He is truly working powerfully in Baltimore, this broken city, where the brokenness stems not only from drug addiction, violence, murder, poverty, but also from riches, from achievement, from the lies the Enemy feeds us, from so many souls living life without a greater purpose, there is so much sorrow and hurt that can come into a life separate from God. Here are some stories from Baltimore, just little glimpses that I've seen the past week. I truly thank God that I could even hear these testimonies, which time and time reminded me again of God's unending love, His waves of mercy, and His grace that cannot be broken by the world. He is the light of the world:
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)
Story from Hampden, Baltimore
On Friday, I went to a potluck dinner at my pastor's house, open to everyone at our church (which isn't that big). On the way out, I gave Peter (not his real name) a ride back home, as he lived in the surrounding community. We talked, and he shared pretty casually about the drug problems in the area and how the drug dealers would often give out "free samples" every time they got a new product, which was like "every other day." One time, after serving awhile in prison, he got out, was clean for awhile, tried one of these samples, and it based messed him up for "3 or 4 years." Back then, he was a drug addict and also a pimp, and had a few strippers he pimped out.
One day, I think because of overdose on drugs, he nearly died, and his arms were all messed up, and it was bad because even those aforementioned strippers left him. He stated how he was on a stretcher (probably to/in the hospital), and felt like he was going die. Everything went black, and he felt like he was just going to collapse down, through the stretcher (though he never actually did). Peter said how at that point, he truly experienced what he felt “hell was like,” the total separation from God, and it brought so much fear, it was an unmentionably fearful feeling, experience. He didn’t even go to church before at the time, but at the time he knew no other words to put it than, the feeling of being “totally separated from God.” Even as he shared, he started tearing up a little bit, and said he would always cry/shed tears at the thought of that moment whenever he’d re-tell it again. At that point, he felt he knew who was in charge, that God had given him a second chance in his life, surviving that event, to turn his life around. At that point, he knew for sure there was a hell, with unspeakable pain in being separated from the Father, from His love. Yet he also knew that if there was a hell, then there’s got to be a heaven as well. At that point, he realized, and knew who was in charge – not himself, but God.
He also found out about the our church when they were giving out free lunches one Easter as an outreach event, and started coming since. He now goes to a rehab place in the neighborhood, where they give him regulated, progressively smaller doses of methodone to eventually get him off of the drug in a more natural way then quitting (which is a terrible, painful experience).
This Monday, at Hopkins Grad Christian fellowship, a professor from the School of Public Health came to share some testimony, and to give witness to the power and the Joy of the Holy Spirit who has led her life and at Hopkins. This was COMPLETELY unexpected, as I didn't know how/when/if I could encounter prayer warriors like this person in my professional setting, much less a faculty!
After graduating from undergrad, she planned to be a missionary, being in public health/professor was the last thing on her mind. She grew up in a "normal" Christian church in India, but through two years of applying and waiting, God had closed so many doors in her life. In those years, she did much prayer and fasting, and was strengthened in knowledge and experience of the Holy Spirit, as she realized that listening to and following the Holy Spirit brought true peace, though the plans were completely unthought of and wild compared to her expectations of her own life! God led her to apply to Hopkins for grad school, a school she had then never heard of, in a city (Baltimore) she did not know.
After experiencing the Holy Spirit, she began to witness true revival, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit working in her midst; she studied with students of many different nationalities: Palestinians, Kenyans, etc. And by her testimony over 300 people got saved, that she knew of; she knew that there was no way man could start such a revival as this. It was the work of the Holy Spirit, who was working and stirring in the hearts of those students, stirring in them a desire to know and have fellowship with God.
One time, she was studying for a biostatistics exam the next day, when the Holy Spirit told her to go down to this one (Kenyan? Nigerian?) girl on the floor below. She was a little exasperated, since she had the (probably pretty hard) biostatistics final tomorrow! But she went down, and started talking to this girl God led her to, and realized her mom had recently just died, and she was in sorrow and mourning, wavering between the idea of going back to her country or not. So the day before the exam, she just sat with this girl and talked to her for an entire day, leading her to Christ, as God had done through her for several other international students, bringing them into her own church community as well.
Also shared how she knew some Kenyan friends who were saved, and afterwards went back their own countries to spread the Gospel. They went also to more remote villages, who did not speak their language and began speaking with a funny accent or something. After awhile, they realized that they were actually speaking the language of
the village(s) they went to, despite not knowing the language beforehand! They were speaking in tongues, and the Holy Spirit was giving them utterance, so that they could speak the language of the village(s), though they didn’t know it beforehand! (For anyone who went to Alabaster, this is further evidence and testimony corroborating to some of the similar events described in “Voice of the Night” by Pastor Surprise Sithole)
One thing she said that really struck me, and sent chills down my spine, in a view for revival at Hopkins: “Unlike Yale, Harvard, Oxford, or Princeton, which were founded as seminaries, Johns Hopkins University was founded as a secular institution, a research university. But though Hopkins didn’t start as a seminary, I hope it can end as a seminary, where people from all over the world come to get advanced academic training, and in the process come to KNOW Jesus Christ.”
My Own thoughts (trying to be brief)
I share these testimonies, glimpses with you hopefully as a way to bring encouragement, and a reminder of the REALITY of our God's love - He loves us too much not to care, not to act! Though you might be living through depression, dry seasons, mourning, you must remember that He is faithful to the end, that ALL things work together for good for of His children, whom He loves.
As I spend more time in Baltimore, I thank God for how faithfully he's led me, but have also come to know more clearly how little my faith really is. I desire revival, salvations at Hopkins, but often only half-heartedly, like the seed planted in the rocky soil. I still struggle with the praise of man, with desires to be liked/acceptance, with various temptations. In this, I realize more and more how true faithfulness lies in not even being a tool for God, for tools know what they're gonna be used for; we are truly conduits for God, as Jonathan Rainous stated in May 2012 during his Princeton visit. I pray that our hearts would continue to soften and let the Holy Spirit lead our lives, that our lives would no longer be micromanaged by our every little desire, every expectation we have; I confess that I have struggled with this much at Hopkins too. But I believe in the testimony I have over and over again in different ways in this city: there is TRUE JOY and PEACE in being led by the Holy Spirit, and by the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for us, who is faithful, who will lead us back to our true home, who called us out upon the waters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UglO7SGUWk
^ Last point. At around 3:00 it goes:
"You make me brave, you make me brave, you call me out beyond the shores into the waves; no fear can hinder now the love that made a way."
I can't help but imagine Peter (the disciple), who had so much fear and trembling as he walked upon the waves when Jesus called him in the Sea of Galilee. He had the human "boldness" to take out his sword and strike down the servant's ear to protect Jesus, yet in fear and trembling denied Jesus three times as He was led to be sentenced. Yet upon Peter Jesus chose to build His church. In seeing the empty tomb, in seeing Jesus Christ resurrected and victorious over death, and with the Holy Spirit poured out upon him, equipping him and strengthening him as an apostle on the Day of Pentecost, Peter's heart of fear and cowardice and trembling were turned into wonder, and boldness, and a passionate love for Jesus, for the sharing of the Gospel, for living a life utterly laid down for the one who loved Him - no lies of man, no lies of the Enemy, no fear, no shame, no trembling could hold him back from proclaiming and living out the Good News with boldness, humility, and love. We too live in the legacy of all the saints, the faithful who have lived before us; we live too in the legacy of Peter, the legacy which Jesus Christ started.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (and testimony, and the love of those who have patiently poured into our lives), let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith."
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