We started our leg in Africa with our month 6 debrief in Durbin. If you don’t know much about South Africa- Durbin is a city on the coast, and it’s know for its beaches as well as the beautiful scenery that can be found in the east of South Africa.
Our lodging had not only beds, but also kitchens. Which during a debrief is a huge prayer answered as eating out just isn’t feasible on a 5 dollar a day budget. My roommates and I pooled our food money and left to go grocery shopping. We needed to take the train a short ways.
On our way back from shopping to the train stop a few of us decided that we were just too hungry to wait to get home. So we stopped at the Steers we were passing and ordered a couple of burgers. From there, the six of us made our way back to the train stop.
On my way down the steps from the bridge that lead from the road to the platform, an older woman standing by herself caught my eye. We didn’t really know the schedule – so we just waited hoping our food wouldn’t go bad.
After a few moments the woman came up to us. She introduced herself as Elsa. She told us the schedule wasn’t very reliable, and that she had been waiting awhile. This being our first weekend in Africa we took advantage to ask her questions about the county- the politics, the corruption, the racism. She was excited to tell us all she could and then she mentioned something about the country needing God’s grace.
“So do you believe in God then?” I asked.
She was a believer.
We began to talk more in depth about what she believed and who we were as missionaries doing the World Race. Then we asked if we could pray for her.
We dropped our groceries and gathered in a tight circle to join hands to pray over Elsa. She was so grateful for the experience and for the prayer.
It might not seem like a big moment. But these small connections and moments, the ones we might ordinarily miss or pass by, are the ones the Lord is telling me He wants me to live for. To follow the whisper of the Holy Spirit and to not doubt when we know we should stop for someone and hear their story and their needs.
I carried this lessons with me during the difficult days in Lesotho at the orphanage, learning to see the needs of each child in every moment.
I carry this lesson with me in the squatter camps, when someone tells me they’re too busy to talk and I ask if I can help them with their laundry instead of leaving them to do it by themselves and moving on.
I carried this lesson with me this past weekend, when as a tourist I went to the African market at Rosebank and met a woman from the Congo who spoke French with me. A woman named Germaine who had traveled by herself without any help with a 3 month old and a 5 year old searching for a better life in Johannesburg. I got to pause and hear about her life, her family, her difficulties, and pray over her right there in the market.
But it would have been so easy to have allowed these moments to pass by, as I have on so many occasions. The Lord is still teaching me to pause and to put His kingdom ahead of my agenda, because He cares about people so much more than my small agenda.
