Source: Act Beyond, February 2016
The partners of our team in North India were visiting some churches out in the villages. Most of the churches are comprised of families who became followers of Jesus in the past year. These families are snake charmers. They sit near the Taj Mahal and other tourist sites, playing a flute, coaxing the cobra to rise out of the basket and “dance.” Many of them worship the cobra, particularly because it’s their main source of income. However, now there are several of these families following Jesus.
Seth and Jay hadn’t visited this area in several months [but on the second day of their recent visit] led a Bible study during which they shared several examples of “normal, everyday” people in Scripture who obeyed Jesus’ command to “make disciples.” Some stories included women.
After the training session was over, a young woman, named “Parul,” approached Seth and Jay. With tears pouring down her cheeks, she declared, “I am a girl. I can’t do anything… at least, that’s what I’ve always believed. But today my prayers are answered. You showed me that God can use women. If those women could do it, I can do it, too. Now I know there is a place for me in Jesus’ Kingdom.”
In the past eight months alone, 68 snake-charmer families from this one village have decided to follow Jesus, as well as another 19 families from other caste backgrounds. These families now meet as multiple churches in their village. Most came to faith through the efforts of an illiterate (uneducated), twenty-something-year-old young man.
» Speaking of what women can or cannot do, observe the creative way these women in Colombia created their own city (Al Jazeera).