By Ginny,* serving among South Asians in the United States
When God led my husband and me to serve Him in South Asia, we both assumed we might “bury our bones” there after many years of service. We felt that going into cross-cultural ministry overseas required that kind of commitment, and we were willing! Even though we recognised it might be difficult, we knew we had to go to those who did not know and who had little chance to hear.
The return home
We lived and worked happily in South Asia for 18 years and saw some fruit borne from our relationships and our ministries among the people there. We were trusting God that He had us in the place He wanted us to be; and He was always faithful to guide our steps forward.
Then, through a chain of events that started with 9/11, we left South Asia and did not return. But it became clear that it was part of God’s plan.
Well prepared
Part of God’s big picture was that we already had some knowledge and experience with the work among South Asians that had been taking place in a ‘Little India’ community in the United States since 1997.
We soon realised how well we were prepared for ministry in ‘Little India’. The least-reached are living right here in our midst, very close to home, and God equipped us in a special way to reach them!
Friendship and trust opened doors
Kiran was one of those people. When she came to the ministry centre, she was delighted to get to know someone who could translate into Urdu when she didn’t understand a concept. My background in South Asian culture and language was an extra draw for Kiran, and we became very close friends over the years.
One day she asked me who Jesus’ father was, which led to a great opportunity to share truth about Jesus being the Son of God and the purpose of Him coming to earth as a baby. Since then, Kiran has been very open to learning about Jesus, and God is drawing her to Himself.
He is also using answered prayer on her family’s behalf to show Himself as a God who can carry our burdens and who provides for our needs. She is learning to rely on Jesus in the midst of many struggles and loves being prayed for, and she trusts God more easily because she knows He will help her.
Not by chance
Things do not happen by chance; just as we believed that God guided us every step of the way to take us overseas to South Asia, He also chose the duration of our stay there, the direction our ministry would take and where it would be located. He used the time we spent there to prepare us for being back in the United States but still living in the midst of South Asians, who are just as unreached and gospel-needy as people in our rural community overseas.
Even though we could not see the big picture in the same way God was seeing it, by trusting Him with our future we were able to follow His lead and find ourselves well-equipped to continue in ministry. God saw the big picture and prepared us to see it, too!
(This article was shortened.)
Source: Christar
