Henry

He was the kind of person whom you could tell at first glance was trustworthy. Sharply dressed, with a Bible at his desk and an immediate smile, his visage made me turn to my sister and say “I like this kid.”

Our Southeastern team was preaching at a school. We spent our two weeks traveling around Kampala, preaching and ministering in schools, hospitals, and prisons, and, though our programs had to be flexible to meet the specific needs of where we were to be speaking, we held greatest importance and focus on preaching Jesus, no matter what. We presented the Gospel wherever we went – even if it wasn’t in the “job description,” per se.

By that, I refer to the school where I met this boy, whose name is Henry. For most of the schools we visited, we came into offer a program of career guidance, counseling, and a session on HIV/AIDS, which was abstinence-focused. Those are the topics on which we spoke at every school, and the outlets through which many headmasters gave us a significant audience, carved out of the students’ rigorous daily schedule.

It wasn’t an act of deception that most schools let us in as counselors and not as preachers, but there were occasional misunderstandings whereby our team was called out for presenting the Gospel message. The most memorable of instance occurred at Henry’s school which, coincidentally, was almost entirely under Muslim leadership.

It was not a Muslim school (though we did visit a few of those later), but the majority of the administration were devout followers of Islam. This is not a problem, apparently, until you begin to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to their students.

Going in, we knew the circumstances of the school’s leadership. We were generally unconcerned – rightfully considering the fact that the faith of the individual students is their own decision to make, and expecting that the headmaster and others would respect that.

So we went about the program as normal. We divided into smaller groups and split into different classrooms. I had the happy blessing of being in Henry’s classroom.

Though the room was brimming with hundreds of students seated a dozen to a desk bench, Henry was front and center. I knew we were going to get along when he smiled at our team warmly and seemed politely attentive – a trait that cannot be under-appreciated in a room packed with that many students.

We went through our program, giving talks about picking careers and staying dedicated in school, committing to abstinence and avoiding HIV. In between talks, just to keep the attention of the room and have some fun, our Ugandan colleague asked one of us to lead a song.

It was loud in there, and we were losing the students’ attention fast. So I hiked up my long skirt and hopped onto a desk at the front of the room. I taught the classroom a lively song about the power of Jesus, which I often pull out in these situations, that I absolutely love. It’s full of larger-than-life actions, inhospitable key changes, and requires one to make a fool out of oneself to teach it properly.

So, as I taught the room, and we fed off each others’ energy, I asked for any student participants to volunteer to hop up next to me on the desk and perform the song with me.

Any takers?

Just when I was getting worried that every one of those hundreds of kids would be “too cool” to get down to this song with me, Henry’s hand shot up in the first row. He and another girl got right up there with me and we had a blast – he sang at the top of his lungs, not necessarily on-key, but with all his heart. I was actually taken aback by the joy he seemed to find in the words of the song.

But that’s not the last time Henry came through for me. I was set to be the one preaching that day, and I had a man to translate for me, but I wanted to have my passage read in Lugandan as well as English, just to make sure that everything was clear to the audience. Henry was the only student who had a Bible, that I could see. Though it took a few tries to adequately communicate what I was asking him to do, when he finally understood, he hopped right up there next to me and read the passages I asked him to.

I talked about identity that day. I talked about the fact that the image and inscription that God puts on is His own name, and we owe Him ourselves, in the same way that we are to “give Caesar what is due Caesar, and God what is God’s.” However, though we are like the coin that belongs to God, sometimes we get lost. Luckily, God cherished the “lost coin” so much that He gave a parable about it. He longs for us to come back to Him so deeply that He tears the house apart looking for the single lost coin. And rejoices mightily when He finds us. So, my point was, no matter what we choose to spend ourselves on, we need to know that we truly belong to God, and He longs to be our true identity. He finds us, and in that, we find our worth.

It was a short and simple message, and at the end, I did what we always did while preaching in schools – I gave a salvation call. I asked if there was anyone in the classroom who wanted to “be found” by God, and begin to find their value in Him. But I didn’t let them off easily, with a simple hand-raise. I told them that the Bible says that when we acknowledge Christ in front of the world, He will acknowledge us in front of the Father.

And so I asked anyone who was serious about coming to Christ and being “born again” to leave their seats and make their way to the front of the classroom.

The response was overwhelming, and brought tears to my eyes. Kids flooded down the already-crowded aisles to be received at the front, and I led the group in a prayer of repentance for salvation.

It was a triumphant moment in the Kingdom of Heaven, seeing all those lost coins be found, and we had seen it at many of the schools we’d gotten to visit.

But, the very moment we said “Amen” to our salvation prayer, things changed.

All of a sudden, in the background of the classroom, I heard someone bark “This is not career guidance and counseling!”

Uh-oh.

I turned to see the headmaster of the school, livid and repeating that phrase over and over. He walked around furiously, ripping from the hands of the students the booklet on salvation that we’d just distributed.

He accused us of forcing these kids to “convert,” which struck me as odd because the demographic of the room did not strike me as overtly Muslim, and clearly, nobody was being forced.

He ordered us to leave, and ordered the students to lay their booklets in a pile at the front of the classroom. Some of them reluctantly cast theirs onto the table, only to pick them up on their walk out. The rest simply snuck them into their pockets and headed for the door.

Class was over, and we were, incidentally, being kicked off the premises. Whoops.

Our lead missionary and several other personnel headed to the office of the headmaster to talk things out, while the team and I headed to out to our bus. Which is when the real fun began, and Henry proved his courage once again.

The school was in a state of disarray. We were supposed to be giving a morning session to half the school, and an afternoon session to the other half. At this point, however, with the school’s leadership up in arms and our sessions terminated, both halves of the students were released into the yard in a state of disorientation.

They flooded our bus like teenage girls during the height of Beatlemania. They wanted the books on salvation that we gave out, and we started furiously passing them out to the groping hands that clawed at our windows. We told them to put them away immediately, and read them when they went home so that their headmaster and teachers wouldn’t see (cool and subversive, I know).

We started receiving notes from the students, written on torn-off pieces of loose leaf paper. If I was under any illusion that these students were only interested in the books for the sake of gleaning free materials from foreign visitors, these notes showed me that they knew exactly what our true purpose was in coming to the school.

The notes were astounding and varied. Most of them thanked us for coming, many of them expressed joy at the fact that they became born again that day, and hoped that their lives would never be the same. We were told that we were inspiring, and that we shouldn’t listen to the disgruntled headmaster, because they were glad we came.

It was overwhelmingly rewarding, as we spoke with kids and handed out booklets as fast as we could open a new box.

But some team members showed due concern. We were just passing through this school. We had received the worst of our reprimand in getting yelled at and kicked out, but we were about to shuttle off and never come back. These students, however, could not make the same getaway. Would they be punished for having the books we were giving out? Were we going to be the very agents and enablers of their suffering under the wrathful headmaster? Were we basically handing out detention slips and letters of expulsion, or worse punishment?

We don’t know. I still don’t know.

Maybe I should’ve thought about it more, but all I cared about was that we got the truth of the Gospel into the hands of these children. To me, the stakes were so much higher for this school. For others we had visited, it was clear that most students were Christian, and taught Biblical values and held worship services on campus. But for the kids of this particular school, we had no idea whether or not they would have another crack at hearing the Gospel presented to them like this. The school leadership kept them pretty sheltered or, more accurately, under lock-and-key. We had broken that barrier, and had a limited window of time to present Jesus to their hungry hearts.

