By Stefani Varner*

INDIA — Not too long ago, I went to meet people in a nearby village, an older community on the outskirts of a bigger city. It seemed like such a happy place; children playing in the streets, men working in small shops, and life happening all around.

But as you enter people’s lives, reality sets in. Stories of unemployment, marriage issues, poverty, broken relationships, illness and much more begin to surface.

We met several wonderful women who told us they would help us with our Hindi and teach us how to make our “chapatis,” a wheat tortilla that’s a staple in the local food. They invited us into their homes, made chai for us and asked to hear some of our stories.

After sharing stories in the local language for a few hours, it was time to go. As we were about to say our good-byes, our friend Pia* told us about a woman who wanted to meet us.

We followed Pia through the tiny allies as she searched for this lady’s house.

Once we found it, we walked inside, sat down and began greeting everyone in the family. The mom lives with the youngest son and is visited everyday by her daughter and eight-month-old grandchild.

After a few minutes of talking, we asked in their local language if there was anything we could pray for.

We listened for a while as they told us about the marriage problems happening in the home, the relationship issues between the father and son, the health issues of the son, and much more.

We committed to pray for them, but before we did we asked if we could tell them about the One who hears our prayers and has the power to heal. At this point, the woman spoke up and said, “I knew when you walked in there was something different about you. I’ve been wondering about this for a very long time. I think God sent you here to tell me something.”

For the next hour we sat and shared the Gospel with them. We told them about His power and His sacrifice, we told them about His character and His love, we answered their questions and cleared up some misinformation they had received from some false teachings from another group in the area. We discussed the cost of following Christ and talked about the difficulty they face in turning away from their polytheistic traditions.

We showed them briefly how Jesus Christ has the characteristics and the power to fulfill all of those promises and meet all of those needs that those false idols claim to fulfill but never do.

We led them to understand how they could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It was an amazing time and we loved every minute of it. We are studying the Word with this family, teaching about the power and authority of Jesus Christ, and helping them to fully understand how the whole Word is about Jesus Christ from beginning to end.

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*Name changed.

Stefani Varner is an IMB representative in South Asia.