A LIGHT IN ORISSA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In February 2010 my two daughters went to India to minister at a women’s conference for the survivors of the persecuted church in Orissa.  These women had seen their homes burned, their husbands killed, their daughters and often themselves raped.  When Danielle and Jenell arrived at the conference the women met them with a dance to honor them.  Half squatting, they slid side to side making a sweeping motion with their hands as if they were brooms.  They were symbolically clearing the way for the Holy Spirit to come. Some of the women had tattoos on their faces.  They were from the Kooie tribe and were tattooed as children so that the tribal chief would not take them to add to his collection of the many women he had.  As the girls watched these humble woman dance they thought, “so this is the look of the persecuted church.”  Their chief dancer was a widow named Apsara.  She bonded strongly with my daughters.   At the end of the conference she was run over by a bus and 50 bones in her arm were crushed.  Thankfully, God miraculously intervened and she got immediate care (not a normal thing in India) with specialists and her arm was saved.  This plaque is dedicated to her.