Tag: grief

War Stories part 2

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Stories have always helped to give me a picture of something I can’t otherwise understand. A story takes something abstract like a war, and gives it faces, places, names, and feelings. When the people in the stories feel real to you, you can’t help but feel what they feel as your mind’s eye sees what they see. Stories teach our hearts empathy and can shape our emotions into actions—whether they be prayer, lament, protest, or giving. 

I’ll continue sharing Sudanese stories with you in this post to let you meet them in their experiences so you can better understand the war they’re living through. The following stories are difficult. They deal with genocide, rape, war violence, and other traumas. Each section has a heading so you can avoid topics that might be too difficult for you, but know that I never give graphic details. My goal is to walk with you as a guide, not to leave you feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. So, like in the last post I’ll share scripture and prayer points that have helped me respond to each story. 

My hope is that these stories will help you to remember the Sudanese—with prayer, with visits, with kindness, in whatever ways the Lord prompts. One of the most common fears I’ve encountered with any refugee friends is the fear of being forgotten and left alone. Too often in their times of deepest need they have been met with indifference and neglect, if not cruelty. By the very nature of their situations, they have lost so many relationships through war or displacement that the thought of being ignored or left alone deeply grieves them. They can carry a deep sorrow that people may shrink away from them in their need, or forget them because it’s uncomfortable to face their situations. Of course they need material help, but the emotional gift of sharing in their grief or offering a prayer is also important, and it often lasts longer. So for this reason I share their stories with you, so they will not be forgotten. 

Trauma: The Reporters

 I met both women over a year apart, but they were alike in many ways. Both were capable women who seemed to be the keystone of their families. And both had to flee Sudan for their lives and to protect their families from further threat. One woman was a highly educated reporter, and her commitment to exposing injustices in a country destabilized by the brewing war landed her in the crosshairs of powerful people. She showed me pictures of her acid burns the first time we met, almost proudly. Her reporting was helping to spread her people’s stories so the world could see and respond with help. 

She was now in her second country since she fled, and she left family members behind she hoped no one would targeted now that she was out of the way. She and one of her daughters with her still lived like they were hunted, careful of how loudly they spoke certain things, and fleeing people who still threatened them for what they believed and shared even two countries away. 

The other woman had lived in an internally displaced people’s camp within Sudan before she fled years ago. She reported serial rape in the camps to authorities, hoping someone with the power to stop it would intervene. But through corruption, her reports were leaked, and the very people raping to control women and frighten them into silence targeted her and her family. Her story of a chance warning and her harrowing escape even while she could hear her children crying and her husband being beaten was horrific. But she knew that leaving would spare them further abuse. So now she had lived for years separated from her children, the youngest of whom was an infant when she had to flee alone. 

Both of these women have been blacklisted, and cannot return to their homes for the foreseeable future for the safety of their families. Both are among the strongest and most resilient women I know, but the human mind and body have their limits. Mental trauma of this magnitude is debilitating, especially if you experience it in a foreign country without a support system or access to counseling. The second woman was finally reunited with her children who fled the most recent wave of violence. But she suffered from memory loss, crippling anxiety, and debilitating chronic physical issues that were the product of years of extreme cumulative stress from the mental trauma she had endured. 

I recently spoke with a South African eye surgeon after she served for two weeks giving vision-restoring cataract surgery to Sudanese. She was confused at how little response they gave when suddenly they could see again, especially compared to some of her regular patients who would dance or sing. We discussed their mental trauma, and the self-preservation of low expectations and not daring to believe change for good can really last. But many Sudanese I know also carry with them a “sideways hope.” Outwardly they expect the worst case scenarios, but inwardly they bravely keep hope kindled in their heart. As a favorite writer of mine so well described it, “For people habitually up against it… hope is something too sacred to be spoken. It belongs in the heart, not in the mouth.”[1] The mental trauma Sudanese carry may be disabling, but many still cherish hope when they have every reason not to. They may try to hide the effects of their trauma because they have a distorted sense of what every person should be able to carry without complaining, but hidden or not, their resilience is radiant. 

