I was standing on the edge of a dusty soccer field, cheering on the local team and surrounded by small African children, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I looked around to see a young girl smiling at me. She handed me a folded up piece of paper and hurried off before I could even ask her name.
I read the note, confused- I had never seen the girl before- and was touched by what I read. She had seen me in the village and at the field (small wonder- i'm pretty sure everyone in the village had noticed the munzungus wondering around). She wanted to know my name, where I was from, and if I wanted to be her friend. She said that she was 15 and went to the local primary school- and her name was Sharon.
The next day she saw me walking home and ran through the rain to catch up with me. She introduced herself and asked if I had responded to her letter. I promised her I would later that day if she came back.
So I wrote her back and told her my name and where I was from…and why I am on the journey I am on. A journey to show people the love I have been shown.
And, of course, I accepted her offer of friendship. I can never have too many friends.
She took the note home and returned the next day with another response. She had a huge smile on her face as she handed it to me- saying she hadn't planned on writing another note, but when I had actually taken the time to write her back she realized I must want to be her friend!
I shared the story with our contact, and he warned me she would probably ask for something like money or clothes.
When I opened the letter, I was amazed to find that she wanted something, but nothing like Pastor had imagined.
She wanted a Bible.
She was excited to hear why I was there and in the letter, told me the one thing she wished she could have but her family couldn't afford was a Bible.
I told the pastor and he was taken aback. He told me that if I wanted to buy her a Bible, he would send someone to the town an hour away to buy one.
During the time all this had happened, Sharon and I became better friends. I found out the baby girl who had been attached to my hip all month and cried when she had to go home- Lucky- was Sharon's small half sister.
I knew these sisters had captured my heart for a reason.
Sharon visited me most every day to talk and teach me the local Acholi language.
That's right, I can count to 20 in Acholi!
Finally, on my birthday morning, the Bible arrived. I wrote a note in the front page and highlighted my favorite verses, Jeremiah 29:11-13.
She found me in the middle of the afternoon on my birthday to bring me a handwritten birthday card, and I told her I had a gift for her as well. She stared at the Bible in joy and disbelief, gave me an excited hug, and ran back to school.
The next time I saw her, she was leaving school and the only thing she carried was the Bible under her arm.
She told me her teachers had kept pressing her to leave it outside or up front, but that she could not because the Bible talked about her Savior and it was the most important thing she owned! She said she figured it was pretty important to take it everywhere she went, in fact- so she did- even sleeping with it on her pillow at night!
The next time I saw her, she showed me the verses she had been reading from Matthew 7- ask, seek, knock. She shared with me the things she had been asking God for, including help in school- and how God had been faithful to her.
She came to the church we helped to plant during the month, Bible and little sister in tow, hungry for more. She testified about receiving her Bible and getting to know Jesus.
On the World Race, it's- amazingly enough- easy to miss the significance of stories like these. It's easy to forget that all around the world people have been asking, seeking, knocking- and that sometimes, you get to be the answer to those prayers.
You get to be the one who travels to the corner of northern Uganda, where people are trying to recover from the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) ravaging the area just 5 years before, where poverty and AIDS are taking lives every day, where there is next to nothing surrounding the mud huts- and place the Word of God in the hands of a hungry young girl.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)
