to the world and its opinion.

I am continually pointed to Christ in all I see and do in this country. It is easy to see the Lord’s hand and to see His presence in the lives of believers here. With few distractions from the world and material wealth, it is easy to see His hand and His provision. And I am constantly humbled by what I used to have, and even what I still have here compared to others. And then I remember that no one is better off than another, as long as we share the love of Christ. And these women surely shared the love of Christ with me, a better gift I could not ask for.