Silvia's Faith Journey- Part 13

Hi everyone! Today is about God calling me out to Africa and some of the things He revealed there. There is so much to tell of the inspirational people I met, friendships made, and experiences that would leave a lasting impression on my heart, but I have only shared a portion of it all. I speak about Okoa Refuge in this part of my faith journey. They are an amazing organization that I believe uses resources given in a way that is honoring of others. Here is a link if you want to check them out: Okoa Refuge

It had been a little over a month since mom had suddenly passed away and I needed to decide whether I would still go on the short-term mission trip to Uganda.  Our team was set to depart in the next week.  The month in between making the commitment to go and facing the choice of whether to follow through was chaos.  Between going to Texas and Wisconsin for mom’s memorial and burial, respectively, evacuating from my home due to a hurricane, and then returning to my apartment to discover a flooded bedroom, nothing seemed to be smooth or easy.  The only one who enjoyed any part of it was Anza…because she decided my bed was her dog bed while it was relocated to the living room floor after the flooding.  She may have tried to distract me with her sweet little eyes, but the evidence speaks for itself. I present to you exhibit A.

Exhibit A: I believe the picture speaks for itself. Anza using my bed as her dog bed? Guilty.

My family and friends asked me to reconsider my choice about Uganda.  Everyone was concerned that given everything that had happened, it would be too much to go to a completely different country to enter in a setting that none of us could really visualize.  There was an element of fear where people were anxious that something would happen to me.  “What if you get sick?  What if you hate it and you can’t come home?  What if you are not safe?”  It is not that I did not hear their concerns, or have some of them myself, but somehow I felt strongly that God had called me to do this regardless of what was going on.  I knew God wanted me to go, so I stayed the course.

Our team was a small group of seven.  For the first part of our mission, we joined a Tennessee based group to do a medical and church planting trip in Kenya prior to heading off to Uganda.  I could not have asked for a better group.  Our leaders, Bryson and Ron, were amazing as was the rest of the team.  Everyone got along well, and we shared great moments of bonding, heartbreak, and laughter.  Several years later, we still try to get together on occasion to catch up.  Ron, and his wife (I got to know Mona well on another mission trip), would become like family.  If I had canceled the trip, I would have missed out on friendships in the U.S. and Africa.  God would even use Ron to do two pivotal things that I will share later in my faith journey.  It was not just about going to Africa for this one single timepoint in life, God was creating enduring relationships with godly people that He would continue to use to encourage and refine me.

One Sunday, our group attended a service in a small little Kenyan church.  Although we could be deceived by its modest plastic chairs and dirt floors, there was power in that place.  (Sidenote: apparently churches in Africa may have an elevated dirt floor stage. I was not paying attention and managed to trip over it.  Apparently leaving the U.S. did not make me any less of a klutz!  Thanks to Joy who caught me so I did not face plant on the ground.)  As people were worshipping in Swahili, we were immersed in the raw emotion and could hear the passion behind the praises poured out to God.  There was no need to understand the language, the energy was clear.  I cannot explain it, but in that moment the presence of God was palpable to me.  I could feel Him there.  Tears began to roll down my face because I knew that even though I was in a country thousands of miles away from home, God still found me to comfort me in my heartbreak.  I had not been left alone.  God was with me.

From Kenya, we headed out to Uganda to go to Okoa Refuge.  Ron had been to Okoa before and told us that this orphanage was one of the happiest places on earth.  I thought, “Really?  Is that possible?”.  As our van pulled through the gates into the orphanage, children were running everywhere with big smiles and laughing in delight.  When the van door opened there were a mass of children waiting to say hello.  One little girl, Shalwa, reached up and grabbed my hand and did not let go until it was time for the kids to have dinner.  Later that night, she would immediately find me again and fall asleep on my lap as I held her.  It was a beautiful moment, sitting there with Shalwa softly breathing in my arms as I soaked in the songs the children were singing and the testimonies and praises they would proclaim to God.  Indeed, Ron was right.  This was one of the happiest places.  In a situation that had all the potential to be bleak, God instead transformed it into a place of great love and joy through the care of the missionaries and staff that poured into these children.  A few years later I would return to Okoa and found out Shalwa needed a sponsor.  I now have the honor to sponsor this sweet little girl who had captured my heart so long ago.

One of the many pictures of laughter captured at Okoa Refuge.

Okoa Refuge has a far reach in the community that is not limited to the orphanage.  With them, we would continue the next day to do a medical clinic, evangelism, and a church plant.  Thankfully, we had interpreters to help us with the evangelism process.  Each of our team members were on separate benches with their interpreters by their side.  I had Olivia helping me to cross the language barrier that day.  People walked from miles away to see a doctor.  For some, just the prospect of receiving some vitamins, ibuprofen, or bismuth subsalicylate (essentially Pepto) was a treasure.  After each person saw a doctor, they would be directed to sit down on the bench across from us for a moment while their medicines were being packaged together.  This was the opportunity we had to pray for them and to share what we believe to be the most important eternal matter.  Jesus. 

I would extend the gospel and give my testimony of how God had changed my life.  I would share how desperately lost I was when someone I loved died and I did not have Jesus in my life.  But now it was different.  With God in my life, I was better able to endure the pain of just having lost my mom a month ago to be there that day to tell them how much Christ loves them.  For some, it was just a conversation, perhaps a seed that had been planted.  For others, I could tell that there was a greater movement in their heart.  It was emotionally draining, but repeatedly sharing what God did for me was the reminder I needed to have.  God was with me.  He would never forsake me.  He would never leave me.  

During my time of mourning my mom, Africa was a place of healing for me.  It sounds odd to say because it was a place of heart-breaking material poverty.  I remember one moment earlier on when we first got to Africa.  I was close to tears watching people collect this cloudy, reddish water in the ditch next to the mud road with their containers and then walk away.  I knew it was miles to get to their home with what was considered a precious resource.  I naively asked Anthony, our Kenyan driver, if people filtered the water.  He looked at me and said, “The water is clean.  People just skim off the top and do not disturb the dirt on the bottom.”  I must have looked shocked, because he continued by telling me not to feel sorry for them, that this was their way of life.  You see, instead of thinking about what they did not have, Anthony saw it in a different light.  He said, “We are so happy to have water since nearby countries are in a period of drought.” 

But here is the thing, in the face of extreme material poverty, we would look at people and they had something very special.  Joy.  Life was hard and it took its toll, but people would also smile readily, laugh, and there was a deep sense of community.  They had relationships with each other and for some, a relationship with God that was like no other.   A strong connection had formed through their utter dependence on Him.  Although we may be spoiled with certain resources in the U.S., they had deep bonds.  We may not suffer as much from material poverty, but we do often suffer from relational poverty.  Though on the surface, money and materials may seem to “offer” more, the truth is that relationships and love are the things that are built to last.  It really made me shift my perspective of my life and think about who was really impoverished?  I realized through all our busyness, our work, our need to have status, to gain material wealth, and success, we miss out on the things that are truly important.  Relationships with God and others.

Oftentimes when we go out on mission, if we are open to it, God will wreck us in the best possible ways and create in us a deeper compassion for others and a clearer vision for the things that truly matter for the short time we are on this Earth.  For me, it was a reminder that God was always with me, to keep my eyes focused on Him even in hard circumstances, and to know that our greatest wealth in life will not come from money and things, it will come from loving others.   

When I got back to the U.S., God would continue to work on me through an insight I would later receive from my friend Ron.  It would lead me closer to God and one step closer to my husband Jeff.