These thoughts consumed me as I passed out the booklets from my window, again and again expressing the importance of keeping them secret. I felt a hand on my arm.

“Can I have some to pass out to students who aren’t here today, or who are too shy to come up to you?”

I looked to see where the request came from.

It was Henry. Of course.

He had the same smile and gentleness and confidence. I yelped and embraced him through the bus window. I gave him the remainder of my stack of booklets.

Holding his hand out the open window, I asked him about what it was like to be a Christian at this school. He expressed that it wasn’t easy. The headmaster tried to discourage it and make it nearly impossible for Born Again students to gather and practice their faith.

I cannot emphasize enough how opposite a case that is from most of the other schools we toured.

I asked Henry what was to be done about it. He smiled his award-winning smile and looked at his shoes.

“Do you see that mango tree over there?”

He pointed to shaded area next to the school gate. I nodded.

“Our Scripture Union meets under that tree to pray and read our Bibles. We keep it as secret as we can.”

I asked him what I already knew. “Are you the leader?”

He smiled bashfully and nodded. What a champion.

The Scripture Union is an institution in most Ugandan secondary schools. It’s, for all intents and purposes, the Christian Club of the school. From what I observed in the schools we visited, the club can range to the height of popularity among the school population, or be all but dead. Never had I come across a club that was practically illegal, however.

I thought of my time in high school. As ashamed as I am to admit this, I was something of a spiritual coward during my high school years. I wasn’t overtly involved with the one Christian organization on campus, though it was started by one of my best friends. I wouldn’t be seen at the See You at the Pole day every fall. I didn’t deny my faith, but I was content to “lead by example” instead of actually lead when it came to my relationship with Christ. Which is ironic, because I was pretty a voracious leader in every other respect. It's funny sometimes how you can be ashamed of the thing that is most important to you.

I thought of how important it was for me to make a good impression on our principal and school administration. Though I didn’t encounter any overt religious opposition in high school, I cannot say with confidence how I would’ve handled it. I know what I would like to believe, but I also know that I was a much different person then than I am now.

Henry, on the other hand, showed no signs of fear.

Actually, I take that back. The only fear that Henry exuded was the fear of the Lord. His passion burned bright to me in the short time that I met and got to know him. He struck me, overwhelmingly, as a Moses character, calling his people to undivided worship and service to the Lord, even as they were figuratively beaten down and discouraged.

As our leaders joined us, back from being detained in the headmaster’s office, I suppose, and we made our getaway in our purple bus, I saw Henry. He was under that mango tree, giving out our booklets, and smiling that famous smile.

I will never forget that boy. His courage was so complete that it didn’t seem like intimidating fortitude. It simply seemed like the joy of a servant who lived to please his Master. It was child-like, quiet, but extremely powerful.

I don’t know what Henry is going through as a Christian leader at that school. I don’t know what other religious persecution he will experience in his life, but I will tell you this: I believe his faith will last him a lifetime.

Some faith is adopted from parents. Others is accepted limply as something that “seems nice.” Other faith is strong behind closed doors, but crumbles in the daylight of opposition. Other faith is only for show.

But Henry’s faith is a true faith – a faith that stands against all that comes against it, and lands right-side-up. 

Which is exactly what people like Henry are doing: turning this world right-side-up. 

Esther

Bravery. Courage. What do you think of when you hear these terms?

I think our answers vary depending on where and how we’ve been raised. For the majority of Americans, me included, we’ve been groomed and conditioned to have a picture of bravery in our heads that looks remarkably like the Iwo Jima memorial. And I wouldn’t say there’s anything necessarily wrong with that; great courage is shown in great sacrifice, and we should be awestruck and grateful to think of the sacrifice upon which our nation stands.

But that’s a severely limited perspective.

I’m learning a lot about bravery here in Africa. I learned about bravery from a group of mountain-dwelling children in Ethiopia who hiked through countless kilometers and changing altitude to get to and from school every day.  I learned about bravery from the orphans in the children’s village in Malawi – full of kids who have seen more devastation in their lives than many adults could even imagine, and still persevere for a hot meal and a game of net ball.

And Uganda is, by far, a place of more courage and fortitude than I’ve ever experienced.

So I have four stories. Four stories of resilience, blistering courage, and incredible inspiration.

The first story belongs to a young woman of fourteen named Esther.

I met Esther one night at the Kampala Harvest Crusade in June. At that time, my incredible team from Southeastern was still here, and though they impressed me to no end and hardly needed the direction I was prepared to give them, I felt like I was too much in “leader mode” to encounter many first-hand ministry stories of my own.

But that all changed one night at the crusade. Now, I am in no way familiar with the knowledge of my readership of what we would call “spiritual warfare.” I don’t want to make assumptions, so I feel I should explain some things before I launch into it.

I don’t know what you believe personally, or what your relationship with God is like, or what you have and haven’t seen or heard about during your days on earth. But, as extreme and foreign as this might sound at first, I must express that earth is the constant battle ground between forces of darkness and forces of light. Whether you want to call the darkness demons and the light angels, or something different entirely, I don’t mind.  I’m just telling you what I’ve experienced. What I know to be true, though it is still mysterious and unfathomable to me, even as I walk through it.

In my previous entry about Kampala, I mentioned demonic bonds and ancestral worship. These forces cling tightly to many of Uganda’s people. It can be as simple as a desperate mother consulting a witch doctor in order to save her baby – that baby will have a trace of witchcraft, or a demonic spirit, attached to him or her for the rest of their life. Unless something breaks that bond.

Demons attach themselves to people for various untold and mysterious reasons, but the important thing to remember is that they are not friendly and they are not harmless. They are hell-bent on destruction (pun totally intended).

So, the main point I want to stress when it comes to demonic powers is that, no matter how they manifest or what they do or the power they seem to have, it is all for the sake of hurting God’s people. It’s not interesting, it’s not impressive, it’s tragic, and it’s urgent, and, like a perilous flesh wound, it needs to be dealt with as soon as possible.

For many, there may never be a chance for them to be delivered of demonic oppression/possession. For some, it will follow them their whole lives, and attach itself to someone else when they finally die. I’d like to think that unthinkable end doesn’t occur too often, however.

Because some darkness gets dragged into the light.

And here is the second point I want to emphasize in this conversation: the forces of evil are by no stretch of the imagination a match for the power of Jesus Christ.

Though I wouldn’t necessarily call the media’s portrayal of demonic activity accurate, it is overwhelmingly true that “the power of Christ compels them.”

That being said, every bond, no matter how strong, can be broken, utterly shattered, by the name of Jesus Christ, who does not want even one of His children to perish without salvation.

So, now that that’s out of the way, we are ready. Ready to hear about the strongest demonic bond I’ve ever encountered.

Like I said, her name was Esther, and she was fourteen. During every night of every crusade with Africa Harvest Mission, there is a period of prayer and deliverance after those who are willing pray to surrender their lives to Jesus.

During this time, there are usually several demonic manifestations. It’s like an in-breaking of the Spirit of God against the spirits of darkness – like God is knocking on Satan’s door, ready to take back the captives.

These manifestations (usually screaming, convulsing, violent thrashing, etc.) are handled with sensitivity. The people who are showing signs of demonic activity are brought up on stage (usually with necessary applied force) and prayed over (some would say exorcized) by the members of the African Harvest Missions team. 

