Take up your Cross

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Luke 9: 23

Amai Banda is the woman I wrote about last month that has diabetes and has had one of her legs cut off at the knee. She walks with crutches if she needs to move around but mostly she sits. Last week I went to visit with her and she seems to be doing better, eating right, and taking her medicine once again. She asked if I could take her to the meeting that day so I did. On the way home that day she asked if I had time each week could I come and get her so she could go the women's meeting. She said she was very encouraged after being there that afternoon. You see, she is not able to go to church on Sundays because it is so far away and also because it is up two flights of steps. I agreed that if I had time I would pick her up. Well, on Thursday I was running late because of another stop(see story on Amai Nkoma below). So, I was thinking I just did not have time and maybe next week I would leave earlier. As I approached the road to go to Amai Banda's she was at the end of the road in a wheel chair and dressed in her purple attire. That is what the Baptist women wear to their meeting. Anyway, I pulled over to collect her. She was so excited that I had stopped. She had asked someone to push her 1 1/2 kms in a wheel chair partly on a dirt road so she would be out at the main road when I passed by.
Then at Chainda II there were several visitors from the local village. I was a little late arriving there so I had not seen everyone come in. At the end of the service as we are about to all file out and shake hands I turned around and saw one of the visitors crawling out of the church all the way to her hut which was about 50 feet away. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with her legs but obviously there was. I'm assuming she crawled in too.
Can you imagine?? Both of these women wanted to go to church pretty badly to be pushed in a wheel chair and to crawl to get to church. I can hardly even write this without tears coming to my eyes. Don't you know how that pleases our Father! One day, Amai Banda will enter into Heaven walking to meet Jesus. I'm not sure about this other woman whether she is a believer or not. As far as I know she hasn't ever been to the church even though her hut is so close. Pray that this woman would know Jesus if she doesn't all ready. Pray she will find the one she may be searching for. Pray that one day she will also walk to enter into heaven like Amai Banda.
As I thought about these two women on into the night and for the last several days I asked myself to what extreme I would go to if I was in a similar situation. Would I humble myself and crawl to church if need be? What about you? How much do we really love Jesus??

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" Galatians 2:20-21