Boldness of Believers

It's so exciting to be here and to meet believers! As opposed to where I was studying abroad, here the believers are bold. Every Christian you meet will tell you right away, and they want to be sure you know they are a believer. There's quite a large Christian community here in the city, and they have many strong churches. They aren't afriad to share the gospel in public or to suffer the consequences. One of my co-workers is a brother and he has been kidnapped, threatened, and has an amazing testimony of how God has worked in his life. His family is from the north, and his great grandfather was the first convert in the village. The family has since grown strong in the Lord and brought the message to all they come in contact with. His son is an evangelist currently living in the U.K. Praise God!

We were able to go to a local church this past sunday. It was in Urdu, so I could only understand the jist of the sermon and not the particulars, but it was still cool to worship with our brothers and sisters. Many Christians here have hard lives because they are marginalized from having good jobs or living in the nice places of the city. The people were so poor, yet they showed us so much hospitality by inviting us to their home. (More details to come on the other blog, and photos). These brothers and sisters like to sing LOUDLY to the Lord, and it was so encouraging to sing the psalms with them in their language. It was also cool that I could follow along in the songbook, and since they only sing the psalms I knew that even if I didn't understand it was the word of the Lord. They invited us up to the front of the church to welcome us and to give us necklaces (similar to leis made with gold garland and flowers).

I wasn't able to focus too much on God during the service because it was quite traditional and I accidentally sat on the men's side of the church! We had come early and hadn't noticed a pattern that the women sat on the and the men sat on the left. I also hadn't covered my hair, assuming that the Christian women wouldn't do it, but they ALL had their hair covered and were wearing shalwar-kameez with scarves. I felt so immodestly dressed in my western style pants, sweater, and scarf around my neck but not covered my hair. Next time I'll be prepared, and I'll make sure I sit on the correct side of the church!

We got to sit and have tea with the pastor, his wife, and a bunch of the congregation members after church. Only a few of them spoke English (most of the villages spoke Punjabi), but those we were able to talk to we shared great fellowship with.

I'm excited about what God is doing here because the church is on the surface. There still seems to be a need for more prayer, fasting, corporate worship, and seeking the power of the spirit, but it is so different being here where people refuse to be debilitated by fear. In the last country I was in, believers were even afraid to meet together for study or prayer because the other person might be a spy. I only met one believer in a whole year and we weren't even able to fellowship openly. Here, it's been about a week and we've been able to meet so many believers!

God is certainly stirring things up here and I'm looking forward to see how I can be part of it! Revival fire come sweep this land!

Question & Answer Time

Today we went to take a tour of the place where people gather to pray. It was the only one in the country that we were allowed to go into, and due to this fact it was swarming with tourists. The purpose of the tour was to promote understanding and tolerance between cultures. It was quite interesting to hear what the two hosts answered to all the questions. The woman host was Swiss and converted when she was a teen. She now lives here and has fully embraced the religion and culture. She’s quite smooth and always PC when answering questions, a good choice for the program. Some of the tourists asked ridiculous questions, but others asked some good ones. One woman asked, “If you believe in the earlier two books and ascribe importance to them, why don’t you read them?” The guy didn’t understand the question and proceeded to give the schpeel that everyone believed in the same G-d and all the same messengers. He didn’t give the usual answer that the books had been corrupted by other people and therefore could no longer be trusted. The woman who asked the question had a good point, one I’ve brought up many times when talking to people. If these texts were also inspired, why doesn’t anyone read them? Even if they’ve been corrupted you could trust G to show you what parts were true and useful for life. The guy giving the tour just kept saying that there was the same “list of do’s and don’ts in all the books” and that was what was important. It’s all about obligation. Doing good things. Making sure that scale on the right side is heavier than the one on the left.

He made another interesting comment, “All the messengers were illiterate and uneducated.” It is common belief that the last great one was illiterate and unlearned, but I never heard anyone claim that ALL the messengers were illiterate. How then could J read the scroll (Is 61)? This claim that they were all unable to read doesn’t hold with tradition at all. Minor point, but interesting. I think the woman knew that she had no excuse to why everyone didn’t read the other two important books, so she didn’t have any good PC answers for this one!

After the question/answer time we all watched a short video on the pilgrimage, which strangely enough was from NightLine about 9 years ago. An American who had connections to the media had gone for the first time and gained inside access to everything that was going on. I’d seen it before, but it was quite funny to have Ted Koppel talking to us here!

During the video I was so overwhelmed with a desire to pray. I mean, there is definitely fear of G-d, but not real relationship. The guy during the talk kept saying that the word for prayer really meant “connection” with the Creator, and that it is the way of being closer. They long to submit to a higher power. They long to have lives that are significant, and those who truly believe it will go to all lengths to find this. They’ve resurrected legalism times 10, and yet still have no assurance of what will happen after they’ve left this earth.

Transit - Heathrow

Well here I am in the Heathrow airport. I don't know how many hours it's been since I've slept but I know we've got another 7 hour flight ahead of us! Last night was crazy trying to finish up that Anthro final (I just emailed it to my prof from the airport), repack, and help Duiii get his stuff together. I wouldn't even have made it out of my apartment in time without Christina coming over to help me pack up. Our flight was uneventful except for some turbulence, and we were able to stick the guitar up in the front wardrobe which was nice. On to the Gulf....