Genesis 16; 21:1-21

 Hagar’s story of trauma, abuse, and shame can feel too heavy for the cursory treatment the Bible seems to give it. But what Scripture doesn’t do is hide the shameful treatment she received at the hands of Abraham and Sarah. The account of her story does not excuse those parents of our faith of their behavior or explain it away. As Muslims, many of the Sudanese are Hagar’s spiritual descendants. Like her, their very presence is too often considered a shameful testament to someone else’s sin we would rather forget. They are often expected to cover or hide themselves to protect their communities from the shame of exposure—of domestic abuse their bodies would show, of the brutal control their female genital cutting testifies to, of the rape cowardly men forced on them and shameful men ignored. But the Bible does not ignore Hagar’s story. In fact, it takes care not to hide the sin of powerful men like Bathsheba’s king, and the dynasty-founding families of Dinah and both Tamars. Genesis takes care to call Hagar Abraham’s wife, to show in even more disgraceful detail the treatment she deserved but was denied. And at the climax of Hagar’s reprehensibly traumatic story, when Abraham and Sarah send her away rather than face their sin and its consequences, God SEES her. And HEARS her child’s suffering. God drew near to the broken-hearted Hagar just like he does to traumatized Sudanese women whose depth of pain no one else truly sees or hears.  

Pray for Sudanese dealing with mental trauma. 

  • Pray for God to provide families and communities they can safely share their experiences with so they can be comforted.
  • Pray for mental health professionals and therapy options to help Sudanese process their traumatic experiences.
  • Ask God to comfort them with his love and be near them with his Spirit so they do not feel alone or abandoned in their suffering and its aftermath.
  • Pray that Sudanese men and women would not carry the shame of what has been done to them and would be able to clearly see that their value is not diminished by the cruelty they have been shown.
  • Pray that like the Biblical authors, we who are not Sudanese would not cover or ignore their suffering, but instead would respond with respect and compassion. 

War: The Village School

We drove three hours from the nearest hub town across sometimes indiscernible roads to reach their village. “Out in the middle of nowhere” was an understatement. We traveled with friends of ours as they were returning home. Their grins in the back of the car were the biggest I’ve ever seen them, as they chatted with excitement for us to meet their people and see their home. 

 We shared their excitement to get to see their homeplace, but that wasn’t the only reason we were going. This village, out in the middle of nowhere, with no military base anywhere nearby, had recently been bombed from the air. One bomb fell harmlessly up in the mountains where no one lived. Another fell down a well and only property was damaged. But the third was dropped on a school while it was in session. Around fifteen children and teachers died on site, and dozens more were injured. We were traveling out with our friends to offer our condolences and sit with the village in its grief. 

I experienced a disorienting emotional whiplash as we finally rounded the last bend and caught our first glimpse of the village through the scraggly bushland surrounding it. The lively chatter in the car fell deadly silent as we caught sight of the school partially in rubble. A subdued voice asked if we wanted to stop there first and see it, but someone told the driver to go ahead and take us to the gathering point where we planned to meet everyone. I tried not to think of the sound of the plane overhead, or the chaos that would have ensued as this peaceful village frantically rushed to dig children out of the rubble. 

We sat with the village leaders and some of the fathers who had lost family members. They showed us kind hospitality and eagerly welcomed us. We offered prayers and some encouragement from God’s Word. But our words and presence with their grief felt so small in the shadow of that school, under the gaze of those fathers’ hollow eyes. There were not strategic resources the military could have gained here. This village and its people weren’t even active in the war that was taking place farther north. The bombing was completely senseless, and could have no other purpose than fear and destruction. But in every story I’ve heard, that’s how this war is. It’s senseless violence that will consume you if you try to understand the why behind it. 

