Wow, January 2020 is long gone and my time in Togo too! It has been a sour-sweet month and let me tell you why!
SWEET THINGS
As I mentioned in my previous blog, this was my first time in Africa and I fell in love with the vibe, the colours and especially with the people and the children.
Contagious joy
Despite most of those I met didn’t have much, they were able to convey such a joy which penetrated your heart and soul. One of my favourites, was Isar: he was alwasys covered in sand and he could repeat every word or imitate any gesture.
Again, I cannot put into words how I felt when I was walking on the streets and all these little ones were running towards me with a big smile on their faces and a desire to be held, hugged or just loved and acknoweledged. Now looking back, I can have a better understand of why Jesus said: “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.
Genuine hospitality
Other things I am grateful for is the hospitable service received by Pstor Zank, our reference in Togo, and some volunteers from his church. We were staying at a rented flat they found for us. They honoured us by cooking for us and making us feel welcomed in any way. We built connection with them, we laughed and spent time together. On the 25th we were invited to a wedding ceremony and they even bought for us fabric in order to sew our dresses.
At the end it was hard to leave them: on our last day, just minutes before our goodbyes, when we were all in a circle praying for each other tears were coming down from the eyes of most of us.
Sharing, fellowship and worship
Moreover, I had the privilege and honour to be invited to preach to 3 different churches and to speak in a Bible school for pastors. I was very nervous at first becausse I m usually a bit scared of public speaking and also because I didn’t feel qualified, prepared or confident enough. There are indeed still quite a few things I don’t fully understand in the Bible, I haven’t read all its 66 books yet and sometimes I do have doubts. However, God reminded me that sometimes He calls the “unqualifed” to equip them and to manifest His strengh in and through our weekeness. So I can say now that at the end I quite enjoyed speaking publicly about God!
Also going to church in Africa, at least there in Togo, it was like going to a great party: so much dancing, clapping and singing was involved! I remember thinking: this is how it should be all the time and everywhere: we go to church primarly to worship God and what better way than doing it so joyfully!
Party for the children
We also had the opportunity to organize a party for the children in the community close to Pastor Zank church. We all had so much fun! We played games (and learned some African ones), we danced, we sang and prayed together. Moreover, one of my teammates shared with them a devotional and myself + other 3 girls were in charge of doing crafts; it is not that common here in Africa and it was so great to see them so excited to create something with their own hands! You can see some pictures below here
The only negative note in this regard was that, being the number of the children who showed up quite higher than expected, unfortunately we didn’t have supplies for all of them to finish their little project. It was a bit sad to see the disappointment on the faces of the last ones who joined on their way back home after school. In that moment, I wished I could have prayed with strong faith for a miracle of “multiplication” like Jesus did with the loaves of bread and fish!
Beauty for Ashes and…humility
Another sweet moment was the event we organized for the women called Beauty for Ashes. We created a space for them to be empowered through testimonies, vulnerability, intentionality, music, food, laughter. One of the activities included drawing something that God was telling personally to us in that moment or lately and then sharing it with the group we were sitting with: I drew a crown because I felt the Lord was whispering that He was seeing me as a princess and wanted to tear down the lie the enemy had put in my head that I wasn’t important or worthy enough.
Moreover, one of my favourite part was when we offered them a free footbath by emulating Jesus example in washing the feet of the apostles during the Last Supper (John 13:1-17). That was an act of love, humility and servanthood in direct contrast with the disciples’ attitude who had been arguing among themselves as to which of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24). As a matter of fact, in the Jewish culture, washing someone’s feet was considered a very lowly task performed by slaves or by the lowliest of the servants; therefore, the disciples must have been stunned that Christ, their Lord and Master, was doing such a thing. He wanted indeed to teach them that He had come on the earth “to serve and not to be served” by giving ultimately his life on the cross to save us and that they (and all of us too) should serve each other out of love.
In particular, this was a big thing for me because I must admit I m not usually what you would call a touchy-feely person especially with people I don‘t know and I value hygiene so much that I don’t even like for example to drink or eat after people nor share clothes or other personal items and let alone touch strangers’s feet with my bare hands! However, in that moment I kind of felt the presence of Jesus, I could almost visualize Him, and the desire to be like Him was stronger than my sense of hygiene!
