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!