Hunched over, gripping a post from the side of my shady hut,
my dear West African sister’s body convulsed every few seconds, as she threw up
into the dirt. I wiped the back of her neck and back with a damp cloth and
another sister ran to get a chair so she could sit down immediately when the
nausea subsided. It did, and she breathed a sigh of relief. I handed her the
washcloth so she could wipe her face and mouth and she sat down. I handed her a
glass of cool water while the other sister dumped a bucket of sand over the
mess and smoothed it out to cover it up (that’s just what we do here!). Thankfully,
this isn’t a tropical disease, just the illness that hits many women expecting
babies.
This will be TD’s fourth baby, and she’s teased me that she’s
going to stop having them after this, to have the same number as I do. I’ve
taken her to the hospital, carried her bag, and held her hand for the births of
the second and third baby. Her husband was the first one to come over and
welcome us back from vacation and catch up on how our grown-up kids and the
rest of the family that’s stateside are doing. Upon hearing about the
discouragement we were feeling with regards to our ministry, he gave us some
wise advice and prayed for us.
We are thousands of miles away from most of our blood
relatives and I’ve missed most of the births of my nieces and nephews. I
grieve, missing all of those momentous and even not-so-momentous events in my
family’s life, such as 6-year-old birthdays and wedding anniversaries. I will
never regain that time. My nieces and nephews are growing up, my sisters and
their families are getting older, and I am just a picture on the mantle at
family events at my parents’ house.
But, nonetheless, I’m living life here. Our supporters might
think that we spend all of our time preaching and praying, but we LIVE here.
There are days when I miss my family, especially my three grown kids in the US,
SO MUCH that I want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head and cry
(ahem, don’t think I haven’t done that!). But then, the still, small voice of
my Savior who called me here calls me out of my grief, brushes me off and wipes
the tears from my eyes, and tells me to go out and LIVE. Living out one’s
calling isn’t preaching 24/7. It is being fully present in the lives of others
so that they get a true taste of what being a disciple of Jesus really is.
TD has seen me cry more than once, as I’ve confessed,
grieved, even passionately prayed for someone dear to my heart. And, she’s not
the only one. I have sat with another friend and listened to how she was
missing her son who lives with her husband where he works in another region so
that he could get a better education. Then, I, too, shared my heart of how much
I miss my kids in the US and at boarding school. I told her that it feels like
pieces of my heart have been taken away and her gaze turned from the ground to
my eyes, nodding in agreement, “Yes, that’s how it feels!”
You’re probably wondering why I shared the story of helping
TD while she was throwing up at the beginning of this post. It’s because I have
experienced pregnancy nausea and know how horrible it is. God allows us to go
through hard times so that we can encourage others going through similar
circumstances. That’s how we live life. We bear our burdens, then we bare our
souls to each other so that each one is lifted up. When I was going through my
pregnancy sicknesses, most of the time, I was far away from family and didn’t
have anyone other than my husband to wipe the back of my neck with a cool cloth
and give me water. I don’t want my West African sister going through that, too.
Because, she also, is far away from her family (granted, not AS far as I am).
I just want to encourage you, brother or sister in Christ.
It is very important to proclaim the gospel. And, we all are called to do that.
But, also, we’re called to live out the gospel. And, sometimes that means bringing
a cool washcloth and a bucket of sand.
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