Sister Freaks (21 page)
(2 Timothy
4:2
)
li pasang
Even If Not
T
he living Buddha—who lived a mountain journey away—gave Li Pasang her name when she was an infant. She grew up under the shadow of his mountains in a community known for its hopelessness. So when, as a young woman, Pasang found a hard lump near her breast—the breast that nursed her firstborn son—she resigned herself to death.
Still, she approached a foreign doctor for his advice. The smile on her thin, pale face showed she dared to hope that the lump she found was nothing. When she entered the clinic, her one-year-old baby clung to her back in a makeshift sling. She delivered the baby to her mother and took her place in line—a line so long it wound around the mayor’s office.
When she finally saw the doctor, she said matter-of-factly, “I have something the matter with my chest.”
The doctor reached for some medicine, but she stopped him. “No, it’s not pain, it’s a lump—just under my skin. Here.”
A translator relayed the doctor’s words: “She has a mass—hard and immovable.” The doctor poked and prodded to make a more complete examination. The hopelessness that infused Pasang’s village fixed its hold around her neck like a tightening noose. Yet the nice doctor assured her that hope was not lost. If she could get the mass removed at the hospital, things might turn out well. He encouraged her to come with him to the city, where she could be treated and possibly cured.
While Pasang’s husband and small son waited in her village, she began the long and difficult journey. It was not easy. For Pasang’s entire life, her sole means of transportation had been her feet. She’d never been in an automobile before, and its motion made her violently ill. Gripping her stomach, she fought to keep her food down, eventually losing the battle. The winding, tortuous roads mocked her. She felt her lump as vomit stung her tonsils. No hope.
Through perilous roads and towns decimated by the SARS epidemic, Pasang held her stomach. She didn’t pray. She didn’t know she could. The doctor with the pale, worried face gave her some medicine. He said it would help her stomach, but it didn’t. On and on they drove, up hills, through villages foreign to her. Li Pasang had never before ventured beyond her village, beyond the eyes of the living Buddha.
A student traveling with them became ill from the Yak butter tea they’d had for breakfast. After seeing both women’s pained faces, the doctor pulled over to let them rest. When they began their nauseating journey again, a police car flanked them. The officer shouted, “You must be out of this region at this moment! We are closing the road.” SARS had reached yet another territory.
The three travelers stopped in a high mountain village near a clear lake. They approached the village’s center. It was eerily calm. Only one lone lady walked the vacant street. “You’d better leave now, or you will be stuck here,” she said. “No one can leave after tomorrow.” Another town closed by SARS.
Pasang watched the mountains, her stomach eventually settling after a second round of medicine. In another village nearly closed by SARS, they stayed in the house of a kind stranger, woke up early, and continued their journey, hoping to reach the hospital before the roads closed. Along the journey the only people they saw were nurses and doctors in scrubs and face masks. Had they left one day later, they’d have been trapped many miles away from the hospital.
The trio arrived in the city at nightfall. When the doctor showed Pasang to her hospital room, he explained that she needn’t be afraid of the leprous-looking patients. “They have the scars of leprosy, but they are healed. Do not be afraid.”
She was afraid—not of the scarred people but of the battery of tests she had to endure. Her first full day in the hospital, her first encounter with such a building, confirmed cancer. Pasang sobbed as she absorbed the weight of the word. The doctor scheduled an operation and arranged for her sister to keep her company in the long days ahead; family members provided the only nursing care.
Before her surgery, the doctor shared Jesus with Pasang. He told her about His life, His death, and His resurrection. He said that Jesus loved Pasang.
“What you are saying sounds like the words of the living Buddha,” she responded. Yet the living Buddha gripped her village in fear, warning that if a villager inadvertently killed a bug while plowing he might end up a lesser being.
The doctor continued to share Jesus with Pasang as well as discuss her condition. “People in the countryside believe cancer is incurable, don’t they?”
