The Grand Finale 1: Meeting Jane

I was having one heck of a week, spent putting on VBS. It was exhausting, to say the least. Every morning from 8-12 was spent interacting with a swarm of fawning children. After lunch, I would collapse on my bed and conk out for a few hours. I would groggily try to visit with friends in the evening, then help to prepare the schedule for the next day until late night. Since the preparations were always made in my room, because it was the only room with AC, I would sometimes fall asleep while Pat and other helpers worked around me. I was really taken off guard by how emotionally draining it was to shepherd these high-energy kids through the activities with no common language. I was glad when Razia would lead me away to portion snacks into newspaper packets for the children’s chai break. By day four, I was spending most of the program sitting down, watching through lidded eyes while the Urdu stories, verses, and songs went on around me.

Day four was Thursday July 8; two days left of the program. That evening a friend was passing through Mirpurkhas, Jane, came for a tea visit on her way home to a neighboring city. Jane is a portly lady with feathery brown curls and a bustling enthusiasm that made me catch my breath. Her eyes twinkled as she talked about her time on furlough in America, the most recent providences of God, and her plans for future ministry. While I gawked and Pat and Paul listened unphased, she told us how she had no money to pay her employees’ salaries this month but that she wasn’t worried. She said that, since God had previously shown Himself to be faithful in financial provision, she had no right to doubt Him now. Transfixed, I ate up her casual stories of healings, deliverances, prophesies and other wonders. Apologetically she admitted that her team had only witnessed three resurrections from the dead. In the future, she confided eagerly, she expected God’s spirit to move even more powerfully. Her talk of demonic activity also caught my attention; she told one story of a man who received death threats from a demon then died soon after. This man revived after visiting heaven in which God told him he had been killed illegally.

As Jane talked, I felt as though she was showing me a door into a strange new world of spiritual reality and power. I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to follow her inside that world, but I knew that if I passed through that door, there would be no going back. I would be aware of the spiritual world and beings in that world would be aware of me. It sounded like a dangerous game to enter. Still, as a servant of God, I would be joining the winning side. As I considered the alternatives, it occurred to me that, if it is possible to engage with the Holy Spirit in wonders and warfare, could I possibly be content to live my life asleep to this reality? In fact, if I consciously chose to close my eyes to the spiritual realm, would it not be an active step away from God’s truth? As I sat wavering between inhibition and anticipation, keenly watching Jane, she abruptly turned to me and stated that she felt God would like her to invite me to visit her city. Time to choose.

I accepted her invitation wholeheartedly. Though I had been entirely exhausted when Jane arrived, after accepting her invitation I felt unaccountably full of excitement and hope. Though it should have been an unpleasant idea to travel at short notice, stay overnight in an unfamiliar place, and return to Mirpurkhas alone on a bus, I found that I had no inhibitions.

“Can you be ready to leave at 7:00 tomorrow morning?” Jane asked me testingly.

“Of course.” I replied instantly. At 8:30 the following morning, we were on the road. I thoroughly enjoyed the two hour drive through small towns and countryside, past herds of water-buffalo and fields of standing water, shimmering from the monsoon rains of the past week.

While we drove, I eagerly soaked up everything Jane could tell me about how she came to minister in Pakistan, the amazing miracles being performed by various people, and how she experiences God as present and active in her day to day life. She told me how, when she was in her last year of Bible college, she had visited a city in Pakistan and had heard God say to her, “You are going to fill a position in this city.” She had responded, “Absolutely not! No thank you, another assignment please!” She went on to talk about the year in which God proved again and again that his will was immovable. She had go to Pakistan or break fellowship with him. Once she submitted to his will, though, she had to overcome many obstacles in order to follow her calling to the last place she wanted to go. However, God has always provided and protected while she followed his leading. Listening to her experiences and about how she hears and follows God’s voice, I felt as though it was worth it to travel half way around the world just to meet her.