This is how Sarah, one of our previous students in the School of Islamic Studies, found her calling to the nation of India. God took her on an amazingly fast, but clear journey towards what she is really passionate about in life. Through intercession, God placed a burden on her heart, which turned into a definite call with a lot of clear confirmation and provision to actually go on an outreach to India!
God’s Heart
I used to think that if you were called to a nation, you had to have a clear word about a specific place for your whole life… but Jesus totally blew my beliefs about this out of the water. During the first week of my School of Islamic Studies, Jesus started revealing His heart for India to me.
It all started during a time of intercession. We asked Jesus to lay a country on our heart, and to also to reveal the strongholds over the country. Our speaker then directed us to pray in the opposite spirit of the demonic oppression over that nation. Jesus highlighted South Asia, and specifically India, which seemed strange to me because I had never felt any desire to go there. All of a sudden, Jesus told me to pray against the spirit of lust and impurity over India. I started to think about the millions in this country who have been claimed by the human trafficking industry. This thought made my heart begin to ache.
As I was praying tears started to fill my eyes and eventually I had to leave the room as I began to weep. Jesus was starting to birth a new passion inside of me. Later that night, I looked up human trafficking statistics in South Asia and found that India was ranked as one of the worst in the world. I started reading stories about the women and children who have been trafficked and the horror they experience on a daily basis. I was completely appalled. That was the moment that Jesus planted a seed deep in my heart, and I knew that I HAD to do something.
Dreams
The night after God began to give me his heart for India, Jesus gave me a prophetic dream. This was actually the first time that I ever had a prophetic dream.
In my dream, I saw all of YWAM Redding, including myself, sitting down at round tables in our fellowship hall (where we eat, have worship, etc…) and one of my friends, Rohan, was preaching. There was a banner behind him that corresponded with his teaching and said “The Assignment, The Call, and The Go”. He was specifically talking about a country, which I assumed was India because Rohan is moving there to start a YWAM base. Four of my leaders stood up, pointed at me, and said, “SARAH! You’re the assignment! You have to go!!” I remember feeling incredibly confused. Then all of a sudden a white dove flew by my face, circled around it once, disappeared, and I knew that God’s peace was all over this situation. Next thing I knew, I ran out the door to go fulfill this said “assignment”.
Confirmation and Vision
About two weeks later, Jesus gave me another prophetic dream confirming the passion He instilled in me about anti human trafficking. In my dream, I ran through a forest chasing Jesus. As I followed Him, I turned to see a group of young Indian women and children running behind me clothed in black, ragged dresses. As I ran, I started doing ballerina leaps and the women and children started doing the same. Once they took their very first ballerina leap, their black ragged dresses transformed into radiant white dresses.
Again, I felt Jesus confirming my call to India and the vision for helping human trafficking victims. The Lord is calling me to bring peace and freedom to the women and children who have been victimized. I want to speak their true identity into them and root them in their daughter-ship in Christ and want them to know what it feels like to be truly loved and valued as Children of the Kingdom.
I wish to bring transformation to these women–from being forced to live a wretched lifestyle into living out a pure and holy life. Falling victim to the sex trafficking industry is something that is normalized in Indian culture. They assume that it’s custom to be sexually, physically, and emotionally abused. Sadly, even young children think this is a part of normal life. My heart was once again filled with a zealous desire to halt the injustice that happens there on a daily basis. I want to change the culture–to denormalize abuse in the nation of India.
The Go
Originally, at the end of my School of Islamic Studies, we were planning to go on outreach to a country in Central Asia. However, for some reason I felt certain in my spirit that I was going to India instead with the DTS outreach team. This didn’t make sense to me at all, since this isn’t something that normally happens.
Despite the odd circumstances, I had so much faith that Jesus would make something happen, after all, He had given me so much confirmation. Literally two days after I wrote that in my journal, they announced that our trip to Central Asia had been cancelled. Can you say confirmation from Jesus?!
At this point, I started the conversation about going on outreach with our leadership team. I shared about my dreams from The Lord, and my heart for the nation. After prayer and discussion, Jesus has made a way for me to go with the outreach team to India!
My future plan is to move to India and commit for at least five years to help Rupesh, Susanna, and Rohan, pioneer a YWAM base in Ranchi, India. While I’m there, my dreams are to help lead schools and outreaches, start the anti-human trafficking ministry, start an orphanage, and start a center for women to get free ultrasounds of their babies in hopes of ending abortion.
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