She nodded.
“It’s not incurable. There are still things we can do. The treatments are difficult, but you are young and strong, and you have a baby boy. You should try. Don’t give up. I will help you all I can.”
A few days later, the doctor told Pasang about a God who came to help the helpless. She stared at the wall, the words lacking impact. The doctor continued, sharing how Jesus suffered. Eventually, a smile crept to Pasang’s dry lips. “Doctor,” she said, “may we believe in Jesus? Are we allowed?”
“Of course you may. But will you? Do you love Him? Do you believe?”
Pasang did not reply. She smiled again and looked at her sister.
The next day her lump was removed, and she commenced chemotherapy. The doctor then had to leave Pasang because of his commitments back home. During the chemotherapy sessions, though, the doctor’s words about Jesus made their way to Pasang’s heart. Like a bud slowly blooming, she believed. And then her sister believed. Elusive hope came to them both through the gentle hands of Jesus.
During a brief chemotherapy respite, they returned to her village—a place untouched by Christianity—and shared Jesus with the villagers. Thirty families gave their hearts to Him, angering local officials, who deemed their gatherings cultic. The new Christians, including Pasang’s husband, were blamed for the village’s misfortunes. Former friends ridiculed Pasang publicly for daring to betray the living Buddha. The community that once embraced Pasang now shunned her. When the Chinese New Year came, Pasang and the other Christian families refused to participate in ritual sacrifices, furthering their isolation and persecution.
Still, today Pasang smiles. A new Christian, she thanks God for the cancer as she endures chemotherapy. “I am glad Jesus loved me enough to allow the tumor so that I could hear about Him through a doctor.”
Thirty families who lived under the shadow of the living Buddha’s mountain are thankful too.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
(1 Peter
2:9
)
sara
Learning to Surrender
S
pring break of her freshman year, Sara sat alone in her dorm room. Life had become unbearable, and she pleaded with God to let her die. As she prayed for God to take her, a song came over the radio. Between sobs Sara heard, “He climbed the highest hill to save you.” The words pierced the young woman, and she begged God for something she’d never before asked: “Teach me how to surrender my life to You.”
Surrender came hard. After years of rebelling, Sara doubted that God was even willing to provide for her, whether it was relationally, spiritually, financially, or emotionally. But she has since learned her heavenly Father delights in His children and He answers prayer—even if it’s shrouded in skepticism.
The summer following Sara’s freshman year in college should have been her best ever. A cruise line in Alaska hired her as a stewardess. She found a house with fifteen other young seasonal workers, met a great Christian guy—David—started dating, got pregnant, and then got dumped.
Sara was devastated. She was hundreds of miles from home, and David didn’t want anything to do with her. Sara quickly realized that God had allowed her to be stripped of everything—except His provision.
Out of a house of fifteen, He gave Sara eight believing friends to cover her in prayer, grace, and love. Not only did God lavish her with companionship, He gave her a best friend named Joy. She loved Sara through late-night panic attacks, anger, grief, and continued doubt. Joy placed her trust and life in the hands of the Father, and Sara slowly learned to do the same.
When summer ended, Sara headed back to Seattle. By God’s grace she didn’t have to go home alone. Five of her summer roommates also happened to live in Seattle. They continued to meet with Sara to study the Bible and pray for her. They stood by her while she wrestled with the most difficult decision of her life: whether to keep her baby or give it up for adoption.
A mom was the only thing Sara had ever wanted to be. But secretly, she thought God wanted to punish her. And what would be more painful than making her give up her first child? Even though Sara believed God would make her pay for all her poor choices, she still decided to trust Him. After all, she hadn’t done so well without Him! Sara wanted to do His will, no matter what.
She began preparing herself for “His” answer by reading up on adoption. The first book she read was about a young Christian girl who was raped and became pregnant. It seemed only logical, Sara thought, that she would give up the baby. Yet she didn’t, even though the baby was conceived in shame. For the first time Sara realized that God had already paid her penalty. He didn’t want or need to punish her. All He wanted was to show her His mercy and grace.
