Below you will find the transcript for our final Advent podcast. If you have Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can listen using the links below. You can also watch on Youtube by clicking on the video that appears after the transcript. Click CC to read the captions while you watch.
This Advent at Harvest Bridge we want to share the wisdom of four ministry leaders in South Asia as they talk about hope, peace, joy, and love. This week, you will hear from Priya, who leads the GATE ministry in India. GATE stands for Gypsy and Tribal Empowerment. Priya is not from the gypsy and tribal communities, but she has responded to God’s call to care for them and to fight the injustices they face. For someone who works alongside those who are below the lowest caste in the country, those who are considered untouchable, how has love been a guiding force for her ministry? Let’s listen.
What I am saying, because of the love, I went to, to see the gypsies, you know? I was in a totally different family. I was walking in a different style of way. But who touched my heart – God touched me inside to go and work for gypsies because of the love. Change the lifestyle and change the people – they are in not, they are not in a good position, not in a good shape. When God’s love goes into the hearts, the shape will change. Miracles, like amazing. Now they have a God love in their hearts. Now they are acting, and they are giving voice of me, and they are talking boldly. Before the gypsies were afraid. John 3:16, God gave His only one son for us to love. He loves the world. So that’s why He sent Christ to us, Jesus to us, to I don’t know how to say . . . it’s like the love, it’s a big love. You know, God love is a very big love. He loves us. That’s why He sent His Son to solve all the problems and break the sin. I am showing that God is in me, like the gypsies. You know about the gypsies, the gypsies are treated like animals in outside, and they are untouchable, also. No one can move with the people, but I am very close, and I’m, I’m hugging the people, and I am kissing the children. So it just shows that other people, how she’s doing, why she’s doing like this, because of God’s love in me. So it accepts everything. They are not taking bath very good. They smell it. The people are complaining like the people [say]; “gypsies are not clean” like that. But in my sight, it’s not like that. So God covered everything. God’s love, God’s love covered everything. That is my thing to show to the public, to be closer to God, closer to the people.
God’s love sent Priya to the GATE community. It is changing the lives of the people there and the people who see the love in her ministry. You will hear Priya share an example of this.
I had an experience one time when I was taking these people in a bus. The bus driver stopped the bus because he said that he cannot take the gypsies to the other, to sit with other community people. Then I was saying ‘I am sitting with the people because of the love, so you can join with me’. Then it slowly happens, like I teach them, like the public also, I am teaching that you can love others. That’s a good role – things for the people to not irritate them or not making them sad. Like I teach them many times like, be sure to love, don’t treat them like badly in the public. So the public asks – second question – you are a Christian? Because they know the Hindus never show the love to this type of people. So the public, also many public ask me, “you are a Christian? Oh, that’s why you are showing the love.’ So that is a good role – thing for my life – to teach others to love the people, gypsy people.
In the same way that God’s love for us came at a cost, Priya’s love for the GATE community has cost her as well.
I know, like, I was cursed by many people. When I started this ministry, my friends left, and even my family left me. That time, God’s love only protected me and for my sons, for my two boys. And for, that’s like, I know God loves more than the world loves, but [in] that time, God only teach me how to be calm and everything. But I am not… I don’t know how to express this, but it was like a very sad time, I was crying. Then God spoke to me inside my heart that ‘you have to be very calm and quiet, not to curse anyone, not to shout at anyone, not to show your anger to anyone.’ So, like that. So God is teaching me every time.
Priya speaks about how she extends love to her enemies:
Because God already teaches us to love everyone, like neighbors and everyone, enemies also. He teaches us to love the enemies. That’s so important. I was in a colony. The [citizenship] certificate was planning to issue. So I went and talked to the deputy collector [who] was there. So I was talking to the deputy collector. Then the media came inside, then the media wants to make a shoot about the citizenship certificate – how the woman is doing in Chennai, like for the certificate, but she is not from the same communities, like that. That time the political people came, and he was asking, ‘Who arranged this meeting? Who arranged this meeting? Then I was saying, ‘I am.’ Then he was talking to me for five minutes. Then he asked me ‘where you went, like, how, you know the highest collector and how you met these people, how the government order, I won’t want to give permission very immediately.’ So he wants to know about the whole story about of my work. Then I explained everything, and he told me, ‘I received a call from the government office that the political people are angry on me because you are in a local political- you are not doing anything, but she is from outside. She is doing everything for the gypsies.’ Then he was talking to me, immediately he was punching. I said, ‘why I want to inform to the political people. I am not doing – working – for the political people’. He was punching on me like this. Then I was like, shocked. I was shocked, and I was like, not, my mind was not good at the moment. I was blocked on my mind. Then I was crying, and all the gypsies gathered in that group. Gypsies gathered in a one group, like 100 people, was like a gathered in a group, drive the man out. This is a God’s love.
But the love God has put in Priya cannot be stopped. This love is, as she says, harvesting souls for heaven.
This is the God love, and I am introducing God to every houses, every houses, door to door, to bring them closer to God, because the God love is very powerful for them to protect their life. God love is harvesting the souls for heaven. Love is like, unconditional. It covers everything. If you show the love, love will protect you. Love will, love is kindness. It will be like, love covers everything. That’s all I know. If you do a wrong thing also, love covers. But our God’s love is very pure, so He covers everything, sin and everything. So it’s unconditional love. I see the unconditional love in all the gypsies now, because God is living in their hearts.
The unconditional love of God, shown through Priya’s ministry, now living in the hearts of the gypsy and tribal communities.