Appleseed Travel Journal - Flexibility

Brooks

Flexibility and going with the flow. That’s the name of the game when we travel! Each day is pretty awesome, but often not at all what I had expected! We get to practice humility and often asking for the Holy Spirit to tell us what to do in this or that particular situation. Pretty much it’s a continual letting go of my game plan and expectations and being open to whatever God has in mind. I’m sure you must know exactly what I mean! Well, thing is, life in California or life in Africa, it’s pretty much all the same!

Today I was invited to “train” a group of “for sure not more than 20 women.” Well, I know from experience that this number doesn’t include babies strapped to mama’s backs or 3 or 4 year olds playing with a string or stick at their feet. I also know that where 20 women are gathered, there are going to be at least 30. So, sure enough, when I arrived at the rented meeting room, there were 35 women all smiles, waiting, and then, timidly stretching out their hands to greet me. It was going to be a great day. A day like days I have done many times before with African women. …well, maybe not! Lillian, the initiator of this gathering, and the commonality for most of the women there pulled me aside and in a thick French accent, albeit limited English, told me that the women had a “presentacion” for me. I couldn’t and didn’t exactly know what that meant, but got it right away that this was going to be ah, yet another exciting day IF I could let go of what I had planned and just “go with the flow!”

So, with some chaos, we all squished side by side into plastic chairs in a large circle, children in the middle. Lillian then invited each woman to speak. So round the room we went, one by one, each giving me their beautiful names and the place where they lived. I very mistakenly thought this was the presentacion, but no, as I began working through my material trying desperately to provide some sense of familiarity, safety, and comraderie even within such a large group, I could definitely sense something was amiss. Each woman listened politely, as my male Burundian student, translated. When I broke to ask the question of how they knew God was real and alive, that was just the opening they were looking for. Two hours later each one of them had stood, walked to the center of our circle and told their story. Each story a miracle; each story about a life that had been one of hopelessness and then what had happened to change that, and today what their life looks like. Paul would have been proud. Better testimonies were never given! I wish you could have been there. Some of them dressed in what we would call rags; some in brightly colored beautiful African dresses; each with a smile, a knowing peace, a joy they had never known before. They told of this lady or that coming to them and telling them about Someone who had answers for their lives, Someone who had hope and love for them. Not only did they tell about this Savior, but they showed them in a physical way a kind of love and caring they had not known.

Here are just a few of their stories. Many were the same: lives of scraping by at best for a marginal existence for themselves and their children, sickness, prostitution, the death of at least one or more of their children, alcoholism, and/or rejection, abandonment by their husbands, if they had ever had one. Yet, each one told a story of redemption and grace and love. Meet just some of these ladies:

Juliette: Juliette had borrowed money from a neighbor to buy soaps, chocolates and biscuits. When the fire came, she, too, lost everything. She had two children and was desperate. The person who she had borrowed the money from threatened to send her to prison if she did not pay the money back. Terrified for her children to be left without their mother, she was “so hopeless and had many, many problems.” A Christian came to me and shared that there was some Good News, the gospel of Jesus Christ. She prayed for me and she met with me and we read the Word of God together. “God gave me all this money to pay my debt. I got it all from these people who have now become my family, and now I am free from this worry. Even when I was in the hospital, the house church came and visited me and helped me. My life is changed as never before.”

Consolata: “Without Jesus I would be dead or crazy. I had three children and my husband had already died. I came from up-country. It was horrible, the fighting. I ran with my small children; I don’t even know how, but God made a way for me to reach this place of Bujumbura. I was so afraid of everything and every person. These people they have helped me and today I belong to a family of Believers. We meet every Saturday and sing and study the Word of God. They have helped me so much. I am now with hope and peace and confidence things.”

Jackie: “Someone came one day and was talking about some Good News. I was a drunkard, living a very, very bad life of selling myself. But this person, she came and she took me where I was. She told me things that were the truth. My husband had left and I had three children. After I heard that my life could change, I believed in Jesus Christ and was baptized. Now I talk to others and tell them my testimony. They only have to look at me and know that I am changed. They knew me before and now they see me as I am. Now I am filled up with hope and peace and joy. I am never the same again.”

Stephanie: “I lost many children. These Believers, they came and they helped me. Before I thought God existed; today I know God really does exist.”