Shining God’s Light in Southeast Asia

Shining God’s Light in Southeast Asia

“There is a festival called Divali: a festival of lights. The whole country’s lit up. The houses are decorated. And for our first Diwali, our house was the only one that was dark.”

R&R moved to their host country 4 years ago with grand plans for what they would accomplish, but according to them, none of those plans has come to fruition. While they each had some connection to their new home, there were still challenges that they had not expected. In their words, “Everything has come apart, but in a good way, including us.” While R&R are on a different path than they envisioned, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t been successful. They say the biggest transformation has been in themselves. They needed to be different to meet the needs of the people there.

So here they were, on their first Divali, with the only darkened house. “I said, ‘why not?’ We can light up our house with some good lights. So I went out the next morning and bought the best lights in the city!”

While Divali may not have meant much to R&R, it meant a lot to the people of their new community. They decorated their home the next night, and by the following morning, a local woman came to talk to them, confused. She wondered how Christians could celebrate this holiday when they claim to follow Jesus, and they answered her by reading John 8:12.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

In R&R’s country, there is an expectation of what a Christian is, and because there are so few Christians there, it’s difficult to overcome the stereotypes. By listening to their community and being a good neighbor, R&R have brought down barriers. Through decorating their home in lights, they could share the Gospel with a woman who had not heard it; by praying before traveling in a taxi, their driver discovered he liked when they prayed over him; by taking part in a Mehndi celebration (putting temporary artwork on the skin), R could put the story of Easter on her arms and hands, sharing it with the local women for the next seven days.

Each of us has a plan for where our lives may go, and R&R are no different. But by listening to God and connecting with their neighbors, their new path is one that has allowed them to make an unexpected impact: shining God’s light on people who have not yet seen it.