As we left I experienced that emotional whiplash again. I was still mulling over the experience when my friend stood on tiptoe to poke his grizzled head through the car window and talk to me as I was climbing in. “You didn’t have time to come to my house this time!” he said. The engine was turning over and we were seconds from pulling out. “Next time you come you are welcome! You’ll have to meet my son! He’s the one your age, and he could use another wife!” he joked, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. As we pulled out past the school that I barely even noticed after that proposal, I realized that was how they did it. This village lived under the looming war balancing sorrow when it struck with laughter and kindness when they could find it. 

Job

The book of Job isn’t a comfortable one. The conversations between Job and his ‘friends’ seems like a maze of the accepted wisdom of his age and ours, which God discounts by the end anyway. We can be tempted to see the final point of Job as, “Suffering doesn’t make sense. Period.” But in the end of the book, what Job learns when God speaks is that we may not understand God’s long-term plans or the big picture or how he enacts justice. But suffering isn’t senseless. Even if we don’t understand, God sees and plans so much more than we can. And not only that, God heard Job every step of the way. God knew Job’s suffering and grief, his faithfulness and his despair. God knew Job and honored him—both when he proudly pointed Job’s faithfulness out to Satan and when he blessed Job after the suffering passed. 

We cannot understand the senseless suffering in Sudan, but by wisdom so much higher than ours, God does. He knows and feels each broken heart and cherishes each soul that faithfully clings to him in the suffering as Job did. But Job saw God’s plan only imperfectly. When he begged for a helper, someone to take the suffering in his place and advocate for him to God, it was the wish of a broken man who thought it impossible. But after Jesus, we and the Sudanese who suffer can see that wish realized. The Holy Spirit is our advocate to God and can bring us near to him. And Jesus not only took God’s punishment in our place, but physically shared in the same kinds of suffering we may face and empathizes with us as we endure. 

Pray for Sudanese impacted by the war and its violence. 

  • Pray for those who have lost loved ones, that God would be near to them in their grief.
  • Pray for Sudanese who believe God only expects them to endure suffering. Ask that they would understand our God is a suffering servant who can join them in their pain and sorrow.
  • Pray that through this war, God would draw many Sudanese to himself as they search for someone to save and protect them.
  • And pray for Sudanese to come to know Jesus personally as the same redeemer and helper Job hoped for. 
Image generated by Gencraft LLC. Text from the NLT.

Genocide: The College Student

I sat across the supper table from him after a discussion about his potential. He had just finished high school—late because of the years of interruption from the war—and he was considering where he might be able to get an IT degree. He was by most measures a fairly normal college-aged guy. He held his smartphone and his attention drifted to it during lulls in the conversation. He had just teased me like my own brother his age about how much shorter I was than him. But in a few important ways, he wasn’t any normal college guy. He is part of the Masalit tribe, a target of the quickly spreading genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region and of what was widely known as “the first genocide of the 21st century.” That first genocide began in 2003, just in time for the circumstances of his birth to be wrapped up in its horror. He had been displaced from his home for years and I’d never heard him talk about his family before, if they were even still living. 

After a break in conversation I broached the subject of the current genocide happening under the cover of the war, and asked him if other Darfurian tribes besides his were targeted as well. Contrary to the hesitance I expected, his eyes lit up. “That’s actually a very good question,” he said, eager to explain to someone who cared to know. He launched into a welcome history lesson, quick to share about his people’s dignity and strength and their difficult past. “My country,” he would say, as he proudly showed pictures of the flag, or political borders, or the beautiful landscape. He radiated a fierce sense of national identity and autonomy as he shared about the many and complicated reasons others are willing to commit genocide and martial rape. Many want control of his people’s land and its bountiful resources, and there are generations of tensions between Arabized tribes who consider the Masalit and other Darfurians inferior and want to rid the world of them. Some in Darfur want to split from Sudan entirely to be their own nation. But as things are now, many Masalit like my friend are displaced in many different countries, and some even as far as Europe. 

