I just landed in Mumbai, a city known as The City of Dreams. I write this 2012 post from the airport, waiting for the rest of the team, but this city is also known for its Extreme Poverty. It is India’s largest city, but that also means that many come here to work or looking for work, but where few find this kind of stability.

As we flew into the city, I remembered the Light, Love and Sound that I carry and prayed over Mumbai and India, a nation deeply loved by God. As I exited the plane and made it through customs on the way to get my luggage, I could see ahead of me a lone little boy no older than four or five, crying so loud it echoed on the marble just outside the Duty Free gift shop. His mother was walking ahead of him, when all of a sudden a man, presumably his father, came up behind him and smacked him across the head and face. The boy went silent for the slightest second, pausing only to suck in enough air that in the next instant, his cry became a scream and it was even louder than before.

I wanted to stare, but I walked forward looking on. But a song rose up within me…

“He loves you, oh, how He loves you…” I sang it under my breathe to the child.

But then, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the man and his own depravity, and I sang those same lines over him. It was this quickening of the Spirit to remind me that the father is loved by God as much as the man’s son is loved. Each need to know how much they are loved, but also what love looks like.

It’s easy to see poverty—of clothes, of food, of money, of love, of spirit, of conscience. But we’re called to be people who see His love and call it forth in our surrounding and in our spheres of life.

For more information on Mumbai, check out this article from The Guardian by Sadie Gray.