Barbed Wire

Fences with barbed-wire loomed on either side of me as I inched my car through the gates. I stopped at the guardhouse to show my volunteer badge and parked in the visitor section before making my way to one of several cottages. Nerves kept me alert as I crossed the lawn and entered the lobby before being directed to a side room.

The juvenile detention center always made me nervous. My comfort zone waited for me somewhere far outside the confines of this facility that housed troubled teens.

Six or more girls attended our weekly Bible study. I helped facilitate small group discussion and other activities that the leader planned.

I glanced at the white board on the wall. It had not been erased from some previous group therapy session. Red and black marker spelled out the formative years of one of the participants: gender confusion, divorce, jail, victimization. You name it. I looked into the eyes of the girls who entered the room. They were glazed. Medication kept most of the girls in a fog.

After the Bible study we divided into small groups for discussion. The other volunteer and I took a couple of girls each.

“I don’t know if I should do this,” one of the girls in my group said. She lowered her gaze.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She reached into her mouth, pulled out a tiny object, and handed it to me. A staple. I looked at her, questions filling my eyes like the fog that filled hers.

“I have been hiding it in my mouth for several days,” she said. “I was going to hurt myself, but I know now that is wrong. I want you to get rid of it.”

I stuck the staple in my pocket, unsure what else to do. I would ask the Bible study leader about it later. She knew the protocols. Before I had a chance to think about it any further, the Bible study leader called to the other volunteer and I.

“These two young women would like to pray to receive Jesus.” She gestured toward two of the girls and looked at the other volunteer. “Can you help them do that?”

This made sense, of course, as the other volunteer was a seminary graduate. I looked at her and saw panic.

“No,” she said. “I can’t do that.” She looked at me with frantic eyes. “Can you do it instead of me?”

“Of course,” I said. I moved to where the two girls sat and, in simple words, explained how Jesus had taken the punishment we deserved and how He would forgive us if we turned from our sin and confessed Him as Lord. That night those two girls prayed, asked Jesus to save them, and became my new sisters in Christ!

As I drove past the barbed fences and back to my comfort zone, I couldn’t help but wonder: “What happened back there?”

A seminary graduate afraid to pray with two girls asking for salvation? Wasn’t that the “golden moment” for anyone in ministry? I felt blessed by the opportunity to guide two girls into the Kingdom. But I think that blessing was meant for the other lady. Her fear immobilized her at a most crucial time.

I learned a couple of things that night. First, no amount of training (seminary, classes, certificates, etc.) enables us to do the Lord’s work if we do not also obey the Spirit when it comes time to act. Second, if I don’t step up when it’s my turn to act, the Lord may choose to give the blessing to someone else.

That night, I received the blessing of watching two girls get forgiven and saved. But lest I become prideful, that night is also a reminder to me. I could very easily become the one who misses out on the blessing if I refuse to listen, become too lazy to obey, or focus my eyes on fear.

Will I See Her In Heaven?

Hanaan* fanned the flame of her charcoal stove with one hand and with the other she skillfully lifted the clay pot just as the coffee began to boil up through the narrow spout. 

“You must let it boil over three times before you serve the coffee,” she explained. 

Hanaan was one of my closest friends in Eritrea.  She and I were as different as two women could be. I was in my early twenties and she didn’t even know her age. I was married and she was well past marrying age and would be single all her life. I was free to make choices, she lived under the rule of her older brother. I believed in Christ with all my heart and by my own choice, Hanaan was born into the religion of her family and was bound by intense family pressure.

Hanaan and her brothers and sisters were all unmarried and all lived together in a two room house. Their kitchen was a dilapidated shack in the dirt courtyard. They lived most of their lives as refugees in a neighboring country and told us fascinating stories of having to escape in the night and travel many days on camel. 

We shared several times about Christ with Hanaan and her family. Hanaan was usually quite busy cooking and working in the house, but on the night we shared God’s full plan of salvation, she brought her portable tin stove close to where we sat so she could hear while she worked. Several days later the family requested to watch a video about Jesus. We eagerly brought our television and VCR (yes, this was before DVDs!) to their house to show them the film.

One day Hanaan and I went to the vegetable market together. Walking along the street, away from the ears of her family, Hanaan began to talk about Jesus. “Jesus is a very good man,” she said. “Jesus loved the poor people very much, didn’t He?”  I agreed wholeheartedly and began to pray in my heart for Hanaan. We walked in silence for a while and then she said, “Jesus is the Son of God.”

That day is forever seared in my memory. This young woman had dared to believe that Jesus is indeed the Son of God.  I have asked God a thousand times, “Does that count, God? Does that make Hanaan a true believer?” 

About a year later Hanaan got a splinter in her hand. She tried to use a needle to remove it, but didn’t know how to keep the wound clean. Soon, infection set in and within a week Hanaan was dead. We had returned to the United States by then, and received this news by email.

Why hadn’t I shared with Hanaan more? Why hadn’t I continued that conversation we had on the street that day? Why hadn’t I been there to help her clean the wound on her hand? And my biggest question: when I arrive in heaven, will I see Hanaan there?

*Name changed

Clouds

NORTH AFRICA? Are you kidding me? I am so excited! I've been asked to lead a Bible Study at a retreat in a few months...in North Africa. Those of you who know our history know that this means I get to go back to our "old stompin' grounds," or at least close to it. I am endlessly thankful for the opportunity and am beside myself with excitement.

I had several ideas already for what I could do and was making little mental notes and trying not to get too invested in case it didn't work out. But a Skype call on Friday confirmed that all is a "go" and I can buy my tickets. Woohoo!

But also, after talking for over an hour with my friend, a cloud of doubt crept into my head.

What do I have to offer these ladies? Nothing!

I watched helplessly as the doubt monster flung all my ideas out the window. (Oops, I already described the doubt as a cloud and now it's a monster. I guess it was a cloudy monster...or a monstrous cloud. Either way, it stomped on my happiness.)

After the conversation, I drove to school to pick up the kids. I parked the car and walked across campus to sit on a bench overlooking the beach. Yes, you read that right, my kids go to school by the beach. Life is crazy.

The benches are at the edge of a drop-off that goes down to a second ledge and then the beach. From here, I had a beautiful view of the water and the mainland in the distance. On this day, the view took my breath away. A storm approached and dark clouds shaded the water, turning it to a beautiful turquoise, like a sparkling gem. I was overcome with peace.

God orchestrated that storm: the rain-filled clouds, the color of the water, the cool wind. He was completely in control of it. If He can do all of that--can create something so magnificent--He can guide me to prepare for this retreat.

"Remember to extol his work, which men have praised in song. All mankind has seen it; men gaze on it from afar. How great is God--beyond our understanding!...He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds...God's voice thunders in marvelous ways he does great things beyond our understanding." (from Job 36 and 37)