Yet even with all the grace and mercy in the world, Sara wasn’t sure she could afford a child. She started attending meetings at the adoption agency. At one of the meetings, a young girl spoke about giving up her own baby. She struggled with the same question, “Can I provide for a child?” She finally concluded, “I wasn’t going to be able to buy my kid Nike shoes. And I wanted my baby to have parents who could.”
As Sara listened to her story, Matthew 6 popped in her head: “Do not worry about your life, what you will . . . wear. Will [God] not . . . clothe you?” (vv. 25, 30). Sara walked out of the meeting not willing to give her baby up for adoption because of shoes. That day, Sara decided to keep her daughter; Grace would be her name.
At last she was able to settle happily into her pregnancy. As her third trimester commenced, Sara began looking forward to the day Grace would be born. Then, three days before she was scheduled to give birth, David called. He said, “Isn’t it ironic that if you were the kind of person who would give up a baby, then you would be a person I could be with.” Although he was obviously attempting to use and manipulate her again, Sara was consumed by fears of being alone without a man and raising a baby without a father. All she could muster was, “I’ll think about it.”
Confused, Sara longed for a quiet place where she could sort things out with her heavenly Father. She drove around for hours. Finally, she found the place she was looking for: a bench by the ocean. Exhausted, Sara sat at the water’s edge, sobbing and asking God for guidance.
As she cried, she thought of Abraham leading Isaac to the altar. He was willing to give his son away because it was God’s will. Sara cried out, “Is this what You are asking of me? If I give my baby away, how will You bring her back to me?” Afraid and unsure, Sara returned home. Then she called David and agreed to give the baby away. The next morning he picked her up to sign the papers.
A stack of legal work was waiting for her when she arrived. The first page read: “I agree I am unable to offer relational, financial, psychological, and emotional stability for a child at this time. Therefore, it is in the best interest of my child to be given to a family who can. . . .” At the bottom of the page was a line for Sara’s signature.
She picked up the pen, but even if she could give away the baby emotionally, she couldn’t do it physically. Sara literally couldn’t put the pen to paper. She left without signing anything. Later, as she sat at home rubbing her belly, she wondered if God had sent an angel to restrain her hand.
Two days later, Grace was born. All five of Sara’s girlfriends from her summer in Alaska were there. For nine months they had held up their lanterns of learned surrender and guided her toward a trustworthy God. That day Sara knew fully that God’s provision surrounded her.
Sara periodically still finds herself doubting God’s care for her, but her distrust is shrinking. Righteous women continue to embrace the young mother with prayer, encouragement, and guidance. It is because of God’s merciful gifts, she says, that she has learned to trust Him. She is able to say confidently God is not only her Savior, He is the Lord of her life.
Today, Sara has been married four years to a devoted Christ-follower. Jason loves to say that it was her compassionate heart that drew him to her. She insists he fell in love with a little brown-haired girl named Grace. Three years ago, Jason adopted Grace and is now raising her as his own.
When we think about sisters sold out for Jesus, we often think only of women who leave their homelands and go far away to minister. But Sara, pressing hard after the heart of God, discovered what it meant to surrender and rely solely on her Lord while answering one of God’s highest callings: motherhood.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
(James
1:2-4
)
irene gut
The Rescuer
I
rene Gut began her teenage years during a very dark time in history: Hitler had just become chancellor and president of Germany. Like every teenage girl, Irene had dreams. She thought maybe she would like to be an actress, though she felt plain and unattractive.
She could be found climbing trees and riding horses. Boys weren’t of interest, as she found herself daydreaming of partaking in heroic acts, saving lives, and sacrificing herself to save others. With such lofty ambitions, romance took a back seat and sounded rather dull. Adventure was set deeply in her heart.