I’ve told you before about the Scribblers, a young women’s ministry in our church that is dedicated to “sisterhood and servanthood.” It’s a work in progress, with plenty of room for improvement; but we’re getting there, praise God. When we were in India, specifically in Chitoor where the cleft lip surgeries should have taken place, there were during the evenings open air meetings and during the day Bible studies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was also in Chitoor that I had the opportunity to share Philip’s testimony on Saturday night.
The main speaker for the special meetings was from Sri Lanka, a Pastor Mendis. About 60 people from his church flew to Chitoor and attended the meetings. On Saturday I spoke to a few young women who were from Sri Lanka (I will call them the Scribblers International). The young women were delightful and very sweet and pleasant to talk to. They made me feel very comfortable in Chitoor . (Shout out to Vihara, Moughavi, Sister Agnes, and Souganthi ). Well, on Saturday, one of them came to me to talk about her own pain and heartaches in Sri Lanka. Soon a few others joined, and we decided to spend some time in prayer. I remembered that before we left from America, Pastor Abraham encouraged my husband and myself to lay hands and pray for the people. I’ve never done that before on my own, but I felt that the Lord was telling me to do so. I could not help but weep for the young women who came to pray. They are so dedicated and later I would see that even more so.
I had noticed that a big bus filled with the Sri Lankan believers would arrive almost 2 hours before the evening meetings started. As it turned out, the young women came and talked with me for a little while before the service on Saturday, before standing together in unison saying “We must go and pray for the meetings, Pastor expects it.” I watched all of them go kneel on the hard and rocky earth (open air meeting, remember) and lift their hands and cry out to God. They stayed there for one hour, even though the musicians began practicing their songs, the people remained in prayer for one hour.
On Sunday night, I could not sit in the crowd, I had to go and join them. It was a powerful time of prayer, I believe. Pastor Mendis has several thousand believers in his church, and it all started with a handful of believers many years ago. He is a prophet, has prophesied about the tsunami and other disasters over the past several years. God raised a man from the dead through Pastor Mendis’ prayer.
It made me think a lot. We can mock our leaders who have done horrible things and are on TV for their sins finding them out. We can disrespect and judge our leaders. We can also complain and point fingers and say there are no results and where is the fruit?! But what if we cried out, in one accord, and prayed for them, what would happen? I learned a lot of things about the Indian culture and more importantly about spiritual warfare and true sacrifice. I heard that some believers were on a schedule waking up every morning 3a.m. to pray. The “International Scribblers” do not know what they have done to change some things in my life. I hope that you, too, pray that God would open your eyes to see what needs to change in YOUR life. What needs to be done differently, where is your sacrifice? I promise you, our God is faithful. Just as I saw with Pastor Mendis and his full blown ministry. But we have to do so in unity, and make sacrifices. I’ll never forget Pastor Sean Teal’s message “God will not trust His Kingdom in the hands of prayerless people.” May God help you and me to do so.
Because every child matters!
Susan
