Aug. 1, 2008
Padems Visit-- One of Our Favorite Moments of the Summer
We are blessed to know a dear family who are ministers in India. Look HERE & HERE for past blog entries about our family's relationship with them. We first met them 9 years ago at DH's uncle's home, when their daughter was 6 months, and I was almost due with our daughter. (DD's cousins have each gone over to India for about 9 months between high school & college to serve with Yesupadem's ministry, Love-N-Care.)
They stayed with us the 17-21 of July and how we enjoyed them in our home! It always blesses us in such an amazing way. Since our daughters are the same age, they get along very well and did the girly things of dress-up, playing in the playhouse, being imaginative, etc. The boys, while further apart in age (their son is 8 and ours is almost 5), they got along famously and played cricket with the daddies. All the kids played very well together and put on a play for us the first evening they got in...
Yesupadem & Monika getting some much needed R&R while the kids perform their play.
Our days were spent swimming, going to the beach, and playing cricket (DH had bought cricket bats during his trip to India this past January, so we were glad to get some pointers and rule clarification). DH was also able to have them with some electronic equipment, and worked with them on details for the website that he hopes to help them upgrade. (A new website has been on their prayer list for awhile.) We filled them up with homemade meals and fresh bread -- something Monika said she truly missed as they don't have ovens in India. (After her statement, I made sure to have bread on the table every evening.)
Friday evening, we went to Celebrate Recovery, a ministry our church has, where both Yesupadem and Monika spoke. (Monika telling about how they met and the ministry, and Yesupadem gave the message from John 9 on the blind man, that was full of challenge and truth. (Yesupadem says he could right a book on that chapter and how I hope someday he will!).
1. Christ always went to those who needed help, acceptance, & love
2. The man didn't need any more condemnation in his life (v.2) -- it was the disciples who asked the question, "whose sin caused this man's blindness." Are we in the church condemning others when we ourselves have a sin nature in us?
3. Jesus replied to them that God allowed that man to be blind because God wanted to glorify his name. He didn't rebuke the disciples, just spoke the truth to them. We need to make sure people feel welcomed in our churches and that as the church, we never lose our salt & light. One soul is more important than the whole world.
On the way to Friday's service.
On Sunday, Yesupadem spoke at our church and what a powerful message! To hear it, click HERE. (Sorry there is not a more direct link. Click on the "podcast" icon and then on the July 20, 2008 message titled "Go." You will see Yesupadem's name and a description of his sermon.) I know we are all busy, but I hope when you have a minute, you will listen to it to be encouraged and challenged, and learn more about what Jesus can do and desires to do.
That evening, we had the church staff over, along with those who had gone on the mission's trip in January, to our neighborhood clubhouse to swim...
.. and to share a meal and enjoy some great fellowship with each other and the Padems before they had to leave the next day to continue their trip across North America.
Their son had never had apple pie, so we made sure to pick some up specail just for him -- he LOVED it! Little Man did to, and he loved Monika and Yesupadem. He keeps telling us how he is going to go to India. He has been praying for a helicopter (yellow, to be exact) for their ministry to use in medical missions since they mentioned it last year. If you have read about our son, you'll know that he ADORES helicopters. Perhaps someday he'll be flying one for Love n Care!
The story of Yesupadem & Monika's marriage is quite interesting -- and a testimony of how God can bring 2 people together. Yesupadem's first wife (whom he had 2 children with who are now grown and are serving in the ministry) died of cancer and about a year or so after her death, he was being pressured to remarry.
He did not desire to so and prayed to the Lord a prayer he didn't think He could answer. In his "Impossible Prayer," he told the Lord that if He had him to remarry, his wife must...
1. Have blond hair.
2. Have blue eyes.
3. Be light-skinned (so far these do not describe any Indian, do they?)
4. And come to him and ask (a cultural taboo, wherever you live!)
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean in Canada, there was a young woman named Monika who had read the story of Isaac and Rebekah, and who asked the Lord to arrange her marriage as He had done for that biblical couple. She recalled the quote, "God gives His very best to those that leave the choice up to him."
