Pray with faith

Greetings everybody. While everybody is shopping for souvenirs and gifts for family and friends, I decided to overcome the obstacle – the absence of a Russian keyboard and type using an online keyboard. It works pretty quickly.

What were my expectations and thoughts when a week ago I sat at the airport?

India and Nepal will never worship the ONE True God, they'll never stop worshipping idols – that was an axiom for me, a fundamental truth.

A week has gone by.

I saw a lot of miracles throughout it.

The first miracle for me – boys in pastor Samuel's orphanage. They're 5 to 10 years old and they already know what they'll do when they grow up. They will study well at school to go to college... good education is very important to earn a good living so that you can by a house and a car??? No, to God's great joy this is not their dream or a purpose in life. Every child, every boy wants to be a pastor. EVERY one of them wants to take the Gospel to people that don't know Jesus yet.

And when they started singing... Not the “Jesus loves me” or “He's got the whole world” song but hymns with perfect elaborate melody, paying no attention to adults – I felt truly ashamed before God. I find it difficult to come to church once a week early in the morning for prayer while those kids in Nepal every day spend an hour before school studying the Word and singing hymns.

Then we relocated... and there was a lady... a sick woman... completely crippled... she could barely speak... always laughed like a child. I felt sorry for her. Pity was my first feeling. But only the first. For a day and a half I would glance at her and pity her but yesterday God led me into her room. For a while I couldn't figure out what she was doing in bed. In a few minutes I gave up and came up to see... My first feeling was a shock... She held a needle in one of her feet and was making a necklace with beads. SMALL beads. And she wasn't putting them together randomly – no, the was a pattern that she followed. With her toes.

My second feeling – shame. We have everything – arms, hands, legs, a head, a sound mind, parents, a job, a housing, food for the day... How much of God's grace and goodness that He gives me daily I use for His glory? Not for satisfying my ambitions and desires but for God's glory? Not much, I'm afraid... In the evening when we were living the orphanage I came up to her room again to leave her all the beads we brought for crafts. I don't know how many words she knows but the most important ones she knows for sure. She squeezed herself into me, rejoicing and repeating “thank you, bless God”...

Today we are leaving Nepal... I want to come back here very very much. To learn from them to serve people... to learn dedication from them... to learn to work hard from them... to learn to show people mercy, love and kindness from them...

I thank God that He has allowed me to see the great work that is being done here for Him and through that to come to faith in salvation for the people of Nepal.

Ira