*Vama wanted to know why her pain had returned. God healed her once before. Now, the pain was back.

“She was still praising God,” Bekah said. “She still loves Him and trusts Him. She just couldn’t understand why the pain had returned.”

Bekah had come with the Southeastern team to teach piano lessons in a Mumbai village. While she was teaching, Vama came in and sat down. She didn’t say a word, Bekah remembered. She just sat and watched for a long time.

After a few minutes, Bekah asked if she had come to study piano. “No,” the woman said. Just to be safe, Bekah repeated her question several more times, phrasing it differently each time to make sure the woman understood. Each time, the woman said, “No.”

Finally, Vama said to Bekah, “I used to have a terrible pain in my arm. I prayed and prayed to God and He took that pain away, and I praised His name.”

“About a month ago the pain came back,” continued Vama, who had recently been hospitalized for the problem. “I still praise God. I still trust Him. I still love Him, and I still have faith in Him. But the pain is back, and I can’t move my arm … I want to know why He let it come back.”

Moved by Vama’s story, Bekah left the keyboard and sat down beside her. With the help of her students, Bekah and Vama talked for some time. The woman asked for prayer. Bekah thought the woman might need to understand that God doesn’t always answer our prayers exactly the way we expect Him to.  She told Vama that God is powerful, that He healed her before and that He had the power and ability to heal her again.

“Maybe, though,” Bekah said, “there is a reason that your pain has returned.”

Bekah talked more about God’s faithfulness and shared Scripture from Deuteronomy 8.

“Maybe,” Bekah said, “this is a time that you can show your faithfulness to God.”

Vama agreed and said that she would continue to praise God.

Then Bekah, her students, and other members of the Southeastern team gathered around Vama to pray. They prayed for God’s will to be done, and they prayed for healing and for peace.

As the prayer ended and the students returned to their lessons, Vama raised her afflicted hand, shouting “Praise the Lord!”

Vama could move her arm again, when moments before she was unable to do so.

“I have the best picture of her giving us all a high-five,” Bekah marveled.

*Names changed

Angry.

Meena is angry, angry with God, wondering why He’s allowed such hardship in her life. Her husband left her three years ago, and life has been anything but easy.

“I cannot believe because of that,” Meena tells the women in the room. “Pray for me,” she asks.

We are hours away from the hustle and bustle of central Mumbai. The home we sit in is where Neha,* our translator, wants to put into practice the training she has received. For the past three days, Southeastern students have taught her how to share her testimony and stories from the Bible.

Heartbreaking.

Tears stream down Neha’s face as she continues to tell the stories the women are sharing.

Neha shares the story of the young woman sitting in the back of the small, poorly lit room, breast-feeding her child. Her husband beats her and drinks and gambles away their money, she says. As the young woman gently rocks her child, Neha tell us, “This woman was forced to marry a family member.”

A hush falls across the room. Then another woman begins to share her story.

“I pray, and my husband beats me. He beats me, but I still came today,” the woman explains.

Another woman, perhaps in her 30’s, chimes in, “I want to be baptized, but my family will not accept me.”

Stories of beatings, sickness and healing pour from the lips of the women.

“I felt all alone. I had no hope,” Pushpa* says. Raising her hands to gesture praises, she shares, “I thought I was going to die, but Christ healed me.”

“I believe Jesus Christ is the only God,” Pushpa says.

Hope.

As she cries, Rachel, a Southeastern team member smiles, nods and says, “Hope in eternity.” Rachel shares her personal testimony of hardships and encourages the women in the room to trust Jesus, even in hard times.

Then we take turns praying for the women.

Walking back to the main road to catch an auto rickshaw home, Neha turns to me and asks, “Are you happy?” Before I can answer, Neha says, “I am very happy. Today I talked about Jesus.”

*Names changed.