Do you believe that?
If I was honest with myself and you, I would have to admit that I believe it sometimes. It’s easy to trust in God’s faithfulness when good things are happening in my life and I can see promises that the Lord speaks to me coming to pass. On the contrary, it’s easy to let doubt seep in when I find myself waking up every day to the same junk as the day before and God seems to be a million miles away.
God proved his faithfulness to me in the most beautiful way on our very last day in Kenya. The month of December was a hard one for me, and it was all I could do to keep pressing forward in the midst of large amounts of frustration and doubt. However, I was able to learn that despite the physical circumstances I find myself in, I am called to rise above them and continue to believe in the promises of God.
In my last blog, I told of our Christmas-day experience with the “drunk church.” Our last day in Kenya was the Sunday after Christmas, so Marisa, Liz, Steph and I went back to do one last service with these people who had grown so close to our hearts. On our walk to the church, Marisa asked me if I would share a word that morning. As I began to pray about it, the Lord layed something on my heart that I knew our friends needed to hear.
We started off the morning by rallying as many people as we could to the service. Although we did not have rice and beans to give this time around, many once again came to our humble gathering to hear the word of God spoken through the mouths of a few naive white women. Marisa began the morning by giving a powerful message about the importance of fervent prayer. As usual, she was on fire!
After awhile, I began to wonder if I was actually supposed to share anything, especially because Marisa ended up talking so long that she wore her translator out! As I walked to the front, I doubted that there was anyone else who would be able to understand my words. The crowd was getting anxious and a little out of control, and no one was stepping forward to translate. Eventually, a man stood up, but he was so drunk that he could hardly comprehend what I was saying. It wasn’t working. The people even booed him, and eventually he sat down.
I called those who felt the tugging of the Spirit to come forward and make the CHOICE to follow Christ if they were ready to turn from their ways. A few came forward, but there was one in particular that I sensed I needed to talk with. He was about my age but could not understand English, so I asked my mystery translator to help me communicate with this man. I learned this his name was Christopher and my translator’s name was David.
Christopher began explaining that he had a good job (which is hard to come by in Kenya!) and made a lot of money, but it always seemed to disappear. He spent a large chunk of it on alcohol but didn’t really understand why he kept choosing to continue this destructive pattern in his life. He gave money to charity organizations and was faithful about tithing, but he couldn’t seem to shake this habit. I began to explain the longing I sensed in his heart for something more and the fact that God wanted to fill that hole. It wasn’t through his good works that his heart could be mended but rather through a relationship with Jesus Christ. His face revealed that he understood what I was saying and longed for that void to be filled. I asked him if he was ready to turn from his ways, but he stated that because he had had some alcohol that morning, he needed to wait until he was sober to make such a big decision. I was so proud of Christopher in that moment for making such a wise choice.
I’ve seen a lot of people on this trip that say they want to turn from their ways and start following Christ, but many times I sense that they are not truly ready to do so and end up going back to their old habits. In Christopher, I sensed a truly repentant heart, and it was evident that the Lord was touching him in a deep way. I later learned that Christopher did not actually live in this community but was invited by Steph to come to our service that morning. When she met him, he was with a group of friends and they had all been drinking. Christopher was the only one of his friends to come to the service.
As I continued speaking with Christopher, I sensed that he needed a mentor and someone to truly invest in his life, and the Lord told me, “Ask David.” When I asked him if he would be interested in taking the time to meet with Christopher and continue ministering to him, David quickly responded with a “YES!” Both of us were extremely ecstatic and recognized that this was truly the Lord’s hand at work!
By this point, I was brimming over with joy over the way the Lord was using us on our very last day in Kenya. However, I was still confused about exactly who this man called David was! When he invited us to his apartment to have a soda, the four of us decided to take the opportunity. We soon learned that David’s apartment was right next to the slum area, and that morning as he was looking out of his window, he felt the Lord telling him to, “go and hear what these women of God have to say,” even though his normal routine on a Sunday morning was to go to chur
ch. He had never before seen white women ministering to the people in these slums and was surprised to see us there.
As we sat and talked with David, we learned that he was very strong in his faith and his love for the Lord was true and deep. He even worked at the Christian radio station we had been to the previous morning! I was already sensing in a very big way that the Lord had done a great work here, but it kept escalating!
We still hadn’t settled on a home for Allen, and the time was getting short. (For those of you that don’t know who Allen is, he is a former street boy we took off the streets. Read Marisa Banas’s blogs to learn the details!) On the off chance that he knew of somewhere we could take Allen, Marisa decided to ask David if he knew of anyplace. Amazingly enough, he did. We started brainstorming and the next day began the process of finding Allen a home.
In an effort to keep this blog from getting too much longer, the Lord used David to connect all the dots, and we ended up placing Allen in a good orphanage. God used this man to not only help bring Christopher into the Kingdom but also to do something we had almost thought impossible. The most amazing part is that this happened ON OUR LAST DAY. David was truly an answer to our prayers that day, even though he claims we were an answer to his!
I am still amazed at the power of God when we move in faith! There is no doubt in my mind that my very best day in Kenya was our very last day. I have been pondering the fact that God is faithful to the VERY end, and if I hadn’t decided to press through the junk to complete the task the Lord had given me, our time there could have ended very differently.
Do you believe that God is faithful?
