3 months ago in
Kenya, I met a beautiful woman and for her safety chose to just email her story
to my blog subscribers. Now being so far removed from our time with her, I feel
as though the risk factor has dropped and so I’m sharing it with you now in light
of some new news I heard today. But first, in case you missed it, here’s the
original story:
**I
have changed the name of my friend and left a few details out for protection of
her safety, ours and the church we are working with**
I met
a beautiful girl yesterday named Sarah*. She’s 18 yrs old and somewhere between
a child and a woman.
Sarah and
her sister were orphaned at a young age and taken in by a local church in
Rwanda. She grew up knowing the love of the Lord. Sarah met a man from Uganda
that she fell in love with. He promised to put her sister through school if Sarah
would marry him and move to Kenya. She agreed and has been married to this man
for 3 months now.
In 3
short months Sarah’s life has turned upside down. She went from being in love
with a man she thought she knew to being married to a stranger. It turns out
that her husband is a Muslim and has forced her into the faith. He abuses her,
has physically branded her, and told her that if she leaves him, he will kill
her. He has made sure she knows he owns her now. She is his 2nd wife
in a polygamous marriage, the 1st wife is involved with witchcraft
and Voodoo. She is not allowed to go to church or have a bible. One Sunday, a
neighbor told her husband that she saw Sarah going to church and needless to
say, it was not a good night for her…
This
Sunday, she risked it again and came to church. This time to the church we
happened to be working with. I saw her walk in like a goddess. Her head
covered, dressed in beautiful red scarves. I was magnetically drawn to her the
whole morning, thinking “Lord, you’ve brought a Muslim to the one service the
white people are running at the church?!?”. After the service I was holding a
little boy and the Lord told me to go sit with her. I ignored the thought with
the excuse that I had a boy in my arms and we needed to get home.
God is
relentless after us.
At the
same time, the Lord was speaking the same thing to Erin… but she obeyed.
I got
home to make us all lunch and as everyone came in, I was informed we had a
guest. The goddess in red walked through the door. We spent the afternoon
learning her story, eating together and praying over her. We anointed her scars
with oil and pleaded the blood over Jesus over her life. She has been
surrounded by witchcraft and needed to be freed from the demonic oppression of
so much. It was an afternoon of freedom and deliverance. She committed her life
to the Lord and by the end of our time together, we were looking at a different
woman! The victory of the Lord over the prince of darkness was so evident in
this priceless, beloved one.
I sat
at her feet for hours and held her hand as we discovered pieces of her story
through a translator and decided a course of action. If the Lord would allow,
she wanted to leave her husband and escape back to Rwanda to live with her
sister (who is 16). She needed to leave during a time her husband would be at
work and his son would be at school. She refused to leave her belongings in
fear that the 1st wife would use them for voodoo. She also needed to
get a pregnancy test. Ashley and I agreed to take her to the hospital this
morning. She told us that if the test was positive, she would abort the child.
So we started praying like crazy…
The 13
of us prayed through the night in shifts. Prayed that her husband wouldn’t know
where she was all day. Prayed for favor and gentleness when she got home.
Prayed against a pregnancy, that God would take back the baby for another time
if she was already pregnant. We prayed protection over her and that the peace
of God which transcends all understanding would consume her like a fire. We
sang songs of praise and spoke the truth of scripture over her precious life. I
sat with the Lord and begged Him to protect her.
She
came over this morning after the son left for school. She was a nervous wreck.
Shaking and terrified. Ashley and I sat with her as she explained her story to
the Dr’s and waited patiently for the results.
It was
negative.
She
screamed, started laughing and jumped to run over to us. She threw her arms
around me for the first time and started praising God. Again, it was like a
different woman was before us. Her face lit up, she started speaking WAY more
English than we thought she knew and could not stop saying “I am happy, I am
happy!!” On our walk home, she
said that she was going home for her things and would be over in a few hours to
leave for Rwanda! We were shocked because of her prior hesitancy, but quickly
realized the only thing that was holding her back was this chance of pregnancy
and the impending abortion if she was.
In
less than an hour she went to her house, collected everything she could into
one suitcase and made it back to us. She was on a mission and there was nothing
holding her back now. I sat with her again as the 2 teams deliberated on bus
schedules, money and logistics for the next few hours. Casey and Erin went on a
hunt for a Swahili bible and a bus schedule while Stacy packed her a bag full
of food for the 2 day journey. She finally felt safe with us and unlike any of
our other interactions, this afternoon she was affectionate and talkative.
At one
point she leaned over and whispered in my ear “I love you”… my heart tore to
pieces as I looked back at her gorgeous face and repeated ” I love you too
sweet friend.”
Once a
decision was reached we headed for the border to Uganda. The area we stopped in
was a predominately muslim area and every where she turned there was someone
who knew her husband. She was terrified. Her and I hid in the car and sat in
our friends shop while details were worked out. We talked, prayed, shared our
favorite verses with each other. I wrote down everyone I could remember on
fear… there’s a reason the Lord had brought me through so much of it in my own
life.
We
ended up putting her in a taxi with some friends from the church. Although it
was quite a bit more expensive, her safety was our first concern and riding
public transportation was too dangerous if someone who knew her husband saw
her. We thought she would stay the night in Kampala (Uganda’s capital) and
leave for Rwanda tomorrow, but the Lord provided the way and she was on a bus
at 7:00 this evening to Rwanada. On her way home, headed to the only family she
had left, free from a life of bondage and abuse. Free to worship the Lord and
follow Him completely with the new life she was being offered today.
I know
that the Lord wanted freedom for Sarah. I know His plan was to set her free
from spiritual and physical oppression today. But I think more than any of that
He just wanted to make sure she knew that He loved her. And He decided to use
us to do it. God had been convicting me from the moment I sat at her feet
yesterday that I was supposed to sit with her. I was merely supposed to posture
myself in love, beside her. If God moved, or asked me to move, things happened.
But none of that was my job, it was His. My only responsibility was to sit with
her. So I did. We sat and we ate, and we laughed, and we cried… and somehow, in
the midst of all of that, God managed to redeem this refugee’s life.
He
restored His beloved’s identity.
He
freed His daughter from a life of bondage.”
That was the middle of January. Since then we have gotten word from our
contacts in Kenya that Sarah has returned to Busia. On the bus from Uganda to
Rwanda that night, one of her husbands colleagues found her, forced her off the
bus and into a taxi back to her husband. Some church members saw her walking in
the streets and she was so terrified, she hid. They tried numerous attempts at
contacting her and figuring out what had happened. She has since reached out to
the church where we met her and asked for help again. They have gone to the
police (which often are of no help in Africa to begin with, and in her case,
especially unhelpful if they have any connection to her powerful husband). They
have met with the town elders and are apparently still in the works of getting
her free. So continue to pray with me for Sarah and God’s relentless pursuit
after her. Pray for protection and the right officials to make things happen.
Pray for peace in her very young, very scared heart. Pray for Jesus to be her
valiant warrior.