I mentioned the international news coverage, and how more people around the world are starting to hear about his people and what they’re suffering. He said, “What you see in the news is not real. What I have seen with my own eyes, the killing and the raping, you cannot understand that from the news.” He sat quietly for a while, leaving unsaid many more atrocities than any 23-year-old should have to experience. 

And then just like that, he flipped his phone around again to show me a picture of two hyena cubs he had caught and raised. He explained how abundant they were in Masalit land and how people caught or raised them for meat. But with a crooked grin he told me how he’d managed far from his homeland to catch and raise these two—Biter and Scratcher in his language—like security dogs, and later sold them to help support his schooling. He was carrying on as normal a life as any 23-year-old could despite the genocide: trying to make ends meet, enjoying a thrill of danger and the shock value of his adventures, wanting to travel the world and get an IT degree to get a stable job and have a future. 

Habakkuk

On the year anniversary of the coup, I sat with three Sudanese pastors around a table and they shared what they thought about the war and the future of Sudan. They lamented how many were suffering without cause. Some said they thought God was using the war to root out wicked men in power. They discussed how the instability exposed false gods or faith in the wrong deity and gave people maybe their first real prospect of turning to God. They agreed that only God could deliver the people of Sudan from this war and save them. One said, “God is still doing his work in the middle of this war.” 

These observations are exactly the same as Habakkuk’s in his small book. He considers the wickedness of his own people, and then regards God’s plan first with horror when he hears that a nation will bring war to them. Like Habakkuk’s people in his time, the Sudanese face unimaginable cruelty and violence. But also like Habakkuk’s people, they are having a chance to see God’s work that is hard to believe without seeing it for yourself. Muslims from tribes that cannot remember a time before Islam are uprooted and questioning for the first time if their faith is true, and if it can sustain them. At the end of his book, Habakkuk comes to an acceptance born only of his faith in a powerful but loving and merciful God. Though devastation surrounds him, Habakkuk chooses to depend on the Lord to be his strength. Even in famine, violence, and disaster, the God who saves him inspires joy in Habakkuk’s spirit. This same God calls to the Sudanese and offers them the same hope. 

Pray for the Sudanese facing genocide. 

  • Pray that God would provide a way for them to get to safety.
  • Pray that their homes and cultures and livelihoods would be preserved through the upheaval as they flee.
  • Pray for God to protect especially the defenseless among the targeted Darfurian tribes.
  • Pray for those committing the genocide—that God would help them to see clearly through their generations of hatred and the battle fever so that they cannot murder another man, woman, or child without feeling the eternal weight of their actions.
  • Ask God for the justice only he can give, and for ultimate reconciliation and peace. 
  1. Go read Benjamin Myers’ post, “Advent in Oklahoma,” on the Front Porch Republic site. He wrote a beautifully expressive reflection of a waiting hope particular to Oklahoma Plains people. As an Oklahoman myself working with Sudanese, I found a sort of kinship in the way we both persistently, stubbornly wait and silently hope. https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/12/advent-in-oklahoma/ ↩︎

War Stories part 1

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The War

Sudan has been at war for over a year. Many still have not recovered and returned ‘home’ from the last waves of violence, and the country was just finally beginning to let out its breath and hope for a time of peace. But instead, the peaceful civilian government they hoped for a year ago is only a broken dream now. The capital city of Khartoum is a smoking, shattered ruin. Much of the country has been ravaged by war as two military factions fight for control over the hollow husk of a country they have left in their wake. 

Millions of people have been displaced from their homes and fled to different parts of the country or to other countries entirely. Again and again the mass casualties from these clashes are civilians caught in crossfire. People can’t access necessities like medicine, food, basic health care, or clean water because soldiers raid or destroy what little is available. Roads aren’t safe and gas and transportation prices are unthinkable because the military routinely seizes goods and demands bribes for passage along the normal supply routes. 

Schools and orphanages have been bombed. City blocks and villages alike have been burned to the ground in places. People flee their homes when they are so desperate escaping on foot is their best option, only to lose family members along the way to military factions that bomb and burn civilian targets for no other reason than to spread fear and destroy resources. 

