When I became a Christian in 1999 I told God I
would do anything for Him...anything with just one simple request.
"Please Lord, I want to serve you with all I am but please don't ask
me to go to a foreign country." So a year or so later, the
opportunity to go to Africa dropped in my lap. I really didn't give it
much thought even though there was this ever so slight tugging at my heart.
I thought surely that wasn't Him tugging at my heart...after-all, I did
tell Him I'd do anything but just asked that He'd honor just that one small
plea. As time passed, I started seeing more signs and feeling even more
tugging on my heart. The Lord just wouldn't stop nagging until He finally
spoke so loudly that I could no longer deny that He indeed wanted me to go.
However, the Lord has an interesting character, He can make things very
clear to you in life and let you know He wants you to do certain things but He
isn't going to make you do anything you aren't willing to do. So as I
struggled, I decided I would follow His leading, face my fear, and decide to
trust Him and in August of 2001 I was on a plane headed to the far away place I
asked him not to send me too.
When we finally arrived we met up with the
missionaries there. I remember loading up into a Land Rover and sitting
in the back on some benches with a few of my friends. We started driving
down these roads...paved at this time (only 10% of roads in Tanzania are paved)
and I remember looking out the windows at a bunch of land...no homes, no
businesses, just a lot of brush and land. Every once in a while in what
seemed to be the middle of nowhere I'd see a person, generally a man, standing
on the side of the road dressed in tribal garb with a long "stick" as
I called it. One of my friends had been on a trip to Tanzania before so I
asked her "What in the world do these people do all day?” In that
moment, my mind was perplexed. All I could figure is that these people
must be either very lazy or very bored.
We ventured down into the middle of nowhere until we
finally arrived at one of the missionary homes near a Masai village. This
would be the beginning of a journey that would impact my life and I would be
forever changed! I was in Africa for about 3 1/2 weeks and we did some
amazing safari but for the most part we were there with the people. We
helped them clean up, build, paint, and repair schools. We went to church
with them; we shopped their markets and bought forever-treasured souvenirs.
I had once in a lifetime experiences over the next few weeks...I'm
talking about the stuff that you see in National Geographic and think you would
never experience. I was privileged enough to be welcomed into their
traditions and villages. One night, they held a celebration, in our honor.
They killed and roasted a goat and later I joined in the tribal dance
with them as they taught us how they danced. I watched kids stand in line
to be served porridge for lunch and as the line got shorter, the pot ran dry
and kids were turned away without food. I rode a quad across the field to
one of the schools in a dress...stood in the back of a very packed and quite
small Toyota pickup truck on a very bumpy road to get to the school each day.
I was offered a quite a few goats for my hand in marriage...Ha! We
had story time in which one of the men told us the story of being chased by a lion;
he literally got in a fight with a lion! He showed us the scars on his
legs from the claws of the Lion and how told us his story of survival.
I was invited to a Masai man's home for Chai tea.
He had become a Christian and had several wives and children before
coming to know the Lord. He shared with us his experience, how after he
came to know the Lord, he still had to care for all of his wives and children
but choose just one to live with. He traded in his life of
polygamy to serve the Lord. He shared with us how he would pray for
us every day when we would leave and the passion in his voice and heart was so
rich that I know he honors his word and prays, still today, for each of us.
He stood before us with a faith and belief stronger than what most of
could even get close to. He was a man who loved and served God with
everything he had and knew God on a deeper level than we could probably
imagine.
Another Masai woman invited us into her home...a
hut made of sticks and mud that was no larger than a 5x5 ft. area. I'll
never forget the tears I held back as she welcomed us in, offered us food to
eat and was so very proud of her home and how honored she was to be able to
share it with us. Tears...there were many tears. Tears of joy,
tears of hope, tears of living a journey that was so filled with material
things in my own life and somehow I still wasn't filled with the appreciation
and life that these people were filled with. One Sunday morning I was
blessed to have my ankle wrapped with a coil that they use to adorn themselves.
I sat on a chair as the woman wrapped this thicker than hanger copper
wire around my ankle into a perfect coil. To this day I still have no
idea how she was able to coil that material from straight metal to a perfect
coil around my ankle. Blessed by her, myself and several of the other
girls who had their ankles wrapped collected some money to bless her with.
We sat her down and the missionary handed her about $300 in US Dollars.
The Masai believe crying is a sign of weakness and did all she could
to hold back tears of joy as she had just been blessed to the equivalent of
winning the lottery. That money would take care of her and her family for
years and years to come...and we did our best to honor their belief and not
just fall into weeping ourselves.
