After service, I was invited back to the pastor's home for lunch. All of his relatives and several of his church members had come for a luncheon to celebrate his granddaughter's naming. Sharath was related to these people by marriage. One of his brothers was married to one of Pastor Joshua's daughters. So Sharath was really enjoying the family celebration and he was getting to know some of his in-laws. It was a festive time. Unfortunately, I began to get sick with that cold and I was absolutely miserable. After a while, I finally asked to be taken back to the hotel for a nap. I suggested that Sharath could stay with the family and celebrate, but he decided he'd like to come to the hotel and take a nap as well.
I can't tell you how I got so sick so quickly, but I did. I felt perfectly fine in the morning and during the church service. But now I had a terrible sore throat and my head was pounding and I had started to sniffle quite a bit. It felt so good to get back to my hotel bed and lay down. I double-dosed on my cold medicine and it seemed to help for a short while.
Vizag is famous for it's beautiful beaches, so the plans for the afternoon were to take me sight seeing to the beach. This was going to be my only sight seeing in India, so I really wanted to do this. After the beach, we were supposed to go to Sharath's sister's house for dinner as she lived near the beach. It seemed all too soon when Sharath and Joshua knocked on my door to take me to the beach, but were actually over an hour late. It was only half an hour before it got dark and an hour drive to the beach. I said that it seemed like it was too late to go to the beach, maybe I should just stay in my room and sleep. They told me that in India, a little after sunset is the ideal time to go to the beach. Apparently Indians go to the beach at night instead of during the day. They walk along the beach instead of laying on the sand to sun bathe or playing in the water. I let them talk me into going, but I was way too sick to enjoy myself. All I wanted to do was to go back to my hotel room and sleep. The cold medicine was wearing off and my symptoms were getting worse.
When we reached Sharath's sister's house, I asked Sharath and Pastor Joshua to pray for me because I felt so sick. When Joshua prayed for me, I felt a strong sense of the Lord's presence -- that man packs quite an anointing. But unfortunately, I did not get any better physically. Then Sharath asked me to pray for him for an impartation of miracle-working faith. So I went ahead and prayed for him and God hit him so strongly that he could not remain standing. He backed up a few steps and sort of crumbled into a chair that his brother-in-law slid behind him as he fell. Sharath and I were both drunk in the spirit for about 10 minutes, and the overflow hit Pastor Joshua, and he became a bit tipsy himself. We had a lot of fun with the Lord while we waited for dinner to be prepared.
I was so sick that I did not think I would be able to make it through the evening. But when the Lord's presence hit us at this impromptu prayer meeting, I felt much better. I was still sneezing like crazy, but it was not bothering me so much any more. Dinner turned out to be rather pleasant because the Holy Spirit showed up. After dinner was over, they decided to cut the evening short and take me back to the hotel.
I had expected to go right to sleep and sleep until morning, but that did not happen. I sneezed so much that I could not get to sleep at all. I tried to worship, but it was hard to concentrate on that as well. I finally asked God what He wanted me to do, and He suggested I re-pack and re-organize my luggage for the train ride. So that is what I did. I was so sick that it literally took me several hours to do that simple task.
I asked the Lord to heal me and He reminded me that His protection against this cold would not have lifted in the first place if I had respected His wishes at the previous day's afternoon session. (That was where I went ahead and did the short closing prayer after God told me not to preach anymore because He'd lifted His anointing off the meeting.) God told me it was really important that I learn this lesson now so I did not get in more trouble later on. I thought about the prophet from 1 Kings 13. Then I thought about how I personally learn things. I decided God was right. If He healed me instantly, it would be almost like I "got away" with not honoring His wishes. But being this sick really drove the point home with me. This made it very real to me how important it is to only do what He is doing and absolutely no more than He is doing.
I decided that God was actually doing me a favor by not healing me, so I could learn this important lesson. I began to thank and praise Him for that, and I could feel His nearness and His sweetness surround me.
We had to leave the hotel really early in the morning, because we had to catch a 5:45 AM train, and the train station was about a 45 minute drive from the hotel. We planned to leave the hotel at 4:45 AM sharp (which is what Indians say when they really mean the time). So someone from the hotel staff came and knocked at my door at 4:00 AM as a sort of "wake up call". I guess Sharath had arranged that for me. As it turned out, I was not asleep -- I had been too sick to sleep all that night.
