It's all of God's children singing glory, glory, hallelujah He reigns!

April 8, 2010
Some days you know God has sent you someone special, someone to remind you of your purpose and your work here on Earth. Sometimes they’re people you know, but here I’ve found that just as often they’re complete strangers, just passing through my life, making me wonder if I’ve unwittingly entertained angels! Angel or not, these are the people who get me through day in and out! They’re the body of Christ!

Today, we started painting the upper part of the fence around the house. It’s iron with these spikes on top to keep thieves at bay, with criss-crossing rebar creating a battleship grid on top of the brick wall. It comes in panels my arm span long (think, 5’5” arm span, give or take a few inches!) with these thick, javelin like posts in between them. It was starting to rust, so we had to prime the whole darn thing, and then go back and paint it a beautifully rich black.

Now, understand that we were doing this just 3 days after painting the majority of the common areas in the house white. A 3 day project that ended on a 9 hour note! So, our arms were ready for the swiping paint action. Yesterday, we took steel brushes to get off all the flaking paint, and this morning Shiva and I began priming the fence around 6:30am. Slowly, the reddened black fence began to turn white. About 2 hours later we were finished, just in time for my tutoring session with some kids from another hostel and then the English class I’m teaching at church. Never let anyone fool you: breaks aren’t always slow!

After returning home a few hours later, Uncle mixed the black paint for Shiva and I, and we began coating the fence. Painting rebar strand by strand is like dipping each piece of spaghetti into the sauce, one at a time with your hands. Long, tedious, and everybody involved gets sauced! So, we called Asha and Isha to help, but, they have the attention span of a mosquito and were incredibly concerned about getting paint on themselves (they were appalled at how speckled I was!). So, Shiva and I worked on it awhile more, and then Shiva said to leave it for the morning. Well, I was on a roll with my iPod in one ear, swiping to the likes of Jimmy Needham, tobyMac, Sanctus Real, and Natalie Grant, while I listened for kids fighting with the other. In terms of multi-focusing, I’m so ready for parenthood!

Well, I was singing along to myself, when suddenly I heard from the other side of the fence, “Pardon me, but could you use some help?!” I looked up startled, made sure I didn’t fall of the chair I was standing on in my surprise, only to see a kind, brown-haired light-skinned lady standing there looking at me. My first inclination was to say, “No, I’ve got it handled” but she had something about her that made me say, “Sure, if you really want to!” She told me that she had seen me in the morning and wanted to come out, but she was busy until now. I handed her a brush, and she introduced herself as Violetia from Brazil. I introduced myself and asked how she had come to Nepal. She hesitated only a moment before saying, “Well, I am a Christian and I felt Jesus was calling me to come here.” A huge smile broke across my face as she glanced at me to see my reaction and I replied, “We’re Christians too!” Excitement broke across her face as I explained that this is a Christian run children’s home.

We talked for the better part of another hour painting, bouncing questions off each other. She’s in her late 50s, though she looks much younger. She also looks so familiar to me. One of those deja’vu things where you want to say “have we met before?” but you know the answer is no. She’s got several siblings in Brazil along with her younger daughter, who’s 23. Her older daughter is 32 and lives here with her in Nepal. She’s just here to help wherever she can. If she sees someone who might need help, she asks if she can help.

She came to Nepal last year and spent 7 months here before returning to Brazil for a few months. When she came, she knew almost no English or Nepali, and communicated using facial expressions and her hands. Now, she speaks incredibly clear English and understood everything I said! She’s currently taking a class in Nepali and attends a church a little ways down the road. I asked her about her future plans, but she merely smiled and said, “I’m ready to stay or go whenever Jesus tells me to stay or go.”

I’ve been trying to teach the kids to serve, and they really are getting better about it, but she was an incredible example of selfless service and love for the kids today. They looked on in awe and wonder at this woman who would walk to a home of people she’d never met before and ask if she could help them with their work. And I was so encouraged by her faith: a faith that took her from her home to a land where she couldn’t speak or understand what was said just to find people to help. It makes me think of how many times I’ve wasted opportunities to serve right at home: helping an elderly person with their groceries, helping a neighbor with yard work, or helping a stranger paint! And It made me so thankful that God’s moving all over the world! I mean, what are the chances of a 57 year old Brazilian woman bumping into a 23 year old American girl (I still don’t feel like a grown up!) in the valleys of Nepal?! I guess 100% when you serve a God like mine!

As I bathed in kerosene later on (it’s the only way this paint will come off your skin... good thing I don’t smoke!) I couldn’t help but smile to myself and hum the tune of “He Reigns” by the Newsboys. It’s opening verse goes like this:
“It’s the song of the redeemed rising from the African plains. It’s the song of the forgiven drowning out the Amazon rain. The song of Asian believers filled with God’s holy fire. It’s every tribe, every tongue, every nation, a love song born of a grateful choir! It’s all of God’s children singing Glory, Glory, Hallelujah He reigns!”
My God is not limited by man-made country boundaries or languages or money or time or anything. He goes where He wants and does what He wants and moves people like chess pieces until the “powers of darkness tremble at what they’ve just heard!” Because this is what life is about. People from every tribe, every tongue, every nation praising Jesus, serving each other and loving the world. And I so want to be in the middle of that, every single day for the rest of my life!