Then there were the children...I fell in love with
the children. I wasn't married at the time and did not have kids of my
own. I never really connected to kids unless it was my niece and
nephews. It wasn't that I didn't like kids but I just didn't have a
reason to connect on a deeper level then. The Masai have a tradition in
which the kids when approaching an adult come "head first" or
"forward" for lack of a better explanation. They do this
waiting for you to reach out and touch their head, which signifies that you are
giving them your blessing. I didn't understand it and thought it to be a
little strange until I myself had one of them come to me in this manner and I
touched their head giving them my blessing. I can't explain it but there
was just something that happened in my heart at that moment. I connected
on a level that I never expected and found myself wanting to give each of them
my blessing. Today, I may not know each name or even remember every face
but that as I pray, I can pray for each and every head that I touched. It
wasn't long into our trip that I was nicknamed ''Miss Popularity'' by one of
the guys leading the trip. He thought this was the perfect name for me
due to the fact that wherever we'd go, if there were kids nearby, the entire
group would just flock to me. It was as if they could sense that I was
interested in them and wanted to connect with them...that they mattered. The
majority did not speak English but that didn't stop us from communicating on
deep levels. They were interested and in awe. They didn't have hair
on their bodies and would touch the hair on my arms, both women and men and
children had short hair. They were just enamored with my long hair and
would sit and twirl it, play with my hair clips, look at my painted nails and
look at me for hours. Some of the best parts of my trip were sitting on
the ground with children all around me, laying on my lap, sitting with me,
looking at me and me looking at them. There was a heart connection that
was so strong and meaningful that I will never forget.
About half way through the trip I hit a level of
emotional fullness. I had seen and experienced so much with the people that
I simply could not take one more thing in without gathering my thoughts.
I went to a safe place not to far from the building we were working on at
the school to be by myself for a while. I sat and chatted with God...I
cried my eyes out and tried to process everything I possibly could. When
I left for Africa, I went with the idea that I would be bringing Jesus to a
people who needed Him. That I would be changing lives and reaching to
help them. I had no idea when I went to Africa that they would impact me.
In fact, I am quite certain that they changed me more than I changed
them. In the big picture of things, we have it all. We have big
houses, food on our table at each meal, jobs, cars, lots of "stuff"
and things to do to keep us busy and entertained. And when I first
arrived, I could not fathom walking around with a stick all day in the middle
of nowhere. We think they are poor and do nothing but struggle in life.
True, it is not easy to have to figure out where
you are going to get your next meal, how to get medical help when you need it,
how to take care of your basic needs on a daily basis, keeping clear of
wildlife and lions of all things! However, the fact of the matter is,
they have what matters most. When we die we aren't taking a thing with us
to Heaven except our soul. We aren't taking our houses, our cars or all
of the things we think we love to Heaven. Where does this all this
"stuff" we are chasing fit in when we look at the importance of life?
It doesn't! What does matter is the other souls that will or won't
be in Heaven with us someday. What matters are the relationships that we
have with people, with Jesus. When I think about that, I realize how poor
we are in America. Most of us have our basic needs met to survive but we
have to fight to have relationships with people! We don't have a clue
what's it's really like to struggle for basic needs. If you ask me, our
battle and struggle is different. We have to fight against the daily
schedules we have in place so we can do what we have to in order to pay our
bills and get more "stuff" and in that daily way of life we don't
seem to make much room for others or getting to know Jesus on a deeper level.
Most of us don't count on Him to have our daily needs met, we do it
ourselves and then lack in relationship, trust and faith in how great and more
than capable He really is!
The people in Africa told stories of miracles that
happened in front of their eyes. A boy named Moses that they buried dead
and was alive a few days later. I know and have heard of miracles
happening here but when the people in Africa tell of these miracles, they tell
it as if it is no surprise to them. As I see it, they have a different
and deeper level of belief than we do. They are not busied with the
nonsense that we are chasing. They are not competing to have bigger and
better things like we do. Instead they are focusing on a relationship
with Jesus (those that know Him), their daily schedule is not getting in the
way of knowing Him. Jesus is not a God put on a shelf while they try to
meet their own needs each day. Instead they trust the Lord; they believe
He is a God of miracles and provision. They TRUST Him, they KNOW Him, and
pray for miracles and daily provision in their lives and because they believe
without a shadow of a doubt that He is faithful, things happen!!
There are plenty of verses in the Bible that I
could use in connection here but this one talks about the Disciples when they
try their hand at driving out a demon in a boy. When they were
unsuccessful, they asked Jesus why they were not able to drive out the demon.
Here is what He answered:
"Because you're not yet taking God seriously,”
"The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy
seed, say, you would tell this mountain, 'Move!' and it would move.
There is nothing you wouldn't be able to tackle.' Matthew 17:20-21
MSG
Be Blessed!
Missy
