Sunday, April 13, 2014

An Illiterate Asian Grandma and the Kingdom of God - Part 7 in a series

It was Palm Sunday and  word had come from one of the church's missionary families in South East Asia. Pastor Hugh said, "Before I preach about the hype people experienced as they saw Jesus come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, I want to read you a letter that came from your missionaries yesterday. I've been preaching that Jesus Christ reaches out to the poor as well as the rich, to men as well as women, to people of every language. But, can God reach a humble, illiterate woman who in her heart desires to know the truth? Here's what they wrote:"
 
"Do you remember our petite local, illiterate Grandma? Last Saturday she told us she had been having dreams of Jesus coming to visit her with 200-300 men in white. This was truly remarkable as we have never spoken about angles with her before. (She has had a couple of personal visitations from Jesus himself). She has been a Buddhist all her life, but the Lord is drawing her to himself. In these recent dreams, Jesus invited her to go with him. She wanted to go, but she did not want to go with these 200-300 other men (all of whom were younger than Jesus and very beautifully dressed, all in white). She didn't trust these men who were coming and going in and out of her room, and she felt so underdressed and grubby beside them. We strongly urged her that if he came again in a dream, to go with him!!! I returned home feeling that she would be leaving this life any day. 

"On Tuesday she fell down and was unable to get into her house. She slept outside all night, and was laying there all day long without anything to eat or sleep. She could not move and no one knew she had fallen. At 5 pm, 2 of our girls decided to drop in on her for an unplanned visit. They almost left, thinking she wasn't home, before they saw her raise her hand from the ground. She was unable to move or speak. I took her to the hospital and they admitted her. 

"Her hospital stay has been an experience in itself, as the nurses will not feed her, neither will any of the family members of the other 8+ women in the room. they all just watch her cry. Unless we come and feed her, she goes hungry. We have told the nurses that she has no family and we have asked them to feed her if we are unable to come, but no. 

"Today she was discharged, and we brought her back to the community centre, where she lives. We were very concerned about having her out of hospital as she can no longer do anything for herself. We prayed about it this morning, and by this afternoon it was all taken care of. They had set up a bed for her in a public area, which I initially thought was a terrible idea, but now I see that it was the perfect place, as she will have lots of visitors and attention.
 
"We have set up a roster for feeding her between all our students and staff. I am praying that the Lord will be glorified in all this. Our village headman is very vocally against Christians and makes fun of foreigners. His wife has been involved in setting up this place for the old grandma to sleep. (!) We are more involved in the life of our community than ever before at the moment.
 
"Could you please pray that the Grandma will die peacefully and that even in her death the Lord would be glorified somehow." 

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