May 29, 2010- India Missions trip.

I pushed open the door to the sanctuary to find dozens of eager little faces smiling at me from the mat on the floor. Today was the day of the gospel musical presentation we had put together. Our program consisted of singing psalms and hymns, a short skit of the Abraham and Isaac story, and a gospel message by the pastor of the church. We had worked hard all week in preparation for this day- singing, planning, acting- and now, it was finally here. But at the moment, I was more thrilled to see these these familiar faces looking up at me. This presentation was a follow-up to the VBS we had conducted the previous week; it was an opportunity for the children to invite their family and friends to see what they had learned at VBS and hear the gospel preached. We even had the children sing their VBS songs for the parents!

Since we had gotten to know many of these children so well, I was eager to see them again! I smiled back at the shining faces and waved to a few. We still had several minutes before the program started, so I knew that I had time to talk to some of them. As I scanned the crowd for familiar faces, one little girl caught my eye. She was very small, her curly black hair was pulled into pigtails, and her eyes looked very glossy and red, but when I smiled at her, she returned the sweetest smile of pure happiness with the attention I had given her. I did not remember her from VBS; she must have been a friend of some of the others. But something about this girl just captured my heart.

The program continued very smoothly as planned, and afterwards, we had a time of games and refreshment for all our guests. Naturally, the children wanted to play their favorite game- duck, duck, goose (a game that was still a novelty to them). So the game commenced, with many laughs as several adults joined in. As I glanced up from the game, I saw the very same little girl (I later found out her name was Swathi) I had seen earlier heading towards me. Fairly certain that she knew no English, I tapped the floor next to me, inviting her to sit with me. The sweet smile appeared on her face again as she nodded and sat next to me. I soon became engrossed in the entertainment of the game, so much so that I was surprised to find a little hand tugging at my skirt. I looked down at Swathi and was met with her hopeful eyes looking into mine as she gestured to my lap, silently asking for permission to sit there. I nodded, and she climbed into my lap. No words were spoken, but I could just see by her shining eyes how much she valued the love she was receiving. As I put an arm around her, I wondered to myself, “Where does she come from? Is she being loved there?” A lump rose in my throat. It is amazing how love can transcend language barriers. But oh, how I longed for her to know the everlasting love of Jesus! Yet because of the language barrier, I was incapable of even telling her about this love. In that moment, all I could do was trust in the Lord's perfect plan and pray that she would grow up to know His unending, unfading love.