Last Night's Village

Sitting at a table surrounded by water bottles my mind remembers going to the village last night. It was humid, like curl the hair on your arms humid, the sky dark and the smells interesting – it was the same village Ron and I had been to some 8ish months ago and looked exactly the same apart from some Christmas decorations.

            The 8 or 9 of us walking the tiny village streets sang songs and listened to Jeff preach through a translator. It was fun. It was an experience. It was Amazing Grace.

            After the second stop my heart had to sing it – there wasn’t any stopping. So we sang it for all its golden worth, for all its treasured lyrics, for all its universal meaning and depth and peace and joy. The last lines, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years; we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.” Tears flooded my eyes, and the repeat of the first verse was choppy.

            Here in India are brother and sisters in the gospel, here in India are people who know, love and will die for the same God we know and love but probably won’t be killed for. That day’ll come, the one ten thousand years after his return, the one we sing about in that rich old song, They’ll be there, those people on the street last night, those people who’s names I can hardly pronounce let alone remember and together with once orchestrated accord we’ll sing in the symphony of the King, “We’ve no less praise to sing God’s name and we’ve hardly just begun.”