As seasons pass here, my urgency for these people grows. I realize it is in the hands of my dear Savior to change hearts and reveal sins, but the Spirit constantly prods my heart to press into each interaction with truth…even when it occurs with a most unlikely individual.
This woman’s name I don’t know, usually with old woman I stick with “Auntie.” She is about half my height and I am about a third her age. She wears a white scarf and glasses that could stop a bullet with its thickness. At some point in her life she has landed with about 4 or 5 teeth to her name. She tends to make people laugh with the stories she tells and most of the time her very own daughter cannot understand what she is saying. She is precious and stays at our house often. She is the grandmother of the girls living downstairs from me.
On this fateful night, we had just arrived home from visiting a lady. It was early in the evening and the little girls in our house were giggling splashing each other in their tiny inflatable pool. The air was perfect after the hot summer day, the kind of air that makes Kurdish people want to stay out late in a garden or park enjoying company with a plate of fruit or a bag of nuts.
I sat talking with the little girls on the sidewalk near their garden, when the grandmother of the family came shuffling outside. “What is good about inside?” She called out gruffly as she gradually made her way to the garden. M and I helped her to a spot and greeted her. Also in pursuit of enjoying the night’s breeze, I too took a seat by her in the garden.
As soon as I sat down, she dove into story after story about her childhood, occasionally picking grass and sticking it in her mouth to chew on. I sat a while trying to understand her stories, but just found myself laughing when she would laugh and reacting when she would react. Every now and then the Spirit would put thoughts in my head like, “Wow, I wish she knew truth, but how impossible to communicate this truth with her…” I would ultimately push it out of my head because of the impossibility of communication. After some time, I began contemplating respectful ways to bid her farewell without cutting her off, when with the clearest Kurdish she asked me a question…
“We sacrifice animals to give us good works before G0d. We do this to go to heaven. What do you do?”
Dumbstruck I sat staring at her for a couple seconds, “Did she just say what I think she just said?” Thinking about my words and how to clearly convey the G00d News that she just asked to hear, I spoke loudly and answered her question with news of Jesus. She smiled a bit at times and seemed to be contemplating as she picked another blade of grass to chew on.
God is not willing that any should perish. I believe that as he opened up an opportunity to share with a most unlikely Kurdish woman.
