Happy, a bit tired in the morning, but excited, we bumped through the green rice fields in the noisy autorickshaw on our way to the remote Indian village where a full day of teaching awaited us.
This was one of the exciting trials that my second year Bible School team and I experienced during our three-week mission to India. We were not completely unfamiliar with teaching in churches before, but just the thought of each of us giving a 45-minute lesson on the Holy Spirit was as foreign as the new rice-covered surroundings. This was an answer to prayer for me as I had prayed in Uppsala to trust God more and already the same day received a message from our contact in India that we would give these lessons.
Now we were here, ready to see the power of God working through us.
As we approached the village we heard loud chants and cheers which we thought was a sign that the church had already started the day with a great morning of worship, but once we arrived we couldn’t have been more wrong.
What we had understood as worship was a so-called puja where Hindus gather to try to invoke the favor of the idols during the day and night through screams and noise amplified by broken speakers. Once at the church, we received a warm welcome from the students and the day’s lessons began.
The lessons rolled on and so did the puja which drained us of both energy and focus which we realized was an attempt by the enemy to prevent the word of God from reaching these hungry believers. This was a sign to us of how the spiritual battle could also become very real, one of the team members even noticed how the clamor of the pujas escalated once we started teaching tongues. The enemy was afraid, and the Lord was not going to let His word reach the students without it having an effect.
So at the end of the day, we also decided to pray for the students so that they could receive the gifts of the Spirit. Due to time constraints, I made it clear to the other team members that we would pray for a maximum of 1 minute for the small group of students gathered. But after the first few minutes, the atmosphere in the room changed. With loud screams, demons came out and stable men fell to the ground. None of us in the team could believe our eyes. What was happening? The prayer in the church became so loud that the screams of the pujas were drowned out by the cries to the living God.
Meanwhile, the children of the village flocked to the doorways of the church to see their parents and neighbors encounter the power of the Holy Spirit. A few minutes of prayer turned into more than an hour of outpouring, and the team was amazed at the power we witnessed.
When it was all over and we said goodbye to the students and the church, we thought we were dreaming. None of us had experienced such power before, although we all may not have thought our teaching was the most educational or charismatic.
Later in the trip, the Holy Spirit reminded me of Paul’s words in First Corinthians 2:3-5, which were very relevant to our situation. Paul described how he came very weak and afraid and that his speech was not with convincing words of wisdom but in Spirit and power, so that their faith would not be built on his wisdom but on God’s power.
I was then reminded that God can use anyone if they are willing to walk. Despite our shortcomings and the energy-draining puja, the Holy Spirit fell on the church to prove that the Kingdom of God is not in words but in power!
/ Samuel Thoor
Year 2, Word of Life Bible Center