We cast them out in Jesus’s name, making sure the person is safe from themselves and modestly covered. When the person is delivered and back in their right mind, they are taken to a tent for counseling from a local pastor.

Many of them come back for every remaining night of the crusade, and get plugged into the church community. It’s so powerful to see the transformation of people who have been delivered – their lives go from despair to joy.

So, a few nights into the crusade, I was on stage casting out a particularly stubborn demon. It manifested inside a teenage girl, but it made her brutally strong and gave her an otherworldly voice that certainly wasn’t her own. It also spoke English, and made a point of protesting loudly as we cast it out.

That first night was a long process. Our team had to get back on the bus and return home for dinner, but she was still being prayed over when we left.

I prayed silently as the bus pulled away, hoping that girl would be delivered soon and that I’d get a chance to see her tomorrow, transformed.

Part of my prayer came true. I did indeed see her the next day, but I wouldn’t say she was quite transformed yet.

She was back on stage, and the demon inside of her was as violent as ever. I made a point that night to pray for her the whole time – I wasn’t moving onto someone else, I would see this deliverance through to the end.

 

When you’re casting out a demon, it’s important to listen. Not to the monster that is trying to intimidate you, but the Holy Spirit. He is ultimately the One who is going to defeat that thing, and you must be obedient and on His side.

So as I was praying over this girl that second night, I kept feeling nudged to use a Bible. For what purpose, I wasn’t sure. To read it over her? To smack the demon with it? To give to her when she was delivered?

I didn’t know, but I started to look around. I knew chances were slim that I would find one; the stage was kept clear of personal belongings, and there would be nothing there but people praying or being delivered. But as I turned my head on stage that night, desperately searching for a way to help this girl, I saw a thick, weather-beaten Bible on the ground directly behind me.

The demon was riled up – she was convulsing and there were words coming out of this girl that were not her own. It seemed like the episode would last all night before it would be cast out. But I had this Bible in my hands. I wish I could say that there was a mystical moment of revelation where Gandalf came to me and told me exactly how I was to use this Bible, this Sword of Truth, to cast out this demon, but that definitely didn’t happen.

So I just put it on her head. That’s right, I took this Bible, and pressed it against the forehead of this girl, and started to pray.

And almost immediately, the demon was quieted and she was in her right mind.

I was incredulous, happy, and exhausted. It was the night I officially made the acquaintance of Esther, the girl I had been praying for for the past few nights.

I was with my assistant team leader from Southeastern, Jordan, and we were kind of in awe of the situation that had just unfolded before our eyes – we had never seen a demon that strong, and we were beyond excited about what transpired with the Bible.

We looked at the girl in front of us. Disheveled is an understatement. Her clothes were torn and falling off, her shoes were missing, she had been ripping out chunks of her own hair, and tears were streaming down her weary, frightened face.

I felt conviction in that moment. Convicted of the fact that I had placed so much of my attention on the demon that I had all but overlooked the fragile young girl it was tormenting.

Unlike the demon, she spoke no English, and so we asked a Ugandan man who was praying with us to translate as he spoke to her.

I was shocked by what I heard.

She was fourteen years old. To be honest, I had thought she was much older, but it was just the trauma she had gone through so many times that aged her.

At birth, she was dedicated to a well-known demonic shrine. The exact name of the demon, or “god” escapes me, but it doesn’t matter. Her family dedicated her life to this demon – who was leader over a legion of them in this area. Like a pastor, but for demons. This demon was powerful, ancient, terrifying, and no match for a young woman.

The translator explained that on the first night she came to the crusade, this girl had surrendered her life to Jesus Christ. The demon didn’t like that, and retaliated. The result was what we saw night after night on stage. She was like a prisoner trying to escape her terrorizing jailer.

When she made the decision to follow Christ, she went home and told her family – those who had dedicated her to the temple like Hannah dedicated Samuel. They were not happy. They kicked her out of their home into the street. She was currently living with a family that helped out at the crusade. They were from a local church and were keeping her safe.

But it was an excruciating uphill battle for her. This demon was losing its greatest servant, greatest vessel. It was as if a powerful king was losing his only heir.

But this girl was fighting back.

I asked her what her name was. She said Esther.

I couldn’t help but smile. Jordan explained to her that her name was prophetic and had great meaning. Esther was one of the bravest characters in the Bible. She was, against her will, involved in a plot to destroy the Jewish nation, but she rose up and fought for her people, fought for her life, and won the favor of the king and salvation for her people.

Two Esthers, two fighters.

That was the night I met Esther. For the remainder of June, I was on stage with her, holding her as she convulsed and screamed and manifested and fought against the dark powers that were trying to take her life.

And every night, after she had been delivered yet again, I held her as she cried, utterly exhausted. I told her she was the bravest girl I knew, that she had to keep fighting no matter what, and that Jesus was with her.

I grew to love her for her joy, her smile, and the way that she ran to me from across the crusade grounds every night when I arrived.

As the nights wore on, I noticed a change, not just in her countenance, but her physical appearance as well. She started dressing better, and her mangled and ripped out hair was now neatly braided.

Some nights were better than others. I stood with her in the crowd, watching and holding her as she worshiped and wondering if tonight she would be safe or be pulled into the battle ground once again. 

Sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn’t.

But Esther is victorious. The Spirit of God within her has broken the powers of darkness that bonded her so tightly. She has begun a new dynasty for her family – not one bound by demons and fear, but by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I saw Esther baptized in Lake Victoria. She had an ecstatic smile on her face as she climbed out of the water and ran to me for a wet, joyful hug. The nightmare was over for her. I had no idea the kind of pain and terror that she went through in getting closer to Jesus, but she sacrificed everything for Him. And He did not disappoint.

Esther is spiritual royalty. I’ll always remember her bravery, always remember her smile, and always remember the way she danced across the crusade ground in her purple dress, awash in the joy of her hard-earned freedom.

Dirt Floor Moments

Jesus once was telling a story. It started with two men and one request. One man said “of course I’ll do it!” and then trotted off to forget about the command in the sea of the rest of his day. The other said “you know what, I don’t really feel like it,” but later went and completed the task.

One of these men was obedient. The other was a fraud.

I’m writing this today to tell you that I’m a fraud. That’s right – time and time again, I am the first man from the story. I am the very one from whom God asks a favor, and I reply enthusiastically that it will be done. And then I run off and forget. The worst part is, however, that I don’t actually forget.

The Spirit of God is a Nagger. When I know I’m neglecting what He’s asked of me, when I’m throwing away obedience, I can feel it within me. Like a pebble I can’t shake from my shoe. For some people, this kind of conviction calls them to attention and they find their rightful track almost immediately.

For me, however, this sense of nudging conviction and guilt, the warning within me, lately seems to be sliding off me like butter on a hot griddle.

But I’m starting to burn – starting to burn with the realization that lately I’ve been feeling “far from God.”

One hears Christians say this a lot: “I am going through a dry spell.” Now, personally, I don’t credit that term with any real foundation. I don’t think that God withholds His Spirit or His Revelation from His people who are hungry. Those chords of connection are cut by us and us alone. It’s not that God has declared a drought on your spiritual life…sometimes you’ve just got to pick up a hose and fill your own watering can.

