“Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:5
It isn’t every day of your life that you wonder into the bush in Africa and get to name a child.
Ministry in Africa is challenging for me.
Everywhere we have been in Africa, the people we work alongside feel that door-to-door evangelism is the best way to spend our time. Trek through the countryside, stand around people’s yards, talk about Jesus, pray…repeat. Over and over.
I have warmed up to it a bit by repeating Matthew 28 to myself, but I still have a hard time seeing how “drive-by-prayer” could possibly be as effective as committed, invested relationships. Not to mention how much we all wish we could also be given the chance to meet physical needs as well as spiritual.
This month in Tanzania, my team has been ministering to Oldadai Village just outside of Arusha. Life here is simple, slow, and usually very poor, with the majority of the focus being on survival. Any given person’s day revolves around carrying water in buckets on their heads, washing clothes, preparing the same meal of ugali (white corn mush) and greens over and over, and worshipping either God or Allah.
Early in the month, we met a very poor family with a collection of heartbreaking stories littering their personal testimonies. Living in crumbling mud huts with next to nothing, my team and I befriended the three daughters in the family with frequent visits.
Sitting in a circle beneath a canopy of banana and avocado trees on tiny stools carved, impressively, out of tree stumps, the family would insist on blessing us with what little they had…steaming hot black ginger tea, fresh-picked avocados, and slices of white bread.
On the first visit, we met the oldest daughter, Salome, and noticed that she was pregnant. We were told that her baby was due sometime this month, and then I was asked, being a nurse and all, if I could be summoned to their hut to deliver her baby…don’t get too excited, she ended up having to be taken to a hospital with complications.
As the month went by, we learned more and more about our new friends, and Reverend Norbert shared with us the sad reality of Salome’s situation. Being a young, unwed mother, she had come under a great deal of shame, condemnation, and isolation from her community, and undoubtedly felt incredibly lonely. The father of the child had fled the scene, leaving her to desperately wonder how she would provide her little one with a promising future.
In addition, traditionally in Tanzania the father names the child, so much so that the mother often doesn’t even offer much of an opinion. Salome had no man present to name her firstborn child.
About a week ago, Reverend told me that Salome had been taken to the hospital and had given birth to a healthy baby girl. Sadly, no name had been given to the child; even her own family was “punishing” her for having a baby out of wedlock, and had suggested no name for the new, precious little life.
Reverend asked if I, the new missionary friend, had a suggestion for a name.
“Grace,” I replied somewhat indignantly. “After all, that little girl and her mother both deserve to be shown the grace and love that Christ showed all of us, even in her imperfect circumstance.”
Our new friends invited us over last night to see the new baby, so we tripped and stumbled our way through the banana-tree jungle in the pitch dark until we emerged in the tiny clearing beneath a canopy of stars. We crouched and walked into the little mud hut and Salome handed me her tiny, sleeping new one.
“What is her name?” I asked Reverend Norbert.
He replied, “Grace. They took your suggestion. Her name is Grace.”
I was dumbfounded. A child’s name is carefully chosen, and I didn’t even know if my suggestion was ever even mentioned. And yet, the family was moved to agree that Grace was the right name for the child, in full understanding of what the word in English means.
My team and I have poured as much love and kindness out on this family as we can. We exclaim how beautiful the baby is, ask the new mother how she is feeling, and congratulate the grandparents. I truly believe that our attitudes towards this new life have affected the way the family is viewing their new dynamic. We bought a bag full of adorable baby girl clothes, as well as beautiful scarves for the mother, aunts, and grandmother, and spent time just visiting the family again today.
There have been moments on the Race where I feel like I am accomplishing nothing. Even when I can think of 25 better ways to show the love of Christ, I still have to step into doing whatever my host has set up in order to honor them and their ministry.
But deep down, I believe that if Jesus were physically walking the earth today, He WOULD do a lot of what I have done this year. Sure there were moments when He was very much a public image, but I believe that the example He set for us would have been much more evident in His day-to-day life. I think He would have been seen loving the forgotten and taking time to do mundane tasks that help the overwhelmed.
Like sitting on the side of a quiet dirt road and coloring with an incredible, seemingly forgotten group of malnourished children.
Like scraping the walls of a small room to help gut it and prepare it to be a classroom for troubled street children.
Like spending many afternoons laughing with three charming little boys whose mother has just decided to leave prostitution in the red light district of Thailand.
Like putting together bunk beds so that the new children in the orphanage would have somewhere to sleep.
Like sitting on bamboo tables in the middle of rice field villages and talk about who God is with new Cambodian believers.
Like holding orphans, who cling desperately in need of love and attention, while watching Disney movies.
Like stopping to pray with and give food to the homeless man sitting on the sidewalk that has been overlooked by hundreds of other people.
Like carrying huge water jugs up steep hills to give the young children a break from the grueling task.
And like befriending an outcast young mother, reminding her of her worth in God’s eyes, and meeting her material needs in a tangible way.
Baby Grace has been born into an undeniably hard situation, but I completely trust God with her. One day, I believe that she will be educated enough to read the encouraging notes we left for her, and to understand the significance of the name given to her by a woman professing to being there in the name of Jesus.
And she will go through life hearing the essence of the gospel spoken over her thousands of times.
“Grace.”
“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 2:1