VULNERABILITY TIME: NOT SO GOOD STUFF THAT TURNED OUT… WELL AFTER ALL
Suffocation
Let’s come to the sour bit. Despite the joy and the uniqueness experienced in Togo, it has also been a difficult month for me. First of all it was 15 of us (3 teams in total) in a 3 bedroom flat with no AC and very scarce light or air coming through. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound ungratefull: the place was ok especially considering most of people in our street were probably living in worst conditions. However, it was super hot with a high level of humidity and there was 0 privacy or alone time which is sooo important for me! Moreover, being constantly surrounded by so many people, I often felt like I was suffocating and I became almost resentful towards my flatmates just for them to be inside the house or being noisy, careless or not tidy. I was paying a lot of attention at their weaknesses and at the same time the differences in language, culture, age between myself and the rest of the group looked like more strongly underlined than ever before. My team were also experiencing some issues, we didn’t talk much and in particular there was a lot of tension beween myself and another teammate of mine. So, whenever there was the chance, I escaped in the street hoping to meet the children in the neighbouroud or headed to Hotel Sarakawa and I can’t thank enough the Lord for that “oasis” of freshness: it wasn’t just for the cool shelter it provided me with or the free wifi but also because it was there that I could finally be on my own to write, read, listen to music or just think upon a cup of coffee. I isolated myself a lot last month, I felt misunderstood, not valued or acknowkedged enough. I couldn’t even connect with God or hear His voice and I didn’t have that strong desire to read the Bible. Consequently, sadness entered into my spirit coupled with a sort of inability to love those people in my squad I was living with. When I preached for the first time in one of the churches in Togo, I had talked about the discipline of contentment and true joy and how this is found only in the Lord through prayer, through the intimate relationship wth Him and through studying/meditating on His Word, the Bible. However, on those first weeks of January I was questionning all of this: I wasn’t experiencing that fullness that comes from knowing Jesus personally, I wasn’t capable to love my neighbour well and I wasn’t feeling fed by reading the Bible. Actually the other way around almost seemed happening inside of me. Reading the Old Testament, the Book of 2nd Kings and Neemia, I remember thinking: “ all of this doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t understaand how God could have inspired the authors to write this, I don’t see anything “divine” in it at all!” Now, looking back I see how I truly was in the middle of a spiritual warfare and I wasn’t even aware of!
The shift
Then, one day, a shift happened: I had a deep meaningful conversation with the teammate I was having the most issues with; we talked about what had caused our frustration. The Spirit of God convicted us both of our own faults and we humbly apologized to each other. I started to see her again as a friend, someone I could talk to and slowly even things with my team started to improve. God also used her to call me higher, to challenge me and to show me the root of my disconnection / resentment toward the rest of the group through a deeper understanding of the concept of mercy (being forgiven or justified out of love) and grace (receiving something you don’t deserve out of love). He made me see I was once again being critical and leaning on my own understanding both in my approach with others who were not meeting certain standards or expectations and with the things I didn’t get from the Bible; I was choosing to be led by my preconceptions and emotions of the moment instead of focusing on His steadfast love and on the blessings in my life including the many opportunities to experience His Kingdom and goodness in so different places and ways (this is grace because I don’t certainly deserve all of this!). All of this was preventing me from hearing from God. What’s more, He reminded me that He loves me deeply and chooses to forgive me through Jesus despite my mistakes, my failures, my selfishness or my attitude (this is mercy! Indeed, “even when we were dead (slain) by our own shortcomings and trespasses, God made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ” (Ephesian 2:3, Bible, Amplifed version).
Let‘s be practical about mercy and grace!
Likewise, I had (I have) to keep choosing mercy and grace towards others; I had (I have) to keep choosing to love my squadmates despite their imperfections and force my self to see their beauty and their righteousness in Christ even when it is difficult because at the end of the day LOVE IS A CHOICE and no one is perfect or faultless. Regarding the Bible and in particular the Old Testament, whenever I struggle to understand a certain passage or text I need to keep reminding myself of what the Bible really is: a love letter from God, His Redemption plan for a fallen mankind.
Lastly, on the practical side, inspired by one of my teammates, I started a journal of positiviy for 2020: each night, before going to bed, I have to write down only positive things about my day, keeping track of all those beautiful details or moments of time and people we often lost track of when we choose to see only the negative aspects instead of the good ones.
Ps. Sometimes, I forget to write but I m trying to extend grace and mercy to myself too for failing to be consistent!;) I challenge you to start one too if you are not already doing it because it can be so helpful at shifting our minds toward positivity!
