You knit me together in my mother’s womb. You saw me before I was born.
Psalm 139:13, 16
“Be here at 7:00 AM.” Dr. Sarahleft us in the garden after dinner.
Night fell quickly over John BishopMemorial Hospital (JBM) in Anantnag, Jammu-Kashmir, India. It had been a busyday of travel for the medical mission team. We met Dr. Sarah, head of the110-year-old Christian obstetrical hospital, and organized to begin clinics inthe region. The guesthouse on the hospital grounds made it easy to meet in the morning.The beds were very comfortable, air cool, blankets warm.
The sun peeked over the mountaintopas we straggled into the garden filled with the heady scent of blooming red andyellow roses. Jet lag and the general confusion of getting started in anunfamiliar place had us there a little after 7:00 for what we had assumed wouldbe a tour of the facility.
A young woman in scrubs ran intothe small, grassy area. “Hurry. You are late!”
She rushed us into the hospital buildingand shoved packages at us. “Put these on. Hurry!”
Inside the blue wrappings werecloth surgical gowns, masks, gloves, hats, and shoe covers. We fumbled into thegarb, helping one another to tie the ties, laughing at the sight we had become,wondering what would happen next. The young woman returned and ushered us intoanother room—a delivery room.
Dr. Sarah stood on one side of thetable with a nurse on the other side. She didn’t greet us, intent on theincision she was making in the abdomen of the woman lying there. We moved outof the way and watched. Seconds later, instead of holding a scalpel, Dr.Sarah’s gloved hands reached into the woman and emerged with a baby. A lustycry filled the delivery suite. New life had emerged from the darkness of thewomb into the light. The cord was cut, the mother greeted her newborn daughter,and the nurse hurried the child to a vintage bassinette right beside me.
The nurse dressed the infant inlayers of clothing, wrapped her in a thick blanket, and then went to fill outpaperwork, leaving me alone. I grazed the soft cheek and laid my hand on thenow-sleepy baby. And lifted this new life in prayer to Jesus with an intensitythat surprised me.
As I prayed, it occurred to me thatGod could use this one life to change a nation, starting with her family.Although Muslim, her mother and father had come to a Christian hospital for herbirth and for care. Their hearts were in some way open. And where an openingexists, the Holy Spirit can come in.
Even as I prayed, my mindenvisioned a Kashmir—an entire India—where the first cry of a baby became thefirst cry of souls hungry for the Lord. This child, barely three minutes old,could be a drop of Jesus rippling through her family, her village, her state,and her nation. Far-fetched? From a human perspective, certainly. From God’salmighty vision and plan? Just an inkling of what His power could accomplish.
Soon enough the nurse returned,other team members crowded around the bassinette, and the moment passed. We sawmom and baby the next day in the ward before we left the hospital. I stoppedlong enough to pray with them. Although the prayer was in English, this motherunderstood that it was being sent to Jesus on behalf of her family and herchild.
What does this touching—but random—encountermean to anyone else? Maybe nothing. After all, no one reading this will evermeet this baby, watch as she grows up, know what happens to her. It’s just amission story. Or is it?
The key to medical missions—allmissions—is not stuff, money, or even teaching. It is relationship. What wepresent is ourselves, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We carry Him with us. Hetouches those we touch. He holds those we hold. He hears the first cry of thosewho cry out to us. And He uses us as witnesses to the many who are potentialworkers for the harvest.
The staff at JBM needs you to pray,as they are a Christian presence in a Muslim region. Turmoil surrounds them inthe form of ongoing war, virus, government mandates, and shortages of supplies.We who have been blessed are called to listen for God’s call as to how we eachfit into His perfect plan.
The small life that took a firstbreath, uttered a first cry, experienced her first prayer that day in ahospital set amidst sheep herds and towering mountain peaks is today two yearsold. I imagine her toddling around her house in bare feet, starting to babblein Kashmiri or Urdu, eating a fistful of rice.
Does she know Jesus? Theintroduction has been made. His Word will not return to Him empty. Because Heknew this child before He ever knit her together in her mother’s womb.
Everything begins with a singlemoment. Be part of that moment as we stand in the gap and pray for this nation.Your first cry in prayer might be theone that sends ripples of Jesus throughout India.