I admit that I haven’t been the best gardener these past few days. I am not going through a dry spell, nor do I feel like God has abandoned me, but I know something’s off.  The ease and flow of knowing Jesus and making Him known was so simple and straightforward the first few weeks of this journey in Uganda, and  there were times when I felt like more of an effective vessel than ever before.

But tonight I had a hard time praying out loud before dinner.

What is THAT about?

I’m waking up every day in what the Christian community would call a “missional context.” I have left my home, raised obscene amounts of money, and been incarnated into a completely unfamiliar culture for the sake of the One I now have to strain to communicate with.

How does that work?

On the outside, I appear joyful, secure in my spirituality, and fervent for the Gospel. I suppose those things are true, they haven’t changed. But take a look at my day, take a trip inside my head as Bono would call it, and you’ll see that the overwhelming majority of my daily thoughts and actions are not God-focused at all. 

They are me-focused.

Have you ever seen that slogan on bumper stickers that goes, “If you’re feeling far from God, who moved?”

I’ve moved. I’ve crept slowly away from my devoted life to my Savior, and closer and closer to my own ambition and desire.

It starts in small ways with me, the same every time. Little compromises in discipline are always my downfall.

Do I really need to read more than my daily devotion in my Bible today? Do I really have to write another blog post tonight, anyway? Why should I care how much money I’m spending? I’ll read my Bible after I finish this great novel I’m into. I’ll write more blog entries once I get steady internet to post them. I’ll ration my spending money in a week or so.

Sure, Lauren. Sure.

These small things – small acts of obedience – start slipping through the cracks. And pretty soon, the lines of communication between me and Jesus suddenly seem like we’re talking with bad cell phone reception. And it’s me who is out of range.

I’ve known for some time now that I am a fraud. My friends and family who claim admiration for me don’t know how easily and how often I slip into dark periods of non-obedience. They don’t know that sometimes it is a fight for me to be used by God.

But luckily, it IS a fight. Even when I’ve been knocked flat, Jesus never leaves my corner. He makes sure I’m not out for the count. I flutter in and out of consciousness, aware that I’ve been the agent of my own downfall.

But His voice grips me in those darkest moments.

I wrote earlier about so-called “Rooftop Moments.” The moments I’m speaking about here, however, I like to call Dirt Floor Moments.

Because Jesus Christ fights for you, because His presence nags you, because you long for the sweetness of His companionship, the only choice you have is to get off that floor and dust the dirt off.

I’m ashamed of the timing I’ve been missing by ignoring God’s voice in my life lately. I grieve the revelations I’ve missed, the opportunities I’ve wasted to get to know my Savior more every day. And I especially regret the moments He tried to use me to bless others, but I was not available for use.

I’ve been asleep, and I’ve missed a lot.  My life can never be enjoyed unless it is lived in the constant company and grace of Jesus Christ.

So now I know what I have to do. It’s so much more simple than my mind has been telling me for these past few days (or, if I’m honest, weeks).

All I have to do is obey.

I am a child today. I’ve realized I’m not mature or equipped enough to handle life on my own, so I must revert back to the childlike eagerness of awaiting a command from a loving Father. From now on, I will be desperate to please no one but Him.

I’ve been behaving like Martha from the Gospels: scrambling to secure every façade of piety and wisdom before my guests, while Jesus simply asks me to sit at His feet. I need to be more like Mary – to find and to recognize the greatest gift, and know it will not be taken away from me if I only embrace it.

I can tell you this much: that gift is not my pride, and that gift is not my own understanding. I will stop living by those.

So maybe Jesus has the same message to you today. Maybe He is calling you from the unconscious mess of the boxing ring of your own life. I can’t speak for Him, and I can’t speak for you, but all I know is that you can sacrifice your entire summer and fall semester of college to seek and preach Jesus, and still end up feeling far from Him.

But He is a strange God…He requires obedience above sacrifice. One makes you resent Him, the other brings you closer to Him.

Let everything you do be done out of obedience to God the Father. Everything you’ve been given is His.

Today I’m making a choice. It’s nobody’s business what God is asking me to do, or what those nudges in my spirit have been saying to me. But if I want to get closer to Jesus, I’m going to have to say yes.  I’m going to have to be an obedient daughter.

So now you know the truth about me. I am not sacrificing anything to be here or to do what I’m doing. Most of the time, I am a fraud who hides behind other people’s goodwill towards me. I am keenly aware of my lack of understanding, of my poisonous pride, every day of my life. And I still sometimes choose it over Jesus.

But I serve a God who visits me on this dirt floor. He sits down next to me, my confused and disillusioned self, and gives me yet another blessed, hopeful chance.  

All that matters now is that I take it.

Everything bad you see in me is Lauren. Everything good you see in me is Jesus.

The only good decisions I truly make in life are the ones where I take the hand of the Savior, offered to me in every Dirt Floor Moment. I know I’m late, I know I’m weak, but today, I’m taking His hand.

And you can too.

Ghosts of Kampala City

Two forces converge in the warm, busy Kampala night. People rush by, walking or in taxis or on boda bodas. Some stop curiously before the fence and peer inside, glimpsing the action of the crowd and taking in the words of the impassioned speaker. Not all the curious ones step inside, but some do.

Those who do have a date with destiny.

Pan African Square is a park that lies in downtown Kampala, Uganda. It bears a parking lot, a walking path, a small octagonal building, and a South African monument. But this is no ordinary park. In history and in stigma, this is a feared place, avoided ground. Twelve men were shot dead in this park during the reign of Idi Amin: the man who held power in Uganda throughout the 1970’s, and arguably Africa’s most brutal post-independence dictator.

This fact was brought to memory by many different speakers on many different nights. “It was under that tree,” they would point to the site and the audience would feel a chill – a harrowing reminder of the city’s brutal, terrifying political past. An estimated 300.000 people died under Amin’s hand, but these particular 12 haunt this square for all the town to see.

Many nights, it is that very connotation that keeps the bulging crowds away from the crusade grounds each night. Africa Harvest Mission is used to swells of people grouped before their stage, but hundreds, instead of thousands, gather at this particular location.

But those who do come are the Chosen: picked to seek God with a fiery intensity that makes passerby stop, and neighboring businesses complain. Picked to receive a blessing and revelation from God that they’ve never before thought possible. Picked to be healed and delivered from whatever dark forces lie within them, waiting to devour their whole lives.

And you can be sure these dark forces exist.

I didn’t know much about the city of Kampala before I arrived. I had heard it called “The New York City of Africa,” and been informed that it’s something of a constant party. Both of which I have found extremely true. By many counts, it is the most stable, advanced, and economically burgeoning city I’ve visited in Africa, and has been called an “African success story” by countless journalists, who most likely point to the 50% of Uganda’s budget that comes from foreign aid as the culprit.

But there were some things about the city of Kampala that I was simply, blindly unaware of.

The rare skyscrapers downtown certainly seem an against-all-odds success, but did you know that the foundation of many of these economic marvels contain the bones of sacrificed children?

Sacrificed. Children. In the foundation of your office building.

It is chilling, harrowing, and unthinkable. It makes me sick to my stomach.

But it is but a small symptom of the Spiritual oppression this city is under, thanks to the cultural reliance on witchcraft and ancestral worship.

These false religions, declared harmless by curious tourists and righteous anthropologists, have more of an effect on the people of Uganda than it seems.

