The People & Their Stories
I’m never sure how to put our trip into words—it’s more than just the sites and smells and the food we ate. It’s the people and their stories.
It’s the mom at the HIV/AIDS clinic whom I have seen ever since 2015, and now she can barely hear and is wearing glasses, but her smile is as bright as ever. She doesn't speak any English, but the passion she speaks with about praying for Caleb when he was in the hospital radiates on her face. Her prayer was for God to take her life instead of Caleb’s because he had so many more important things to do.
It’s the lady who talked about how all she has to eat in a month is the grocery bag of rice and lentils that was just handed to her, but how when she arrived at the clinic, she was 50 pounds, and now she weighs almost 100 pounds.
It’s passing out nail polish at the clinic, and wishing you had more for the lovely ladies because doesn’t everyone want to feel beautiful with red nail polish?
It’s the pastor who has the biggest smile when we come to visit his church and his new house that is being built. He needs a new house because in his current one, his wife has been bitten by snakes multiple times, and his children have had snakes curled up on them while they are sleeping.
It’s the pastor whose son needed a laptop for school, and there was no way they could ever afford one. And the whispers to the person in the States from the Holy Spirit saying, “Hey, don’t forget that laptop you were going to bring to donate if needed.” The pastor was so happy he cried from answered prayer.
It’s the well that was donated in memory of a deceased loved one that can now bring water to a church plant.
It’s the graduation where a team member got to see where her years of sponsorship have concluded with a basic education and will go on to fruition with a college education. And where she heard firsthand what her goddaughter’s plans were and pledged in person to her continued support in her education needs.
It’s meeting some of your godchild’s family and expressing to them how much they mean to you when language is a barrier, but smiles and hugs are universal.
It’s hearing from the pastors that their greatest needs to help advance their ministry are laptops, PA systems, and projectors. Things you can easily find in a classroom in the States. Not once mentioning that they themselves need financial support to put food on the table at home because it’s not about them but about God first and foremost.
It’s about the stories of multiple pastors who have faced not only persecution but also death and who continue to show God’s love through medical and dental clinics. The powerful villagers who persecute them need help, and the pastor gives it willingly, no matter who needs it. Then while treating their illness or malady, they share the gospel and plant God’s seed, and they have seen it come back as full conversions or, at the very least, as champions of their protection.
It’s the farm where vegetables are grown for sale to help with expenses on campus and where water solutions happen, but better infrastructure is needed to help them come to fruition.
It’s the prayers that people want from you after the service because they somehow see you as closer to God than they are when truly, it’s you who realize how much closer to God they are than you.
It’s the heartbreak of going down the road out of the school when you have to leave that “little piece of heaven” when it seems as if you had just arrived.
It’s all this and so much more, and it’s the pressing burden on your soul to realize what can be done through partnering with others who can stretch a dollar better than anyone I know and how you reevaluate your life to help people you may never meet…all for God’s Kingdom.
~ Jen Westmoreland
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