Becky Rycenga spent a few weeks in India this past year. Here is her account of one of her days.
Anyway, we went down the river for about an hour and saw this area of huts on the top of a hill with some people gathered there. We pulled up but it was very muddy so some of their men waded in knee deep mud to scrape mud off the stairs so we could come up the side of the hill and visit their village. By the time we all got out and up the hill a crowd of about 75 people had come to see what was going on. Fortunately our leader knew Bengali, so we could talk to them. We made a big circle and everything was so orderly. About 10 boys, all about 5- 10 years of age sat right in front. I have to tell you this …on the way down the river our leader had asked me to tell the villagers a Bible story. I didn’t have a problem with that and decided to tell them about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So..just as I was about to be introduced I asked our leaders wife how many of the people knew about Jesus. She looked at me kind of strange and said “Becky, they have never heard about Jesus…ever”. Immediately my heart started pounding and I felt completely inadequate. It was too late to back out…I was getting introduced at that moment.
Well, I walked into the center of this group of people and looked back at all these faces staring at me and suddenly I felt this peace wash over me, truly the peace that passes understanding. I then told them the amazing story of those 3 brave boys of long ago, doing my best to keep the attention of those boys sitting in the front…about the same age as my grandsons. When the story was over I looked up and saw the moon, even though it was still light. I think God showed me the moon so I could tell them that the same God who rescued those boys in the fiery furnace created the moon. I tried to explain about Jesus as best I could but I honestly don’t remember much. It was such a surreal experience. Come on God; am I really in this remote village sharing YOU with an entire village of people who have no idea who you are? I am shaking as I write this, still overcome by it. After this, our leader spoke to them, probably filling in the HUGE blanks I left, we prayed, and passed out tracks to the adults and candy to the children. What will now happen is someone from Big Life will go back and try to find what they call the Luke 10 man of peace. It is someone whose heart was receptive to the gospel. I’m pretty sure I know who it is…the men who helped us up the hill by wading in the mud. I don’t know his name, but I am praying for him to become the first leader of a fellowship. If not, God has someone else picked out…He does the work.
As we pulled away, all the people lined the crest of the hill and waved to us. I will never see them again, but I hope and pray that someday maybe one person will come up to me in heaven and say, “Hey, you look familiar. Aren’t you the woman who told the story of the 3 brave boys in my village?” What a day. What an amazing privilege God gave me. And yet HE told the story, not me.
Dave Horne
