The Invitation

Hungary 2017

A Bill Drake Band tour in Hungary encompasses many things including outreach, evangelism, building community out of a team of musicians, dancers, technicians, translators, and greeters – many of whom have never met each other prior to the tour. We always get to “sow the seed”, and we get to water. And sometimes, we get to see a harvest – like we did at Rackeresztur Men’s Rehabilitation Center, where like last summer, we had the awesome privilege of seeing some men come to Jesus!

But without a doubt one of the highlights of this year’s tour was going to the Orbottyan facility, where we got to minister to people who much of the world would say should maybe have never been born: the deformed, the mentally challenged, those with Downs Syndrome – the sometimes called “ugly ducklings” of this world.

Our Hungarian tour manager, Attila, always tries to get us into prisons, rehab facilities, and places like this – he says it not only helps us realign our priorities, but it also helps us to fulfill scripture: “in as much as you have ‘done it’ to the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me” says Jesus Christ, in Matthew 25, of the marginalized, the alienated, and the disenfranchised of society.

We arrived at the facility and were greeted immediately by residents smiling through toothless grins and deformed faces, waving “Siya!” to us with crooked limbs. It would either break your heart, or warm it, depending on your perspective…

My wife, Teresa reminded us of a few years ago when we have visited a similar facility where we had seen torsos with deformed arms and heads, drooling in their beds. With the sheer weight of the human tragedy crushing us down, God gave Teresa a vision of the fully intact spirits of those afflicted sitting up in their beds, eagerly awaiting the songs, dances, and messages of hope we would bring that day. It completely changed our perspective, lifted OUR spirits, and resulted in a time of incredible ministry!

When the music started this time, a similar result ensued: those who could stand did, and the dancing, “air-guitar”, “air-drums”, and the animation through broken vessels began. Some in wheel-chairs spun around, others tried to sing along, but all were engaged in a joyful celebration that I am sure the King of Kings and Lord of Lords interpreted as “worship”.

However, none of us were prepared for what one of our dancers, Sara Ying was going to bring. Sara had asked me right before we started (as the caretakers were bringing the residents out), could she change her solo dance in the middle of the concert to something she had choreographed for a little boy she had known who was physically challenged? I said of course! What happened next most of us who were there will never forget…

Sara shared her testimony of having a horrible self-esteem due to a warped ‘bodyimage’ and condemnation from her dance teachers in Taiwan. This had resulted in an un-healthy use of diet pills and other methods of weight control that were damaging to her. (one look at Sara, and you can see in an instant that she had been believing the lies of the enemy – she is a beautiful human being, and a beautiful dancer…)

The music for her solo was a soft piano with a melancholy cello – already quite emotive! But then her dance – it seemed to symbolize someone who is in pain, trying to stretch their deformed limbs, trying to reach for a higher place, trying to imitate Jesus on the Cross – and then she spun around to face the audience…

Standing right in front of the stage were those who could stand, sway, dance, and respond. Sara approached them and began to gently interact with them. She would raise her arms, and they would raise their arms. She would lift her hands, they would lift their hands. She began dancing with them, getting them to imitate her movements, as she led them to worship the Lord through the her dance, being careful to make sure that they were able to follow her simple movements deliberately, gently, beautifully…

I could hear the sniffling as every single one of us in the band on the stage began to lose it. Heaven came down, and we “saw” Jesus meeting ‘the least of these’, gently lifting them into His divine choreography of love and worship, wholeness meeting brokenness, gracefulness meeting clumsiness, beauty meeting ugly, and dancing with it – not repulsed, but attracted, not distant but touching… it gripped our hearts and literally blew us away…

As I meditate back on it now, it seems so clear… we are all disfigured, we are all ‘uglified’ by the stain of sin – and yet Jesus is attracted – he responds to brokenness with the impetus to restore, he responds to separation with the desire to embrace. He is the God of reconciliation, Who will not stand by while the rift between God and man tears the fabric of our universe – He exists in perfect Unity, and responds by sending His Son to face the ultimate deformities of death and sin, so we don’t have to. He meets us on our stage, extends His nail pierced hands, and invites us to dance…