And, as I’m coming to learn more and more in my weeks here, by “effect,” I really mean “bond.”

I have personally never known the fear of having demonic oppressors visit me in the night so that I dream the same dream of being killed by strange men every single night.

Nor do I know the horror of realizing after you’ve turned out the light that you forgot to make a sacrifice to the spirit home you keep in your backyard, so you will go throughout the night without protection, and with the risk of ancestral wrath.

I’ve never known what it’s like to be travelling home from primary school in my wrinkled uniform, getting to the part in the path where I split from my friends, and being terrified that every set of headlights and every dark movement on the curbside is a bloodthirsty witch doctor, waiting to snatch me up for a sacrifice on behalf of a businessman who just broke ground for a parcel of buildings downtown.

This is the context in which I will be spending my summer and fall. This is the Kampala Harvest Crusade, the setting for every night in June.

This is the front lines of spiritual warfare; the place where two forces converge in the city night…one dark, and one light.

And, as you’ll see in these stories I have the privilege of telling, light always wins.

Where once was death, there will be life.

Eight Pages, One Ending

They were expectant, a little rebellious, and definitely interested in what the white woman at the front of the room had to tell them today.

My first week in Malawi, the country went through a painstaking election. The boarding school that the Form (High School) girls at Mtendere Children’s Village attend had the week off, so it was Emily and my job to run a morning and afternoon session in math and English with the girls who were home.

I learned a little about myself during these sessions. I’ve always wanted to teach English in a cross-cultural context, but have had little to no experience teaching ESL in the “real world.” The children of the village speak a language called Chichewa – the dominant language of Malawi. So, as I taught English for two sessions every day, I learned to talk slowly. I learned to repeat myself. I learned that some of their grammar rules are not the same as the rules that the American education system has drilled into me.

But the most important thing, the most important thing by far, was that I learned a little more about the power of stories.

Now, having to spend your week off of boarding school in a classroom with a few white girls teaching by the renowned method of trial and error is never fun, but nothing could prepare these Form girls for their end-of-the-week assignment.

Even us teachers were wary of giving such a daunting assignment to these young Malawian girls, but our orders came from the headmaster himself…we had no choice.

We were to give the students a composition. They were to write on the prompt “The Most Unforgettable Day of My Life.” That much is easy, but here’s the clincher: the composition was to be eight full pages.

Eight notebook pages. Four pages, front and back. We explained it every way we could, but our shocked students didn’t want to believe it. They were outraged. “This is more than any of us have ever had to write before!” “They would never make us do this at boarding school!” The outcry was almost comical.

But after a quick interlude from the headmaster and the insistence that it is not entirely impossible to write eight pages on notebook paper, we settled down to oversee the writing of these near-novels.

They wrote begrudgingly. Some of them didn’t even make the page requirements. Others put so much space between two words that you had to follow along with your finger to avoid getting lost in the void.

But after the first few compositions we read, we stopped correcting them. We ceased the red marks and missing-word carrots and dots inside circles and decided to put our red pens to better use. Instead, we wrote letters of thanks to each one of the girls. With good reason.

The Most Unforgettable Day of My Life...

It seems simple, straightforward, and easy to draw out long enough to fill the pages. In my mind, I pictured birthdays, holidays, trips. The unforgettable moments of my own life played out in my head.

But I could never prepare myself for what those girls wrote.

So what were the most unforgettable days in the lives of the Form girls at Mtendere village? In my ignorance and self-centeredness, I had overlooked the most important thing: these girls were orphans.

That day, we received over 20 begrudgingly written compositions on the death of fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers. There were girls who were found in abandoned houses, caring for their younger, neglected, and hopeless siblings. Each story was astounding.

On the day a girl’s father died, her mother took another lover – who instantly decided he didn’t want her in the house and kicked her out into the street.

Girls spoke of the cruelty of their peers in boarding school, and the carelessness and occasional drunkenness of their teachers for whom their students were just a job.

Every death was a testimony. Every outcry of longing was a witness. And every essay for some reason ended with one thing:

Hope.

It’s a small word that means everything in the lives of these girls. They are girls who dream of running away to find the remains of their family, but who can’t reconcile that option to staying in the village and getting 3 meals a day. They stay for nsima and beans. They stay for nightly devotionals and impromptu netball games.

But mostly, they stay for Jesus.

He was the overwhelmingly constant theme that ran through each of these miraculous compositions. I was floored. These young women have seen their family members kidnapped, their fathers murdered, their mothers beaten. But somehow, some way, they ended up at a village gate that says “Follow Me, and I will make you Fishers of Men” in bright colors.

They were aware of their blessing. I wasn’t even consciously grateful of being able to teach abroad for the first time. But they were acutely aware of the sustenance that is in Jesus Christ.

Their school wasn’t preparing them to take their exams. Their relatives were ignoring them and proclaiming them someone else’s problem. Their families had been cursed. But somehow, some way, these girls had all stumbled upon the entity of hope.

Whether it came in the form of an invitation to Mtendere, a kind relative who took them in, or simply a steaming meal of nsima and relish, they were grateful. They were eager. And they were excited for their future.

The provision of Jesus Christ has given each one of these girls a future. Instead of lamenting on the fact that their Most Unforgettable Day involved their only parent being dragged off to prison and their relatives rejecting them, they asked for prayer. Instead of asking why they were the one who had their sisters’ survival in their hands, they were asking us to praise Jesus with them, and planning for a future brighter and more unforgettable than anything they could write about in eight pages.

And so, though these girls blessed us with eight pages, we only wrote them short letters in response. But we wanted to thank them.

Their stories are a big deal. They are important to Jesus, important to their futures, and important to Malawi.

They wrote of how their boarding school teachers didn’t care about their education, let alone them as people, but I think those teachers, with or without knowing it, have given them an extraordinary gift: the gift of communication.

These girls shared their stories. 

Their Most Unforgettable Day transversed the space of history and memory and became incarnate into the world of story – a world where an unsuspecting American girl can sit down to read it and be humbled and inspired.

A world where the struggles of Africans are not just statistics, not just trendy organizations, and not just well-timed National Geographic photos, but the pulse of a real human being whose story is alive even now.

There is another word for these type of stories…testimonies.

The Bible says that Christians can overcome persecution by the word of their testimony. There is no end to the wonders of what these Form girls have overcome by the testimony of knowing Jesus Christ – and what they will overcome in the future.

Granted, an eight-page paper in your second language on a vacation week is a harsh demand. I’m sure the multiple hours spent writing it were not fun either.

But the end result was a powerful gift.

Writing is important. Grammar is important. Paragraph organization is important. Spelling is important. But not empirically.

All these things, and the teaching thereof, are important for one reason:

We all have a voice.

We all have a story to communicate about Jesus, whether we have known Him our whole lives, or just had one encounter with Him 15 years ago. They are both the oldest and newest stories circulating in the universe, and their irreplaceable words will never hit the floor.

 And today, among their ranks are The Most Unforgettable Day in the lives of the Form girls of Mtendere Village in Malawi. 

I am so grateful for the weeks I got to spend in Malawi - so grateful for the family there that has made Jesus Christ its center, and welcomed me in to experience it. It's not easy to leave my new friends, and my best college friend, but here's the thing...

Uganda is calling me.

