Telling Untold Stories

      I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. For the sake of this blog, I’ll call her Zoey. This girl is amazing. She is a tenth grader living at Lungthulien high school where I met her. I got to spend the last 3 weeks getting to know her and fellowshipping with her. Zoey has one of the most joyful, genuine smiles I have ever seen. She is an incredibly loving, talkative person, and she likes to sing. Her favorite subject in school is biology, and she has a passion for helping others, so she wants to be a nurse some day.
     

     Even though she is 18, she is only in the 10th grade, but so is her 19-year-old older brother. Their family was not always able to afford school, so sometimes they had to skip a year. They have a younger sister as well, but she goes to the school in the village where they are from. Zoey and her brother have to live in the hostel along with around 70 other students at the Lungthulien school because it is the only one with ninth and tenth grades. In order to continue their education, they will have to move to Sielmat, which is a 15+ hour drive away on roads that can barely be called that.

     There are only two schools in the entire Partnership Mission Society that offer eleventh and twelfth grades, and both are understaffed, so not everyone gets to finish high school, or they have to attend the government schools. Even though Zoey has a sponsor, she doesn’t think that her family will be able to send her to Sielmat because of the extra living costs. In order to fulfill her dream of becoming a nurse though, she needs to finish school. Despite these difficulties, she is an incredibly joyful, hopeful, and Christlike person who touched my heart more than I can say!

     This is only one of dozens of stories I could tell about people we have met here in India, but I don’t have enough time or enough words. I could tell you about the pastor’s wife in Senvon who makes the most beautiful hand woven wrap skirts to pay for her son’s college education. I could tell you about the many farmers we met and prayed for for healing of hip, shoulder, back, or chest pain because they work tirelessly in the field every day and have no access to physical therapy or medical care, or the fifteen year old girl who missed the end of semester exams because of a mysterious hip problem. I could introduce you to the many teachers and administrators who moved hours away from their home villages and families to serve in the schools with the greatest need, or about the seminary students with dreams of starting their own Christian schools, but no funds to make those dreams a reality.

      There are so many stories I could tell, so many people I would love for everyone to get to meet, but unfortunately most people never will. That is why I am here in India. To be able to tell the stories that these people cannot tell you and learn about lives that I would never have been able to imagine before. Their lives have touched my heart, and I hope that in some small way, they can touch yours too.

If you are willing, join me in praying for these communities. The rural villages in the hills and the Partnership Missions schools need prayer for so many things.
• Pray that God would send more teachers, because many of the schools are understaffed (which is why most cannot offer high school).
• Pray that the community would be able to overcome the corruption in the government and finally be able to build decent roads. Their condition of their roads plays a huge role in keeping the community from truly thriving.
• Pray for the students’ and teachers’ relationships with the Lord. The headmistress at Lungthulien told our team that she feels most of the kids are lacking in a real, personal relationship with God. Most of these communities have multiple churches and know about God and call themselves Christian, but the relationship is not as deep as it could be. Pray that God will revive their hearts and move in real ways.
• Pray that God will provide sponsors for the 7000+ kids on the waiting list for the partnership missions sponsorship program. If you feel lead, Go to partnerparents.org and pray about whether you would be able to sponsor a child’s education or living expenses. Many of the kids and seminary students that I know personally are in need of sponsors!
I think I’m beginning to understand Paul’s feelings towards his friends in Philippi when he says:

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
??Philippians? ?1:3-6? ?NIV??????????????

      I believe that God is doing amazing things through these people in the hills of northeast India! I will never forget them and will simply continue to pray that the Lord will bless their faithfulness to Him and complete the work that was started so long ago!