Tales from the Tribes

 

    First I’d like to share a story from the last tribe I was in. The Pokot tribe is located a bit past the equator. It’s rocky, hot, and beautiful. I’ve never seen so many camels both wild and tame. Though I tried so hard to actually ride one; I did not succeed. I still have my fingers crossed though; I mean you never know what happens in Africa. We arrived to our house in this tribe. To my suprise it was a nice house. A missionary had built and left a few years ago. Pastor Musa is amazing. He has such a love for the tribe and for Jesus to be known to all the people there. He needs help though…so here we found where we could assist him. After a day or so I realized that this village needed a lot of prayers. I realized we probably wouldn’t see a ton of fruit from our work but God was good and using us to plant seeds.

 

    A week or so into our ministry I found that it’s just difficult to not see fruit. In the times of not knowing what to do but desperatly wanting people to know this freedom, this joy, this love, this Jesus; we found ourselves praying and worshipping. One day after going door to door some of my teammates asked if I knew how to treat a snake bite. Eventhough I had never actually treated one, I knew some of my classes for Paramedic would come in handy. I inquired a bit more as to if the snake was poisonous and what not and then off we went to see the patient. I arrived at the house to find this was a lady the team had evangelised to a few days before. I was told it was poisonous and I could see her arm swelling. She had been struck four times by a poisonous snake and had been sitting for about thirty minutes before I arrived. I took the pastor’s knife and cut some of her hand to squeeze the poison out. After consulting a doctor from the city; we knew we had to rush her to a clinic for anti-venom…immediatly. Now being in the bush makes life ten times more difficult. We jumped into a truck drove as fast as possible down a steep rocky road to the clinic.

       This place is rural and the nearest clinic is thirty minutes away. A few minutes into the drive the lady started to feel short of breathe and her chest was burning. I knew we had to get there fast at this point. I went through worst case scenerio in my head, “give her baby to my teammate, stop the truck, get her on the ground, start compressions and mouth to mouth.” Thankfully that didn’t happen. We arrived got her medicine which saved her life. We took her back home and she and her husband was so thankful. I came to know that ususally people just die in this village because they have no way of getting to the clinic. We paid for her bills and medicine; got her the care she needed.

 

 

      Later she told us she would go to church. She said that Jesus sent you to me and saved me; I want to know more of this Jesus. Sunday came and she was there. I hadn’t seen someone smile so big in my life. There was such a change in her spirit. She knew the white people didn’t save her but Jesus did because He sent us to the village.

     

 

     I’ve realized that ministry is life and life is ministry. God always has a plan for where you are and it’s most likely differant from what you think it should be. I’m learning how to be a better leader, how to call people into who they are suppose to be…who Christ wants them to be, and I’m learning how to step back sometimes and let others lead as well.