Set for Life

It's late here in Malawi, but I am awake. I am awake, and thinking about the goodness of God. I'm having one of those moments Dr. Seuss talked about when you can't sleep because your reality is better than your dreams. And I've been having airport anxiety nightmares (In last night's, I threw a Crayola marker at a stewardess and got fined $400), so that's definitely true for me at this point.

So what has God done this time? His goodness is boundless, but life is full of sweet moments where we can pinpoint it, and feel His provision more acutely.

Right now is one of those moments. I am wide awake in revelatory wonder of the fact that God sets us up in families.

This takes some explanation. We are all born into some form of a family, no matter our background. That is not the particular family that I mean. I don't mean the roots of the flower, I mean the petals; the families that God gives you as sweet gifts to bring a little extra honey to your life.

Over the years, I have known friends, teachers, co-workers, and even acquaintances who fall into this category. You may start out as strangers, but after you've had that initial moment of "You, too?? I thought I was the only one!!" there's no turning back. You've officially been grafted into a new type of family.

These families vary in size and depth. I have known the more shallow kinds my whole life. It wasn't until earlier this year that I started grasping the idea of a deep familial connection...with people who were strangers only a minute before.

It all started in Cuba over spring break. I was falling hard for this nation...the people are full of reservoirs of warmth so great that you have to physically remind yourself of your own grandma's face to clarify whether or not she is actually one of the women currently hugging you. They are unselfconciously loving. We are not always used to this. In America, I've often found that people can withhold compliments because they think it somehow takes away from their own traits. But in Cuba, telling someone they're beautiful does not take away from your own beauty...it simply means that a person is beautiful and you want to tell her - so you do! In my experience, Cubans do not deny themselves the simple pleasure of loving others, even in small ways.

I saw this most prominently in the women who worked in the kitchen of the church we partnered with. These ladies were always cheerful, welcoming, and utterly loving to everyone on our team. They would just come right up to you and rub your back, even before you realized it had been aching all day. They were need-meeters to the highest degree, and remembered your name from your very first encounter. These were indeed special women.

They stick out especially in my brain because I am a vegetarian. I was planning to quietly work around this small detail for the week that we were there, as I try to do most places. My vegetarianism is a personal choice, and I hate when it becomes a burden to others, so I tend to do all I can to keep it quiet. One afternoon, however, I walked through the church kitchen to notice a few of the men on our team speaking with the cooks...they were letting them know that I did not eat meat, because they knew I wouldn't tell them myself, and they wanted to look after me. I tried to shy away from the attention, but it was useless. These boys were set on taking care of me, and the cooks turned out to actualy be excited to cook something extra for me. So, every meal. we would stumble to the table, exhausted and ravenously hungry, and I would inevitably hear my name called out in a Cuban accent, and a steaming plate of vegetarian goodness delivered to my seat. They made me something special for every single meal.

Because that's what families do; they look out for one another. They take on each other's burdens, even the small ones, and consider it a joy to serve one another to the best of their ability.

God sets us up in families just like that.

He showed me this explicitly one night on that trip to Cuba. I was reading in the book of Mark, and came across this passage:

"'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.'" Mark 10:29-30 (NIV)

God sets us up in families wherever we go for His name.

There was a time, not too long ago, that I was so worried about leaving home for such a long time. I had gone so far away for school, and knew I'd be studying and interning in Uganda for several months, but I looked out at the vast expanse of longings in my missionary heart, and wondered just how much I could take.

But that passage came to me the very night of my worry.

I have chosen to follow Jesus wherever He calls me, which seems like a big deal, but His promises and faithfulness trump my promises and faithfulness every time.

If I give up time with the family I've been rooted in, even for a short time, He will set me up in another one. A community of friends at school who daily pray for and encourage me. A group of amazing cooks at a small church in Cotorro, Cuba. A ragtag group of church planters in Northern Ireland. A bunch of service-minded high school leaders on a district board.

I've been given fresh families my entire life! It is never meant to replace my home, but these people are the tools God uses to fill the family-shaped hole in my heart when I'm away. I have received from the Lord's hand double, triple, and quadruple the family! Brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers - all across the world!

When we choose to be faithful to God's call, whatever it may be, He will set us up. Period. We can't question whether or not we will have time, money, or resources for it. We can't look at our limited human qualities and feel inadequate. We have an unlimited storehouse of goodness, directly from the hand of our Father!

Stepping out in faith - whether it is to help someone in need, leave your home, pursue a lifelong passion, or anything brewing in the depths of your heart this very moment - feels like a risk at first. We feel like Indiana Jones when he takes that first step over that chasm, but by the time he puts his foot down, it's landed safely on the first step of a bridge that takes him to the other side. He just couldn't see it until he stepped out.

Walking with God feels like that sometimes. But we can't forget that He's the best bridge-maker of all time! He counts it His deep pleasure to move us from one side of our lives to the other. We always end up a little higher up; a little closer to Him.

And we don't have to pretend that His provision is only for those who work in the ministry or feel God is calling them to something historical and monumental. Because here's the thing: even the smallest details of your life are monumental to God.

In the Old Testament, God frequently asks the founding patriarchs of the Jewish faith to set up a small altar of stones in a place where He has shown His faithfulness. Even for little things, He asks us to set up little altars of remembrance.

Just like He sets us up in families. They are living nuclei of God's grace, goodness, and saturated provision.

He is waiting to give you a new family, and I would like to highlight the one He gave me most recently: my Ethiopia team.

The bottom line is that I wasn't "supposed" to go on this trip. I had thought about it all year; my mind was obsessed with the idea of going to this enticing country, and I knew my favorite professor was setting it all up. But I told myself it was all too much. Too much money, too much travelling, and definitely too much time away from home. I knew that going to Ethiopia (and consequently Malawi) would make it impossible for me to go home to Wisconsin this summer. It would be a whirlwind adventure. I told myself I couldn't do it. And I know I couldn't.

But that was before Cuba. Before my revelation that God sets us up in families wherever we are.

Jesus was indeed working on my heart - molding me slowly into the type of clay that was flexible enough to yield to His call. And so, when the time came, like a man proposing to His bride, Jesus invited me to Ethiopia and Malawi. And, remembering His promises and faithfulness in places like Cuba, I said yes. And joy immediately flooded my soul.

So, through a series of a few other miraculous and sweet surprises, I was able to join a team of 17 other Southeastern students to travel to Africa for two weeks...about a month before we left. I didn't know most of the team, and felt a little strange entering into their weekly meetings, but I tried to gauge their culture and see if I might possibly fit in.

But, as I seem to keep repeating, God sets us up in families. And what a family He gave me in my Ethiopia team! Most of them started out as strangers. Now strangers are sisters. Now outsiders are brothers. Now the strange girl who crashed their missions-trip party is a central part of this body.

And that's what we have been, a body; each part selected by God to live out good works through the unique talent He's given every one of us. There were those who set straight to work translating children's Bible songs into Amharic. There were those of us who took incredible pictures to document our journey. There were those of us who stepped up to lead at crucial moments. There were those of us who preached for the first time, and those of us who led worship for the first time. No matter who we are, or what we brought to the table, we all moved with one heartbeat. It was a refreshing taste of the most genuine form of Christianity, and a process that God alone can start and finish.

So my parents came down to Lakeland for a few days during my finals week. They spent much-needed time with me, and helped me prepare for this long journey. Their presence was crucial. I always say that I wouldn't be able to go were it not for them coming down for those last few, dream-like days. And I know it's true.