While she waited on Him to arrange for a husband for her, she grew in the Lord and served Him through YWAM and other opportunities. As she shared more about this during year's stay with us, it was amazing how He used it all to prepare her for India. (We encouraged her to write it down and Yesupadem agreed!) One thing the Lord did to prepare her was to have her be an assistant to a paraplegic who was going to Malaysia, which allowed her to experience the spiritual darkness of a nation. She said the woman she was assisting was not a Christian, and she felt very alone in her faith, but that God strengthened it as she leaned on Him and she learned to have a strong faith in a place where there was none. Eventually during her time there, she found a church that was like a shining oasis in the dark desert.
When she got back home, she was told about a pastor from India who was going to speak at a church. She had always felt a call to missions, and as she listened to this missionary, she felt led to go. She didn't have enough money or financial support to take such a trip, but he said that if anyone wanted to come help at the ministry, they only need the plane fare there.
A few months later, she was in India and joined the team of foreigners that had heard this man, Yesupadem, speak and had planned to serve the Lord short-term in India. DH's cousin, the first from his family to go, was one of those people she met during her stay there.
As time passed during her trip in India, she felt burdened by the responsibilities Yesupadem had and began praying for him. One evening, during a crusade in which he was speaking, Monika was praying for him while the team from the minstry attended it. She heard the Lord say, "He is your husband. You are to tell him." Yes, she was shocked! If you knew Monika, you would know that she is quiet, reserved, and not one to tell a man such a thing. She prayed, asked if He was sure, and I'm sure struggled with many other questions one who is in that situation has.
The next day, the car which they were riding in, along with some other people from the ministry, broke down. While others went of to get the car fixed, Yesupadem and Monika were left to wait along the side of the road. God told Monika, "Tell him" and she bravely obeyed. Needless to say, Yesupadem was quite surprised, but then he thought back to his "Impossible Prayer." In that prayer, God was leading him to the perfect woman to be his second wife, and He had prepared her to meet that role.
They were married about 18 months later and Monika has now been in India 11 1/2 years. God has blessed Yesupadem with 2 more children, and Monika is the perfect helpmeet for him. Another amazing "thread" through all of this story is how God used a nation (Canada) to bring Yesupadem to a relationship with him, and to provide him with a second wife.
Before Yesupadem was born, his father (who was an untouchable, the caste named so as in that culture they believe that particular caste was so low that it came from under the foot of God) served as the village priest for the monkey god, who he had been named after. (The priests usually come from the high caste, but would not come to an untouchable village, so his father was assigned to do those duties.) He was married, had four children, was very poor and sometimes only had enough food for his family for 3-4 meals a week.
One day, a Baptist missionary from Canada came to his village and being preaching. Some people came out to listen, including Yesupadem's father, and one-by-one they all left but him. He accepted Christ and as a result, became an outcaste among outcastes and was rejected by his village and family.
When his fifth and last child was born, his father gave him the name "Yesupadem" which means "the foot of Jesus." One day on the way to school at the age of 10, dying of starvation, Yesupadem collapsed on the road. No one would help him, due to his untouchable status. But a Canadian missionary riding in a jeep with his family stopped his vehicle, picked the young boy up and took him to the hospital. The missionary paid for his almost 2 week stay, and without his "Good Samaritan" act, Yesupadem would have died.
Yesupadem did not share the faith of his father, due to the injustice he felt in the caste system. He continually felt rejected by society. It was added to by the fact that he was known as a "Christian", due to his father's faith -- being a Christian in India limits you even more than being an untouchable. He became a communist, as it promised to remedy many of the things wrong with his nation. Many miserable and sinful years followed. While disappointed, his father never stopped telling him, "Son, Jesus loves you. He died for you."
One day, he was invited to a Christian meeting and as the preacher spoke, he saw a vision of Christ on the cross. As he saw a close-up of Christ's hand with the nail and His blood dripping drop by drop, He heard Christ say, "All this I have done for you. What will you do for me?"
Radically saved from that moment, vowing from the very last breath of his life that he tell his people that Jesus is God, he became like Paul the apostle and immediately began to preach. Those who knew him before were shocked. Though threatened with death by his former friends in communism, he said that he would tell people about the salvation of Christ until his dying day. Amazed by his courage and the truth of God, that day three of those friends accepted Christ.
For more information on his ministry, visit http://www.love-n-careministries.org
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I have been the bride to the most gracious, sweetest man in the world for the last 11 years. What I love most about him is that he is always striving to be a better husband, father, and child of God.
