Sharing Good News

Nearee had a motorbike accident over ten year ago. She lost her memory, her ability to read and write and suffered disabling nerve damage in her right arm. Today Nearee is a passionate evangelist. She believes that through prayer God has restored her ability to read the scriptures and she shares the Good News with whoever she can. She has plenty of opportunity to do this in her work as a cleaner at the Christian clinic where I met her. She does a little mopping of the floor and then stops to chat to the patients finding a way to encourage them and point them to Jesus. She told me how grateful she is for this job. ‘Many other places would never employ someone like me with a disability. But I have been working here for 10 years. Thankyou Lord Jesus.’

Nearee’s lack of inhibition, probably related to the head injury, does make her an unusual person. She chats away with me in Khmer and I don’t yet understand everything she says but she doesn’t seem to notice my faltering questions and vague looks. I did understand that she lives alone in a rented room which is very unusual for people here. She only sees her siblings and parents, out in the country side, about twice a year. It costs too much in travel to see them more often. When she has some spare money to buy milk and snacks she visits sick people because you can’t go empty handed. She follows up people she has met at the clinic, some of them with HIV, and goes to their homes to encourage them and pray.

In this culture it is believed that a disability is caused by bad karma. You live with the consequences of the bad deeds you’ve committed either in this life or in a previous life. But Nearee transcends this labelling. She knows that she is one whom Jesus calls blessed and it is clear she is being used to further His kingdom in and through her life situation.

I wonder what it would be like if more of us, regardless of our limitations and circumstances, lived with gratitude and love, simply seeking each day to share good news with somebody.