God did the exact same thing with my Ethiopia team. They became my family - praying over me, encouraging me at every turn, offering to send special treats of love along with my Uganda team. And I couldn't have moved on to the next step of this journey without them. I am filled with absolute gratitude for these incredible people.

In a way, I feel like I'm crowd surfing. I am elevated by the hands of those around me, and move by their presence and efforts. But we know that it's not easy to be passed from group to group. I think that's part of what Jesus was talking about when He mentioned persecutions in the passage above (didn't think I'd overlook that, did you?). It is a form of persecution to the soul to be separated from those with whom you have shared so much. Even if it's only for a short while.

But the Spirit of the Lord is a comforter. And I think that there's something very symbolic about the fact that this passage is found in just about every Gospel (see Matthew 19:29 and Luke 18:29), just like the Great Commission is (found in Luke 16:15, Matthew 28:19, Mark 24:48, John 20:21, and Acts 1:8 - I had to memorize the references for a class, so I figured now was as impressive a time as any to slip them in).

This passage about leaving families, gaining families, and losing them again is integral to the commission of Jesus to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. It is a 2-for-1 deal; you can't have one without the other.

And it's a pretty good deal. Stepping out in faith requires a moment of risk, but the return includes eternal life...which just so happens to include every family He brings you into that bears His name.

I am so grateful tonight. Grateful for the past, expectant in the present, and excited for the future. And every reason for that has to do with this one ubiquitous phrase:


God sets us up in families.



Now please enjoy some photos to celebrate the latest family God has set me in!!

A very attractive bunch! The whole team after we hiked a mountain outside of Addis. 

Me, Bri, Corina, and Ashley! I really connected with these girls, and am astounded and inspired by their fervor for children. 

The team in Hawassa with the missionaries we worked with there in front, and one of our INCREDIBLE hosts/translators, Robele (in the red pants). The other was Cap Mac. He's not pictured here, but just take my word that he's an anointed worship leader, and on his way to becoming an incredible pilot!

With some incredible kids at a mass feeding with (from right) Amber, Ashley, me, and Katie! This location was the most intimate for the feedings we did - it was all mamas and children, and these girls were incredible with them.

I happened to be the one who led worship for the first time. It meant so much to have my family standing with me, and the man on the guitar was a musical genius! He learned the song and played it to perfection in about 30 minutes. 

We were driving along and saw some really cool looking trees. So we got out to climb them. 

Me, Ariam, and Nikki with some of the schoolgirls - these ladies went all out to connect with every kid!

Cori! She is incredible. I love her laid-back manner and sense of humor. She gets me!

Bri - always funny, always sweet. I love her presence. She is going to make an amazing social worker someday!

Where it all began...room A121. This was taken at our last meeting before we left! I love all of these people so much. 

The Best Day of My Life

My name is Lauren Nadolski, and May 16th, 2014 was the best day of my life.

It started out miserably. I woke up with that rain cloud sensation - the one you get when you feel you are a personal target of doom. The rest of the world seemed a cheery, sunshiny ray of optimism, but I felt like an anvil was crushing my chest.

I should make a note that I am usually not a moody person in any respect. I have my moments just like anyone else, but I am about as steady as a train when it comes to emotions and daily contentment. Thus, on the rare occasion that I feel heaviness, I do my best to hide it and pull through as swiftly and without any fuss as possible.

But it wasn't working on this particular morning. My internal pep-talks seemed to bounce right back to me, and by breakfast my team members who know me best were asking what was wrong. The answer had to be a curt "nothing;" how could I express my nameless sense of weariness?

By early afternoon, I was high on a ladder, painting turquoise trim on the school we had covered in a coat of lime green the previous day. I was alone, and my thoughts were eating away at me.

After I had finished the trim, and had a short break, one of the school boys came over to me. He picked up my hands and started scratching the paint speckles off with his fingernails (There were a lot of them, too. I have accurately been called a "splasher" in the painting department.) He giggled and gasped when he found more and more green freckles and splotches on my fingers and arms. He led me by the hand to the water pump and gently scrubbed my skin clean with great delight. It was a very relaxing gesture - the best massage/manicure I've ever received (if you ignore the fact that I've only ever had one). But even the sweetness and light of the presence of that boy weren't enough to pull me out of my funk.

I wandered over to the wall of one of the school buildings, and sat down in the shade. I leaned up against the freshly dried cement wall and took off my Chacos. I was exhausted in body and spirit. My mind was being circled by the beasts of doubt and pessimism, and they were ready to finally pounce.

A wave of weariness and discouragement washed over me in a tidal wave. I felt so tired, like a dry riverbed that the entire town was still poking at for water. I couldn't give any more...several school children wandered by and I couldn't summon the energy to answer their calls to play. I could barely smile back at them as a stampede of homesickness clamored through my weather-beaten mind.
What was I even doing there? What was I thinking, jumping feet first into a 8-month stay in Africa without resting, without going home? How was I supposed to engage a new culture in less than a week, and then step into a leadership role when I go to Uganda? No, it was just too much. My brain was drowning, and my heart was sinking lower and lower in my chest. I started to choke up, and it was hard to breathe.

That's when someone approached me. A little girl with round eyes, braids, and a small elastic headband. I recognized her from the organization we visited the previous night. She was a student at the school, and part of a sponsorship program that helped the kids out with education and gave them meals during the day. I had gotten to know this girl the night before at the campus where they are fed their meals. The team was playing in the yard, dancing and singing, but she leaned against the gate at the opposite end, disconnected from the festivities.

She stood out to me like a sunflower. I crossed the yard and took her hand. She was reluctant to leave her perch at first, but eventually consented to walk with me and lean up against another wall, closer to the action. But, as I put my arms around her and drew her towards the circle of dancing, she started to smile. It took a few rounds of me holding onto her hands and making her clap along to the beat for her to finally come out of her shell, but sooner than later she had a ubiquitous smile on her face, and was giggling as I danced for her. We had a lot of fun.

But when she approached me the next afternoon, all I could offer was a weak smile and wave. I expected her to move on, like the other kids who realized I wasn't up for playing and went to find someone more obliging. But she didn't move on. She smiled big and came and sat next to me. I tried to summon the muscular energy to entertain her in any way, but I don't think that's what she was after. Instead, she took my hand. She held it and played with it, and giggled at the paint freckles left behind from my previous cleansing. She sat to face me, and looked into my eyes. For the first time that week, I didn't see any expectation in the eyes of a child. Instead, I saw the eyes of someone who was trying to fill an empty person. I don't know how she sensed it, but I could feel that she knew what I needed.

She brought me out of my shell that day, as I had done for her the evening before. Pretty soon, we were playing hand-clap games, and giggling away the afternoon. The darkness was fleeing the vast corners of my mind; I could feel it. We just sat there, on the concrete and in the shade, and she nursed me back to heath with her smile and her gentle love.

Soon enough, however, our team leader was rounding us up, and we began to say our "caio's." After a round of hugs and high-fives with the rest of the children, I saw my little friend approach me from the corner of my eye. She was holding a cookie wrapper, the kind with the plastic holder inside, which I had been wondering about all afternoon. At one point, I picked it up when she wasn't looking to feel if it was empty, and when I found it was I was wondering why on earth she had spent all day coveting a piece of trash. How sorry I am now for that fleeting thought.

