This month we’re featuring stories of “The One” — the men, women, and children whom Racers will never forget.
When Stacey Pratt of 2015 R Squad met her host contact, Jarvis, she knew he was a man with a powerful ministry. But she had no idea how much his story would change her life.
The African sky lit the night so well it didn’t matter that the power was out.
My team and I sat on the porch outside of our host ministry in Malawi, the sounds of the night all around — from mosquitoes and rustling leaves to the voices from the night market carried by the wind, along with the smell of fish that permeates this small village.
Our host was a ministry called Life Child, a preschool and primary school for at-risk children in the village of Baluti. Dedicated to transforming generations one child at a time, they currently have almost 50 children in their two-classroom schoolhouse right in the middle of the village.
Jarvis with his family
On this evening, Jarvis, the director, told a story of one of the defining moments of his life, a story that shook the reality of my faith:
As a young man, he went to Zambia after finishing Bible school.
And one day he met a boy chained to a tree.
The boy’s name was Obie, and his parents had died of HIV, leaving him an orphan. The villagers didn’t know what to do with him in his grief, so they chained him to a tree.
He ate chained. He relieved himself chained. He watched others chained.
All he knew was that chain.
The villagers even used him to communicate with the dead, literally inviting demonic presences into his body.
Obie was treated as worse than an animal by the people of his village, and it showed. His body was small and deformed, and his mental and emotional development was impaired. He did not know how to speak or eat like a human being.
Jarvis couldn’t ignore the boy. He couldn’t just pray for Obie and walk away. Instead, as a young, single man in his 20s, he decided to adopt Obie and take him to Malawi.
The long trip from Zambia to Malawi was a taste of the struggle for restoration and healing that lay before Obie. Because of the horrible abuse Obie had experienced, the uncertainty of what was happening to him, and a distrust in people in general, Obie’s body responded in the only way it knew how: he could not control his bladder and would need to use the bathroom every ten minutes or so. But the other passengers on the long journey were generous, compassionate, and patient.
When they arrived in Malawi, the real work of restoration began.
Jarvis spent difficult and rewarding years teaching Obie how to walk, talk, eat, and use the bathroom — all the things we take for granted as human beings. He had to teach him how to be a person. Part of that was teaching him how God had created him and loved him.
One day, Obie understood how much God loved him. That day he came to Christ.
Set free, there was only one more thing to do.
Having literally been in chains, so much of Obie’s heart, soul, and identity was chained to that tree — even his name. So Jarvis gave him a new name: Obey.
At this point in telling this story, Jarvis paused and began to tear up, as did most of the team listening to the story, when he told of how Obey died a few years after he was freed from his captivity.
But Obey’s story is a victory, even though he died young.
Because Obey did not die chained to a tree; instead he died in his sleep with a smile on his face.
He overcame the harshest conditions to experience love, freedom, and most importantly Christ. He died knowing Christ, and that is the best ending to any story ever told.
Listening to Obey’s story, I realized my life, even in its most challenging moments, is a gift from God. My challenges pale in comparison to Obey’s — as does my faith to Jarvis’s. But through these precious experiences and encounters with men and women of God, I am learning what faith lived out looks like:
It isn’t pretty. It is messy. It is time consuming. It costs something. It doesn’t always end well. But it is always undoubtedly worth it.
*2nd photo by Megan Arguell of a boy like Obey
Does Obey’s story make you want to do something more with your life?
Is it going to 11 countries in 11 months, partnering with people like Jarvis and telling people like Obey that they matter? Click HERE to find out how you can go on the World Race in August or October 2016!