I wondered how I was going to wrap my saree myself. I knew how to wrap it, but I was clumsy at it and it always came out looking wrong when I did it myself. To my surprise, Michelle came about 4:30 AM to wrap my saree for me.
I apologized for dragging her out of bed. She said that it was not a problem... that she had changed her travel arrangements and was going to be on the same express train that Sharath and I were on, as it would cut her 14 hour train ride back to college almost in half. Her dad had given her the money to cover the extra expense of being on an express train. But she was going to be in a different car than us. We were traveling in a business-class air-conditioned car and she could not afford to do that. The price difference between coach and business class was only about $20 in US dollars, but it was a great deal of money to Indians. So I offered to pay the difference so that Michelle could ride in the same car as her uncle Sharath and myself.
As it turned out, we could not get her a seat near our assigned seats, so Sharath offered to sit in her seat and let us two females travel together. We did a little bit of moving around over the course of the six hour ride, so that she also had an hour to chat with her uncle Sharath and I had a chance to jot some notes about Vizag down so I could write up these trip reports when I got home.
As it turned out, the enemy really went out of his way to harass me on this trip. I was given a water bottle that turned out to be not totally sealed. I was leery of it because I'd heard rumors of people filling empty bottles from the kitchen sink and then selling them as spring water. I had a small sip to try it out -- just two swallows. And I ended up spending 45 minutes on the toilet with Montezuma's revenge. (That is not a fun prospect on trains, where the toilets are Indian style and not very clean.)
Also, while I was on the toilet, my travel wedding ring skipped off my finger and fell out the bottom of the toilet. (Train toilets are just holes that drop down to the ground where the tracks are.) Fortunately, it was not my real wedding ring, but one with an artificial diamond that I wear when I travel internationally.
In addition to that, all I had for breakfast was a single protein bar. When I was only halfway through eating it, the train jarred and knocked my breakfast out of my hand onto the very dirty floor. So much for breakfast. As if that were not enough, I also ended up sneezing so violently that it got all over the saree I was wearing, staining it in multiple places. Despite the enemy harassments, God had plans for me to minister to Michelle.
I had brought a corporate word with me that I'd prophesied a few weeks before the trip. I was not sure why I brought it along, but I found it encouraging to read from time to time. Michelle began to read it over my shoulder while I was reading it. So I gave it to her. I asked her if she'd like to be able to give prophetic words like this, and she said "Oh, yes!" Then I told her that God had given her the gift of prophecy and I explained what it meant when I had imparted my prophetic mantle to her at the previous day's service. I also explained it may take some time, maybe even a year, before the prophetic begins to surface, but not to worry because it really is there. She was so thrilled. We were just about to arrive at our destination, the final stop on this train line, Vijayawada.
I was wearing one of those rhinestone crosses like the one's I'd been giving away, and God told me to give her my cross. So I took it off of my neck and put it on hers. I told her that each time she looked at the cross it should remind her that just like I'd given her this cross, God had given her a prophetic mantle. She was so touched and began to cry. Then she told me a short story. Back on the first day of meetings, she had watched me give away that cross as part of the object lesson. The person who received it was a friend of hers. When she did not get the gift of tongues that she'd been praying for, she had asked God to please give her a cross like her friend got to show her that He still loved her and was not mad at her. So when I took the cross off my neck and gave it to her, God was telling her, "See, I really do love you and I am not mad at you". That cross she had been praying for came with more than she had bargained for, because it also served as a token of the prophetic gifting that God was giving to her. God is so neat!
The Vijayawada train station is one of the busiest stations in India. The word "crowded" does not even begin to describe what it was like. There were so many people it was almost impossible to walk. Getting from the platform to the staircase was worse than negotiating the freeway in rush hour traffic. In that crowd, I had somehow become separated from Sharath, who was rushing to keep up with the porters so we did not lose our luggage. Michelle and I held hands and managed to stay together. She had to transfer to a different train and had another 2 hour journey on that other train, but this was my final destination. As we made our way through the crowd to leave the platform, she ran into a school friend who was also traveling back to campus. So she had a travel mate for the rest of her trip. God is so good, He even takes care of the little details. He was going out of His way to bless her and show her just how much He cared for her. It was neat to watch Him do that.
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