The God of Cripples, Frightened Men, and Projector Bulbs

The warm night air vibrated with bugs by the millions. Breathing became another way to ingest a high protein diet. I quickly learned how to speak like a ventriloquist, using my teeth as a strainer against the invading air force. Maintaining my dignity was rather challenging. Have you ever tried to preach while at the same time scratching your back to dislodge creepy crawlies while patting your stomach in order to squish yet another bug on it’s upward march? My sympathies were definitely with Pharaoh that night only I thought “if Moses were here I wouldn’t be asking him to get rid of this plague tomorrow but stat!” I sighed. I was apparently less tolerant of the bugs than was that ancient Egyptian ruler. I saw that our white projection screen was now a black crawling mass. Even the locals seemed bothered by these pesky creatures. They tried to listen but the sea of people was tumultuous as they waved and swirled their arms around their bodies.

The next day in worship all the missionaries prayed earnestly that God would sweep away the plague of insects from India as he had from ancient Egypt . Friends in America, South Africa, Central America, and Australia notified by email prayed for the evangelism teams in India. We didn’t have access to Moses any more but God hadn’t changed. The bugs simply vanished. It was comforting to know that the God of Moses would incline his ear to modern man.

One man stood out from the first night of the meetings. His brown face glowed and his warm eyes twinkled. He was early and already sitting in a chair that first night with a blanket wrapped around him. All the small children seemed to love him. They would toddle up and pat his blanket looking up at him with trusting eyes and giggly smiles. At the end of the meeting he hopped down from his chair and began to walk with his hands supporting his feet. Instantly he was no taller than most toddlers. The reason was painfully apparent. The victim of polio, his legs were merely bent sticks , something to be supported on top of his hands so that he could walk around.

The day he got baptized he had to be carried into the river but no one had seen a more radiant new church member come out of the water. His kind glowing face lit up the area around him.

“How do you support yourself?” my husband asked.

“Well if you’ll come to my village I’ll show you” grinned the eager cripple. He had taken up the name Solomon in honor of his new Christian life.

The next day we found our way to his village, driving over severely washed out paths to get there. He showed us his 4 foot by 6 foot plywood shop where he repaired bicycles. He replaced rims and spokes, and put new tubes in tires all with 3 or 4 mismatched borrowed tools.

“How would you like to go for a ride in our Taxi with us?” asked my husband. So doing we picked up our wise Solomon and put him on the seat beside us. We drove to the city and went into a “man’s dream store”…one with every conceivable tool. For the next ½ hour Duane and Solomon picked out tools he could use in his bicycle repair shop. Solomon couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. Next we took him to a rather fancy restaurant. The owners weren’t too pleased to see a poor cripple from such a low cast enter their establishment, but we insisted and begrudgingly they allowed him to eat at our table. Solomon’s eyes sparkled when he realized he could have anything he wanted from the menu. It seemed like a dream eating on a table with that strange cloth on it, and having your water glass filled as soon as you drained it. And ice…my that was a strange new and cold experience.

Solomon had a very old three wheeled hand cranked bike which was held together by rubber tubing and wire. We took him to a shop and custom ordered him a better one that would negotiate the ruts so he wouldn’t have to get stuck so often.

Night by night the 500 to 800 visitors watched the movie about Jesus in breathless amazement. Even nursing babies craned their necks around to see the gentle Jesus portrayed on the screen. The Christian’s God was so different than the Hindu gods. He hung out with the untouchables, healed lepers, and even befriended politically motivated spiritual leaders. They found that they weren’t trashy leftovers from when God created more important people. They were children of the heavenly king. One day soon they would live where they could have more for supper than a few sunflower seeds. They wouldn’t have to watch their children die from the bites of Cobras or the ravages of polio. They would live in a place where all men were not just created but respected as equal.

From previous experience I knew that tonight was going to be rough. Anytime key topics like the Sabbath, the state of the dead, or the second coming were presented, Murphy’s Law of “if anything thing can go wrong will go wrong” would kick in. As we got into the Sabbath topic the people were attentive, no drunks came to heckle, the bugs had long since vanished, the babies slept peacefully, and a warm breeze blew. “This is a nice change.” I thought to myself. At that precise moment there was a loud pow of something exploding, following by the sound of cascading tinkling broken glass. A flash of light burst out the back of the projector. A puff of angry grey smoke came out the back of the projector as the stench of melted wires belched over the crowd. The picture on the screen changed to a dark red, then green, then black. I looked over a my husband helplessly. He mouthed back “that’s toast”! I nodded feeling quit worried. What were we supposed to do this far from civilization? The nearest Best Buy or Circuit City were continents away. Besides, we didn’t just need a $400 replacement bulb; we needed a new, un-toasted projector.

What had happened? The electricity had not fluctuated, the lights were still on, and my laptop was fine. It seemed that the projector had received a direct attack from a darker source. I turned to the people and said “There is nothing the God of heaven can not do. So we are going to pray to him now. He can fix anything because he is the creator of the universe. However, God doesn’t always say yes. In his wisdom he can see into the future and he knows what is best for us. So I am going to pray for two things. First that if it is for our best that he will fix the projector and if not that he will help us understand tonight’s topic without the beauty of the pictures and texts on the screen. Let’s bow our heads.”

Even though the men had never heard of Moses and the burning bush, they quickly removed their sandals because they were about to come into the presence of God. The women covered their heads. At the amen, there was an explosion of awe as people pointed excitedly toward the screen. The picture was back, sharp and clear. Tears filled the pastors and missionaries eyes. The cacophony went on for several minutes. The translator leaned in and said “They are saying “We know we aren’t educated and we don’t understand that box where the picture comes from. But we aren’t stupid either. We heard the bulb inside break, we saw the smoke and smelled the melted wires. That bulb can’t be taped together, or wired together, or glued together or soldered together. Their God CAN do anything!”

A few days later at a river baptism a distraught slender man was pacing barefoot on the river bank as he hiked up his “longee” (the long piece of cloth they wrap from their waist down.) He seemed to want to get into the water to be baptized but something was holding him back. I took my translator over and asked him what was bothering him. “It’s the snake”, he said as his worried eyes shifted around him. “The snake?” I echoed looking around but seeing nothing. “Yes the snake! You see, before these meetings I had never heard about the true God so I had my own God. He’s a snake that lives in my house. He comes up through a hole in the ground in my house every night. I’ve prayed to him and it used to seem that he heard me. But now I don’t want him around any more. I want the true God to come live in my house and my heart. My problem is I can’t get rid of the snake! As far as I know he only has one entrance and no other exit. I tried killing him with my sharp knife but he went down in the hole. So I poured petrol into the hole and lit a match but that didn’t kill him cuz he came back. Then I lit some dry grass in the hole and tried to kill him from the smoke but he just won’t leave. It’s starting to scare me. I think he might be the same snake from the garden of Eden! What should I do? He fixed his eyes intently on my face, searching it for a solution to his very real problem.”

The pastor/translator whispered to me “can you go pray over his house and rebuke the devil tomorrow morning?” “No,” I whispered back. “I wish I could but I am scheduled to be visiting in another village tomorrow. Can you go?” He nodded. A couple of days later that man no longer had a worried look on his face. The God of heaven is more powerful than the adversary the devil who slithers around seeking whom he may deceive. And one day when we get to heaven I can’t wait to see my beautiful brown-skinned brothers and sisters in heaven. I pray that all 500 of them will be there!