Step Into That Passion — How I Started a Ministry Among the Least of These

There are moments when God stops speaking in whispers and starts speaking loud and clear. For me, that moment came on the streets of India — and it launched one of the most unexpected and beautiful disciple-making experiences of my life.

I had grown up in Africa, surrounded by poverty and beggars from an early age. And somewhere along the way, without fully realizing it, I had built a wall. I learned to look past the outstretched hands, to keep walking, to protect my heart from what I didn't know how to carry, especially as a child. It felt like self-preservation. But God had another name for it.

Beggars Who Bothered Me

When my husband and I moved to India, God began to chip away at that wall. He kept bringing me face to face with the beggars and the poor around me — the sick, the forgotten, the least of these. And He kept asking me the same quiet question: What are you going to do with what you see?

The conviction was increasingly uncomfortable. And though it took a few months, my eventual repentance was real. What followed changed the trajectory of my ministry among the poor forever.

Stepping Out — Ministry in the Slums of India

I eventually stepped out of my comfort zone and began pioneering a ministry in the slums of our city. What started as simple obedience became one of the most profound disciple-making experiences of my life. We fed malnourished babies whose little bodies were wasting away. We sat with widows who had no one and barely survived with just a plateful of rice with a bit of salt. We made disciples among the least of the least — the people that most of the world, and frankly most of the Church, walks past without stopping.

Jesus had something very specific to say about that.

What Matthew 25 Taught Me About the Least of These

In Matthew 25, Jesus told his disciples: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me... Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:35, 40)

I used to read that passage as a beautiful idea. But standing in those slums, holding a malnourished child, sitting across from a widow with nothing — I began to understand it as a literal, present-tense truth. Jesus was there. In their faces. In their need. Every time I showed up, I was showing up for Him.

This is the heartbeat of Disciple-making Movements among the poor: not charity at arm's length, but incarnational presence — going to where people are, staying long enough to know and be known, and making indigenous disciples right there in the middle of their real and sometimes horrendous lives.

Conviction Is Often Where Passion Begins

Here's what I've discovered after decades of ministry among the poor and forgotten — passion doesn't always arrive first. Sometimes it starts with a nagging conviction. Something that bothers you deep inside and then leads to repentance. Sometimes it starts with simply being willing to feel uncomfortable. Then, taking that step forward anyway.

The ministry God called me into in India wasn't glamorous. It wasn't the result of a strategic plan or a ministry launch. It was simply obedience — one step at a time into places most people avoid. And it was there, among the least of these, caring for the poor and making disciples in the slums, that I found Jesus already waiting.

Whatever passion God has been stirring in you — for the poor, for the forgotten, for those on the margins — step into it. He is already there.

Whatever God is calling you toward, the first step is simply obedience.

Are you sensing a call to reach the poor and forgotten in your community or across the world? I'd love to hear your story in the comments below. And if this encouraged you, share it with a leader who needs it today.