Not all ministry on a missions trip is done in a public setting. Part of it happens behind the scenes in building relationships and having one-on-one interactions with people. A lot of that went on in India during this trip. I don't report most of it because it might seem boring to read. But I want to report a bit about the sponsoring pastor for the Vizag meetings, Pastor Joshua, and his wife. They are incredible people and God is going to be using them in incredible ways.
His wife (sorry I have forgotten her name), is a pharmacist. She had become a believer later in life and then she was baptized in the Holy Spirit and discovered the power and anointing of God. She was looking at Christianity from a "what can I receive from God" perspective. She felt she had gotten all that God had to give on earth and she read in her bible how wonderful a place Heaven was. So she began to pray, "Lord, I have experienced everything I can get from You here on earth, so please take me to Heaven now, I want to experience that."
One day God gave her a vision of a ladder stretching up to Heaven. She walked over to it and was about to climb it. But an angel appeared to her and told her that she will one day be allowed to climb up this ladder. But she can't go up the ladder yet, because God was sending her to preach the gospel to the poor. That vision changed her life and her perspective. She stopped looking at her Christian walk in terms of "what can God do for me?" and began looking at it in terms of "What can I do for God, to serve Him?"
That vision happened at the same time that God spoke to her husband to quit his job and move from their nice house to a poor part of town to pastor. As a result of her vision, she was able to easily accept God's call on her life and the command to move to the slums. She kept her job as a pharmacist, and she has begun an outreach to the poor through it. She has arranged for a clinic to be set up where some doctor friends of hers come free of charge to write prescriptions for medications. Then she, as a pharmacist, dispenses them to the people. She has also worked out some sort of deal with drug manufacturers to get the medications at a much lower cost. So she is able to provide very low-cost prescriptions to poor people who would not otherwise be able to afford them.
As she meets people's practical needs, their hearts are touched and they become more open and receptive to the gospel. She does not just tell them about the love of Christ, she demonstrates it to them in very practical ways. This is in a society where people believe in Karma, so they are not inclined to help the poor and suffering. Karma teaches that whatever hardship a person is under, it is because they are being punished for their wrongs in a previous life, so why help them? Therefore the poor are not used to having their needs met through practical demonstrations of God's love for them, and it really touches and opens their heart and opens them to the gospel.
Her husband, Joshua, has a pretty amazing story of his own. He was an officer in the police force and he had worked his way up the ranks to become an important man. He had been a believer for a while, but one day he and his wife were baptized in the Holy Spirit, and that began to change things in his life. He got so caught up in the things of the Spirit that the things of the flesh became less important for him. All of the sudden, it was not about his status or about retirement and having a big comfortable house and financial security. It was about seeing what the Father is doing and doing it with Him in His power and anointing. He was only six years away from retirement when God called him to ministry. If he waited a mere six years later, he could have had a wonderful pension. But God had filled him with compassion for the poor and he could not wait six years.
So he resigned his commission and gave up his pension. He moved his family from their very nice home to the poor part of town, so he could minister to the poor. He began working in their midst, such as praying for the sick. And God healed them as he prayed. This resulted in several people receiving Christ and forsaking their Hindu gods. Soon he had enough new converts to start a church. At first they were a smaller group that met in his house. Then God spoke to him to build a church building, so he did. He financed it himself, using his life-savings to do so. He is a man who has literally sold all he has for the kingdom of God.
He is an amazing man and I wish you could have the opportunity to meet him. Most Indian pastors have a vision to build their own church, but God has given him a burden for his city. As a result, he is a bridge-builder and he wants to build all the churches in the area, not just his own. That is why he had a women's retreat for Christian women from all churches instead of having something for just his own people. I spent the evening with them, hearing their stories and getting to know them.
Near the end of the evening, I prayed again for Michelle, who wanted to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and to speak in tongues. I spent about 20 minutes praying for her, with her parents praying as well. She did not get the gift of tongues, and she was so disappointed that she ran out of the room crying. I was disappointed as well. If there was one thing I really wanted God to do for me on this portion of the trip to Vizag, it was to give Michelle the gift of tongues.
We went back to the hotel. Pastor Joshua was spending the night in the room with Sharath so they could talk and share. I had my room to myself, and the highest item on my agenda was to get to sleep as soon as possible, as I was pretty tired.
As usual, God did not let me sleep very long that night. He woke me up about 3 or 4 hours later, but I was as refreshed as if I had a full night's sleep. I spent some time worshipping, as well as praying and interceding for Michelle to get the gift of tongues. But I did not feel like I was connecting to God as well as before. So I asked Him what was the matter.
He told me that He was not happy with my decision to do the closing prayer at the meeting after He told me He'd lifted His anointing from that meeting. I apologized to him about that and asked to be forgiven and restored to fellowship with Him. He said that He forgave me, but that my disobedience had caused a little of His protective covering to lift off of me, and that would give the enemy an avenue to attack me during this trip.
I had not meant to be disobedient -- I had asked God what to do about closing the meeting in prayer and He had not forbidden me to do so. I guess God wanted me to come to the right decision on my own, and that was why He did not answer me. When I looked back on it, I realized that I really did have enough information to figure out what He wanted. I knew He was unhappy and lifted His anointing from that meeting. I also knew He forbid me to take the microphone to preach any more. Therefore, I should have been able to figure out that He did not want me to close the meeting in prayer anymore than He wanted me to preach some more. I guess I had been just as guilty of pleasing people instead of pleasing God as Sharath had been -- and I was learning my lesson as well. So I again apologized to God and asked Him to please alert me next time I was trying to make a choice to please a person over pleasing Him.
God restored the fellowship, and I had a very sweet time of worship.
I am jumping ahead a bit chronologically, but I wanted to finish this story. The protection that lifted was in the area of my physical health. I ended up catching Michelle's cold late the following afternoon, after I preached my last sermon in Vizag. It made me really sick. I could not sleep well that following night, I spent most of the night sneezing. I had elected not to bring much with me in cold medicine in faith. When I packed for this trip, I reasoned that since a big part of my trip would be praying for the sick, I needed to trust God to keep me healthy as well. So I packed a box of decongestant, but that was about it in terms of the cold medicine I brought with me.
It turns out that if I would have been smart enough to figure out God did not want me to pray, I would have never missed the medicine I did not bring. But as things turned out, I missed it very much. Indian pharmacies do sell cold medications, but none of them are very strong. And I need a really strong medicine for this cold -- my throat hurt and I was sneezing like crazy. A couple of days later it turned into a bad cough. I was so sick on the 6-hour train ride from Vizag to Vijayawada that I almost was not able to do the things that God had for me to do on that trip. I will tell that part of the story later on.
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