Before my eyes, she pulled something out from inside the wrapper and handed it to me. It was wrapped in blue tissue paper with tiny silver stars on it. I could feel a lump in my throat as she looked at her feet with all the bashfulness of someone who had just willingly given away something important to them. She nodded when I asked if I should open it later, and I pulled her close. We said our goodbyes.

I couldn't wait to get onto the bus and see what she had given me. As I sat down in my seat, I took a deep breath, and gently tore open the package. It contained a foam sticker heart, a small strawberry candy, and a note written on lined paper and adorned with stickers. I unfolded the note, and tears immediately pricked my eyes.

It was a note of love and friendship. She wrote simply, saying her name was Mekdes, she was in
grade four, she liked to play hand ball, and I am a very nice girl. She drew me two rather ornate roses.

 But the best part, the best part by far, is that she repeated over and over that she loved me. "I love you so so much," the end of the note read, written in bubble letters.


I've never really cried on a missions trip before. To be honest, sometimes I've felt more like a machine than a person when I'm constantly being shuttled from one orphanage to the next seemingly tragic ministry site. And the beginning of that day was a result of that; I was a burnt-out and feeble robot. This little girl, Mekdes, gave me exactly what I needed to make me human again. Love. That day I so desperately needed love, pure and simple.

I tried to hide my tears as the bus pulled away. Mekdes was walking out of the school gate, and I could see she was wiping at her own tears. I reached my arm out the bus window for a final touch of her hand, and we offered each other smiles through our tears. My heart was overwhelmed in a sea of thankfulness for what she had given me.

But the day just gets better from there. Hold on to your heartstrings, if they haven't been plucked already.
From the school we went to our second mass feeding during our two-day stay in Hawassa. We distributed bottled soft drinks and egg sandwiches we had prepared that morning. But first, we gave a gospel message, and prayed over the sea of raised hands, each an indication of a heart accepting
Jesus.

I felt like myself again at that feeding. While the mass of people sat in the yard, waiting for us to distribute what we had brought, I found myself ducking out from behind the bus and making silly faces at the crowd. I don't know whether it was because I was white, or a girl, or if my face actually is funny, but they roared with laughter. I popped back out a few more times, dancing and wiggling to make them laugh, and it was so fun to feel their positive energy, and finally be able to give some back.

Every time we did a mass feeding in Hawassa, we didn't just give food. In addition to the initial Gospel presentation and salvation call, we would say "Jesus loves you" in Amharic to every person before we handed food or drink to them. It's easy to see that as a chore when you're focused on making sure every person is fed, but telling someone Jesus loves them becomes a whole different ball game after you've made a fool of yourself over and over to make them laugh.

So I embraced it. With every sandwich or Fanta I handed out, I bent down to look the person in the eyes and to hold their hand. They usually let out a chuckle upon seeing me, but I was laughing too. In the midst of our laughter, I would hand them dinner, and tell them with all the joy and sincerity I was feeling that Jesus loves them. For some, I could see it sinking in.

Truth be told, I was just having fun, but I also wanted to let them know that they are not just a charity case. To our team, to our God, they are incredible individuals, and unique expressions of love and hope. They have unique senses of humor, tastes, and appetites. Although my silly faces and egg sandwiches can't satisfy them all, I know Jesus can.

After the feeding, the bus took us to the Elpis campus we were at the previous night dancing with the kids, and where we had cooked the food that morning. We were going to wash the feet of widows, and provide them with a new pair of shoes.

We entered the yard through the gate, and immediately saw the L-shaped line of Ethiopian widows waiting for us. I'm not sure how that visage affected the rest of my team, but I felt like a warm shower was washing over my entire body. Tears immediately sprang to my eyes, and as most of the team hung back, waiting to be introduced, I launched headlong into getting to know these beautiful, maternal, scarf-wrapped women.

Because, as I looked out at each of them, I saw my grandmother. I saw her smile and her way of holding you and the simple understanding and comfort she could convey in just one look. I saw the softness and the fierce love and the knowledge of living that only comes from, well, being a widow. I loved them instantly.

I greeted every one of them, and I don't think my face could've contained my smile. I got hugs, kisses that smelled like soap and incense, and plenty of Amharic greetings I didn't understand. The rest of
the team followed suit with saying hello to each woman, but as I returned to my place as we were being introduced, I couldn't stop smiling and waving at this one particular widow. So I went over to her.

She made room for me on the bench, and before you could blink we were as snug as two bugs in a rug. We held each other close, and she covered me in her crimson and black wrap. We just sat there smiling, and when everyone else went to put on gloves and get towels, I didn't feel like getting up. Truth be told, I didn't wash a single widow's feet that evening. I just sat there with my good friend, holding each other, rushing in and out of the rain, and getting to know each other.

She didn't speak a lick of English, and I'm no wizard at Amharic, so when one of us would say something, we'd just look at each other, shrug, and laugh. The only thing I really understood of what
 she was saying was "Jesus is Lord," so I would repeat it back to her, and she would say "amen," and squeeze my hand. I think it's all I really needed to understand.


 When she got cold, I held her a little tighter, and when I got cold, she put more of her wrap around me. When my team passed out food, she let me have the first swig of her Fanta, and fed me that egg sandwich the traditional way an Ethiopian mother feeds her child injera. And, nearly the whole time, she was playing with my hands as one plays with the hands of a baby - I had done the same thing all week with just about every little one I had held.

There was a point when my arm was around her that I worried to myself that maybe it weighed too heavily on her shoulders. She was frail, after all, and a bit, you know, widowish. But God stopped that thought before I could finish it. And His response I will remember for the rest of my days.

"Love is not a burden," He said. "Love is a gift. It's meant to be given, and it's meant to be received."

That might not seem like the kind of mind-blowing spiritual revelation most of us expect when God speaks, but to me, it was beyond that. It was exactly what I needed to hear for that moment, for that day, and for the rest of my life.

Love is a gift. This widow knew that. It was why she was so eager to embrace, care for, and give her evening to someone else's daughter, someone else's granddaughter. Love is meant to be given.

Love is a gift. It's why the people at the mass feeding smiled just at the sight of the ridiculous white girl who made them laugh and offered them a full belly and a full soul. Love is meant to be received.

Love is a gift. It's why the little girl sat with me all afternoon, patient in my gloom and giving me doses of what I needed until I could feel human again. Love is a gift directly from God; it is what we need.

I probably won't ever again see those women who changed my life. Their faces are burned on my heart, and the mere thought of their eyes or smile fills me with the same elixir I first experienced on that day.

These women were Jesus to me more than anyone else I've ever come into contact with. They poured into me, but accepted the love I gave them as well. They were joyful and patient and though I had just met them, I still feel like our hearts have been knitted together in the strength of such a simple, pure love.

So as I was getting ready for bed that night, I thought about how I had just lived the best day of my life so far. I was so imperfect, so weak in my own flesh, but God was like a wind. He blew through my insecurity and doubt and strain and gave me the greatest form of encouragement: Love itself.

Jesus gave me Jesus that day, and I will be grateful forever. But it doesn't end there, because every morning when I wake up, I see those faces. I see the face of love. And I feel like a human being.

Mekdes and I on the night we met.

The finished product of one of the school buildings we painted!

Just before our goodbyes. 

Our team leader, Dylan, giving the salvation message at the feeding that night with our translator, Robele.

My dear friend