In one week I’ve seen two women open their hearts to Jesus, and three teenagers take new steps of faith and discipleship.  In a community where there have been no worshipers of Jesus we are now having church in our house with five neighbors.  I can’t think of another time when I have felt this aware of God’s power and grace- it has been almost tangible.  It has felt at times like too much for my heart to contain.  I often can’t help but burst into laughing as I speak about it; I haven’t been sleeping much because I’ve been so excited.

The conversions of Yut and June were beautiful.  They made me feel like I was at a wedding, or witnessing a birth.  Both wept, and later said they didn’t know where the tears had come from.  As we laid hands on them to pray, both felt a presence bigger than themselves.  They both immediately said they felt “sabai jai” literally, “my heart is at ease.”

Yut received Jesus first, and six days later her story and her visible joy compelled her friend and neighbor, June, to also receive God’s grace.

Though they both came to God carrying with them struggles and needs and desperation for him to intervene in their lives, and he has tangibly answered some of those prayers, that actually hasn’t been what they’ve been talking the most about now.

“I wake up at night and just want to pray- I feel like someone is beside me inviting me to talk with him.”

“Even if I never see God’s miracles in my life, just knowing that I’m his child, that I haven’t been abandoned- that is enough.

“All day long I’m worshipping God.  I just keep saying in my heart, ‘Amen.  Amen.”

To women who are told in one way or another that they are inferior, here is the King of creation at their side, calling them their friend.  To women who have believed that their bad karma has made them poor, that they had to buy or work their way out of it, who believed curses spoken over them by seers, here is their Father washing all of that away, calling them his daughters.  To women who have been mistreated by their husbands, here is a pure love that won’t leave them or hurt them.

It is only the Holy Spirit that can do this kind of work, that can cause hearts so damaged and defensive truly believe these things.  Yut and June still know very little about the Gospel.  But they’ve touched this love, and I’ve been humbled by the faith and the joy it has produced.  I’ve already seen them be convicted of sin, lay things down they were carrying.  This is a God they want to submit to, because he has been so good to them.

Scripture has been really alive to me lately, because I have been seeing God’s promises and character expressed there, right in front of my face.  And I’ve been watching his new daughters discover these things about him for the first time.  These are a couple passages that I love right now:

“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes, with the princes of his people. He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children.  Praise the Lord.” Psalm 113:7-9

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9

Below is a picture of Yut after she received her first Bible.  June, on the right, became a believer later that evening.  Tell me that this doesnt look like a woman who knows she’s loved by her King.