Systematic rape is an expected weapon of war to control and terrorize both the men who can’t protect their families and the women who lose their social standing and the last scraps of morale they had to hold their broken families together. Sieges and road blocks create artificial famine to demoralize and destabilize any who would resist military forces. And under the cover of this horrific war, the sparks of genocide have already started to rage into wildfire. Whole swathes of the country are now depopulated of certain Darfurian tribes; they have fled because they’re convinced that life in a refugee camp is better than continuing to watch the military target and murder their people by the hundreds. 

The Stories

These horrors—genocide, famine, inescapable trauma, displacement, and war—are so far outside our experience they’re hard to understand. Something that evil, that abominable, is hard enough to wrap our minds around, especially when we can’t put a face to it. So I want to give you stories. I want to give you some ‘faces’ to this war so that you can understand a small part of it. 

I’m no reporter. I’m not writing to propose a solution or help you choose a side. I can’t give you the facts and figures of the war in Sudan. But I can share stories. Sudanese who have survived these atrocities are my friends. Their stories weigh heavy in my heart, because through their experiences I have begun to understand the war. I hope that by sharing some of their stories, you can begin to understand too. 

May we together be driven to our knees in prayer. 

I won’t share these friends’ names, but perhaps that’s just as well. Their stories mirror so many others I have heard that, without names, at least one of these stories could apply to almost any given person who has been uprooted in Sudan. Be warned, these stories are difficult. But they’re worth knowing. These people are worth knowing and caring about. 

I’ll share one story in this post, and three others in the following one. Each story will illustrate some aspect of what Sudanese face: displacement, genocide, war, and trauma. To help as you hear these heavy stories, I’ll share some of the scripture and prayer points that have helped me process them with lament, hope, or truth that does not waver in the face of the suffering of this world. 

Displacement: The Sisters

These two women had been like sisters since childhood. They called each other by childhood nicknames, teasing back and forth good-naturedly about being old or crying like a baby while cutting onions. They had fled from the war back to the small village where they had grown up. Their jobs in the city were gone, so they took whatever work they could to make ends meet and support their families. They rarely spoke of their husbands, who were dead or no longer took part in the family. The women worked long hours and never complained. 

When I first met them they often talked about returning ‘home’ when the war settled down. They held out hope, and their contented joy came only from a deep faith that sustained them through their unimaginable losses of family members, future, and livelihood. They talked easily about crossing desert mountain ranges on foot as they fled. They shared grim jokes about the deadly scorpions and snakes they faced along the way. Their stories about bombed out buildings they took shelter in left a more haunted look behind their eyes. One of the few signs of trauma they couldn’t hold back betrayed the difficulties they had lived through: when you meet one of the women after a long time away, she breaks down into shaking sobs. For so many friends and family members, she never knew which goodbye would be the last one, and who wouldn’t survive until she could see them again. 

These ‘sisters’ are in a multi-stage displacement. First fleeing their city home with their children, they came back to the place of their birth, or their tribal homeland. Here, they could find work, speak the language, and rely on a network of relatives to help cushion their displacement when they arrived with little more than the clothes on their back. 

As the war dragged on though, they began to see that going back wouldn’t be an option anytime soon. In at least one of their cases, there was no ‘home’ to go back to. Their village home they were in now was never meant to be more than a stopover, and they were beginning to see they needed a better long-term option. 

After the war passed the one-year mark, the women started to talk of traveling elsewhere. One’s daughter needed somewhere with a university so she could study and hope for a job to make her future. The whole family would have to move with her, so they could work better jobs to afford to put her through school. As the war further dried up resources in their village home, the other woman needed more stable work just to support her family, and she hoped for a more consistent school for her younger children. Both women are contemplating a move to different countries now—with unfamiliar languages and cultures—for a better life for their children. They live in the uncertainty of not knowing when or if things will change back ‘home.’ They have decided it’s less risky for their family to move somewhere completely foreign than to wait with hope for an increasingly hopeless war to resolve. So they wait and hope for money to travel. And I like many of their other friends don’t know when or if I’ll see them again after they move. 

