The Compassionate God

Yesterday I was really struck by the implications when a culture is not introduced to and therefore does not know God as a compassionate God. Yesterday a friend, from the nation where I currently live, died. She left 7 girls and one boy. The females on our team arrived to our friend's home just as the casket was dropped off by the coroner. We approached the house to the sounds of painful wailing and screams, "O mom! O my momma!....." As the girls watched their mom being laid in the coffin. In this culture when someone dies, those around the mourners try to prevent the mourners from crying. As we entered the house, one of the girls came out of the room and I wrapped my arms around her and just held her, visualising Jesus comforting her. This is not a practice here, people do not do full embrace hugs in this culture. This young girl, in her early 20's just wept an wept, she held on so tight, not wanting to let go. Those around her started shouting at her, "Stop crying now, that's enough, stop crying." There were even some who tried to take her out of my arms. After hugging each of the daughters, a man came into the room, which is NOT supposed to happen in the culture, this room around the coffin is reserved for the women, he came yelling at each of these girls, ages 19-30, to stop crying, "It is a sin! Stop it! What would happen if we all cried? Stop it!" He was so rude and so not compassionate, frankly I wanted to punch him in the nose and throw him out of the house. The more he said stop crying, I kept saying, "You girls just keep crying." I told the man that the girls had every right to cry.
Because the burial was held off until my friend's sisters and brother came in from out of country, the girls sat in that small crowded room in front of their mom, lying in front of them, face covered by a thin white cloth. All day they heard people saying to them, "Don't cry!", "You have to be strong!" "Don't cry, it's a sin!"

It was finally time to head out to the village for the burial, the girls had just said their last "good-by" to their mom, all crying and some almost fainting from the trauma of it, and this rude man tells the girls, "None of you are going, you will only cry out there. We will not have any crying. All of you stay!" One of our other friends asked one of the girls, "Do you want to go to the burial?" She replied, "Yes" and we piled the girls and their aunts in our vehicles and took them to the site. It was a quick, cold ceremony, the men blocked the view of the burial from the girl's sight. As they heard the first shovel of dirt fall over their mom, they began to weep again. That man came over to them again and started yelling at them to stop crying and to go home if the were to continue crying. A lady near us was telling them as well, "Hush, stop crying, it is a sin." I reminded this lady, the girls had a right to cry and to let them be. As the ceremony was over, the men departed the grave side and the girls approached it, they fell on grave, crying out to their mom. The men pulled them away, not letting them have even a full minute to say a last word to their mom. The whole thing was heartbreaking. I was so angry at that man and others who treated the girls so terribly in the midst of the most horrific moment of their young lives. Then the Lord reminded me, "How can you expect anything different from those who have never asked for or experienced my love?" Not one person, except those who have experienced God's love, our team, expressed their love for those girls. Not one person embraced them or tried to comfort them, outside of our team, except one aunt, who was herself in the midst of the depth of pain of grief, watching her sister be put in the ground. She held and embraced one of the girls, because she knew that that is what she herself needed. The girls clung onto our embraces, because that is how God created His people to be. He put His DNA of love and compassion into His people. His creation craves His embrace, but there are so many who have no idea that His love exists, that He longs to embrace and comfort His hurting creation. I have to feel sorry for that seemingly heartless man, because he has never known or experienced the wonderful, compassionate, comfort of a loving God. This is why he doesn't know how to comfort others. I feel so privileged to have experienced God's love and compassion multiple times in my life, so that I can know how to attempt to comfort others in the midst of their pain. Jesus is the Comforter, I pray that this nation will learn about, experience and embrace the wonderful love and compassion of out God who embraces us!

God is working even if the Ministry of Health isn't

April 14 was a day when I could really relate to the movie, "The Blindside." After working in Kosovo since 1999, working in occupational therapy in Kosove since 2001, the health inspector finally paid me a visit. It has always been a bit unnerving knowing that I was practicing a health profession that is new to the country and no one from the health department has bothered to check my credentials. So I was a bit excited and encouraged when I got the frantic text from my assistant that the health commission was at the clinic. They had left however before I arrived. My assistant was frazzled because they asked a lot of pressing questions. She told me they would be back. I told her how pleased I was they finally came. It showed progress for this country that there might be a hint of professional accountability rising. I told her that they are "more than welcome" to come back, we have nothing to hide. Well, they came..... the inspector was the very opposite of a smiley man. He insisted I show him my professional license, I gladly showed him my UK OT license. He said, "No, where is your license from Kosovo?" I told him that I had applied in December and was still waiting to hear back from them. He did not accept this and said, "As of tomorrow morning, your doors will be closed until you get your Kosovo license." I didn't see that one coming! I was shocked, as was my staff and my poor clients didn't know what to think as I clearly didn't do a very good job fighting back the tears.

This event totally didn't make sense. Until I realised, due to the timing, that it totally DID make sense. Our team had just returned from a great field forum time full of worship, prayer and telling testimonies of what God had been doing around the Balkans. Just a couple of weeks prior to that, our Kosova team had a fantastic "vision" retreat which was very clearly Holy Spirit lead. One can almost laugh at the lack of creativity that satan (he doesn't deserve a capitol S before his name) has. It was very clear that he was bent out of shape about what we were doing. He went on a bit of a rampage with our team members after returning to Kosovo. When will he ever learn that no matter what he throws at us, he will NEVER win?

Because of this unscheduled "time out", the Lord has been resurrecting a vision He had given me a few years ago, and not only in me but has put it in other IW's working our area. The vision is for a prayer and worship house to opened up in our city. God has been heightening the need for prayer in the hearts of those who work here. There is no stronger and more powerful ammo against satan than people praying and worshipping Jesus. The guy just hates that and he crumbles in the face of it.

So as I fight the "don't call us, we'll call you" apathy from the ministry of health, the Lord continues to build momentum for great things to come. Not only that, He continues to strengthen that which He has already begun, new life, in other Kosovars and their ministries. The Lord never sleeps, He never slumbers, He doesn't turn aside nor forget us, He is ALWAYS at work and His work is ALWAYS Good!