A sweet stench permeated the apartment as the Hindu priest lit incense sticks and butter lamps. He began to pull various talismans and religious trinkets out of his bag in preparation for the rituals. Glancing up, he noticed an image of Jesus nestled between the idols and pictures of Hindu gods and gurus that adorned the family shrine. “Why is there a picture of Jesus in this house?” he demanded.

The old man and his wife were perplexed by the priest’s question and looked at each other nervously. Not waiting for an explanation, the priest commanded a servant girl standing nearby to remove the picture immediately. “You are a Hindu family,” he said. “You should not have a picture of the Christian god in your house.”

The servant girl hid the picture under a bed in a back room of the apartment. For a time, the incident with the Hindu priest was forgotten.

One day, the servant girl came to our house and visited with our Nepali niece, Dikee. She told Dikee what had happened with the Hindu priest. “But now many bad things have started happening in the house, and Uncle and Auntie have had very bad luck lately. Some money disappeared from the house, Uncle and Auntie have been sick, and so many other bad things have happened.” The girl was clearly agitated, but she didn’t know what to do about the situation.

Dikee is a recent convert to Seventh-day Adventist Christianity. Because of her growing knowledge of the battle between God and Satan, she has a better understanding of the world around her than do our Hindu and Buddhist neighbors. “Were any of these bad things happening before you took the picture of Jesus down?” she asked.

“No, nothing.”

“Isn’t that interesting? The Hindu priest came to bless your house and ask for the gods to protect your uncle and auntie, but after he left, things got worse.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Dikee could see that her friend was beginning to understand. “You should take the picture of Jesus out from under the bed and hang it back up again. I’m a Christian, and we believe Jesus will protect us if we worship Him, because He is greater than all other gods.”

The girl did what Dikee suggested, and after a few days, things in the house returned to normal.

Later, as I was thinking about what happened with Dikee and the servant girl, the thought struck me that, as a Seventh-day Adventist, I have a lot of spiritual knowledge, but too often that knowledge never finds meaningful expression in real life. I live my life but often fail to interpret what is happening around me according to my knowledge.

Yet, it was a natural thing for Dikee to help her friend reinterpret reality according to her own developing biblical worldview. As a spiritual interpreter, Dikee helped her friend better understand Jesus. That’s what being a follower of Christ is really all about. Dikee’s own understanding is still very basic, but God is working with her and blessing her friends through her witness.

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