Jeremiah 29:1-14; Hebrews 11:13-16

We often forget the context of the famous verse, “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah wrote it in a prophetic letter to Israelites who were displaced from their homeland and had no idea when they’d return home or what to do in the meantime. God told the people to settle where they landed, to build and grow and marry and have families. If they worked to help the city flourish, they would flourish too—even as a displaced people inside the city. God promised the Israelites that one day he would bring them back home to their land. That same promise may not apply in the same way to displaced Sudanese, but we can hold to the promise that God plans to give them hope and a future. If Sudanese seek God like this passage promises, they will find him. And he may not bring them home in this lifetime, but they have a promise of a heavenly city that will be more a home to them than any place on earth could ever be. 

Pray for those displaced within Sudan.

  • Pray for God to provide for their daily needs like food and medical attention.
  • Pray also for their temporary new homes to provide some respite from the terror of war.
  • Ask God to give them family or friends to support them and help them to adjust after all they have experienced.
  • Ask God to give them wisdom to decide how long and where they should stay. 

Pray for those displaced outside of Sudan.

  • As they live among foreign cultures and different languages they can feel very isolated and alone. Pray for God to give them friends and neighbors who love them well and help them settle in their new homes.
  • Ask God to give them work that can support their families and build up their communities.
  • Pray for all of these displaced to know God’s peace, and to feel that he has been with them and guided their journeys to places of safety. 

An Old Exile and a New War

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Sudan is at war. 

The uneasy, unsettled surface of relative peace in Sudan cracked to reveal unresolved conflict that may continue for a long time to come. After genocidal dictator Bashir was ousted in 2019, Sudan’s military leaders took temporary control of the country under internationally brokered plans to hand the country back to civilian rule according to a set timeline. 

In the past weeks, deadlines were not met, and two military factions began all-out war to secure sole rule over the country. The fighting has been centered in Khartoum, the capital. And Sudanese there and around the world have watched in horror as the heart of their country and culture has spiraled into chaos. Infrastructure has broken down—water, food, and electricity are inconsistent at best, as well as phone and Wi-Fi communication networks and basic travel routes. 

Hospitals were first overflowing, then running out of supplies because of looting or inability to restock, and many had to finally close their doors because staff and patients couldn’t get there through the crossfire in the streets. The international airport is bombed and smoldering. People are escaping on foot if they have to, across any borders they can access. Dead bodies lie decaying in the streets because there are no relatives left to bury them, or no way to retrieve them and find a place to put them to rest. As the war has dragged on, wartime atrocities have increased in the chaos, including armed robbery and rape even of young girls. Most Sudanese are in shock. The civilians want nothing to do with this war, and they feel powerless to protect their own families. 

A few of my friends are there. Exponentially more of my friends’ families are there. My heart is heavy and I grieve with many of them as they deal with everything from survivor’s guilt to waiting interminably to hear from family members if they’ve survived the last few days. We’ve lamented and cried and prayed. But mostly, we wait. And we try to handle the worry and the fear the best we can from afar. I have turned to stories from the Exile in the Old Testament. They feel so very alive under the shadow of the war. 

Studying scripture within a different culture gives different eyes to see it with. When I lived and worked with people who experienced oppression and racism because of their ethnicity, it highlighted new realities in the Bible for me. I personally knew teenaged boys who had both a secret name from their culture, and a separate name in the language and culture they interacted with at school and in daily life outside their homes. The stories about Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah took on a whole new meaning. As those young boys learned to operate in a culture that penalized them for being Hebrews, they had to take on the names and culture and learning of a different people to survive. They walked a difficult tightrope of preserving their culture and their faith in God, while still trying to build a life and a home in a foreign culture. They became Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 

Living myself in a few different places over the past years, the opening stories in the book of Ezekiel gained fresh life for me as well. God appears to his people exiled to a foreign land in the bizarre shape of a holy throne room that roves the earth attended by angels with many faces, and wheels that can travel vast distances in any direction. Feeling country-less and uprooted myself, I felt with fresh warmth the love of a God whose presence is everywhere with his people, not limited by the geography of a church or a tabernacle. He is not constrained by borders on a map or languages, or even a particular culture’s understanding of what God should look or be like. He can be both foreign and familiar to me when I feel both my new home and my own heart to be a shifting mixture of foreign and familiar. When I feel like I have many different faces in the cultures I travel between, God shows himself and his servants to be all things to all people as well, and to carry many faces looking in many different directions too. 

And now that I live in Uganda and rub shoulders with people who daily live the realities of refugees exiled unwillingly from their homeland, the stories from Israel’s exile come alive in whole new ways as well. I returned to Ezekiel again, as I told a friend, “like snuggling into warm blankets.” This book was written by someone freshly grappling with living the rest of his life in a land that felt unfamiliar and hostile. And though he speaks difficult truths to his own people about the depth of their sin and the extent God would go to in order to break them from their self-destructive habits, Ezekiel also shared perfect jewels of hope specifically tailored to comfort these same people. As I watched Sudanese friends here begin to grapple with the effects of the war, I knew I needed to dig deep into these exile stories to better understand their experiences. And I hoped to find answers for my own aching spirit about what possible good the Lord could bring to Sudan and her people out of such abominations.

Many verses and themes in Ezekiel have felt particularly “present” in connection to the war. The vision of God’s four-faced cherubim and the wheels covered in eyes the roam the earth has been a comfort again. It’s a reminder that God is never far from his people, and that his eyes see all the atrocities and his justice will not ignore them. It has been a comfort too, to know that just as God called Ezekiel to be a prophet to his people, so God continues to raise up believing Sudanese to share his Word and his message of salvation with their own people. 

It is also a bitter truth that Ezekiel saw God’s Glory, or presence, leaving the temple. He ‘left’ the people of Israel after they repeatedly ignored and disobeyed the very God who had protected them. But even this was a mercy, to show the people that without him, they can only be lost and scattered—fearful, unprotected, unable to fend for themselves. An overwhelming majority of Sudanese are Muslims. One of my recurring prayers has been for this war to help them see their need for God, and to drive them into his embrace where they will experience his sufficiency to meet their needs, peace that passes understanding, and personal, motherly love. 

But some of Ezekiel has read like looking in a mirror. As he taught about the siege of Jerusalem, he ate small, measured amounts of food, and sipped his allotment of water anxiously to show the desperation people would feel when they would not be able to find enough food and water to live on. He also graphically demonstrated the fear of violence the people would live under, the city streets scattered with bodies, and the overwhelming amount of death from starvation, disease, and brutality. I’ve heard those same feelings of desperation almost every time someone shares an update from relatives still in Sudan, and some of the exact Biblical words and phrases in the mouths of my friends have sent a chill down my spine. 

Those in Jerusalem couldn’t believe Ezekiel when he told them war would come to their city, that their pride and joy, the heart of their country, would be under attack. I have heard that same shock as people here have talked about the war, about the smoke rising and the rockets exploding in their capital. One friend turned to me spoke like an Old Testament prophet herself when she said, “In Khartoum people closed their eyes to the war in Darfur [the genocide in western Sudan for nearly the past twenty years]. They said, ‘nothing will happen to us. We are safe here.’ Khartoum slept and now the war has come for them.” 

Like Ezekiel when he fell down and cried out to the Lord to ask if he would destroy the entire remnant of his people, my friends and I have wondered and asked God what will be left of Khartoum, of Sudan when or if this fighting finally stops. The second time Ezekiel falls on his face and asks this question (11:13), the Lord’s answer froze me, and I held my breath as I read: 

“… the people of Jerusalem have said of your fellow exiles and all the other Israelites, ‘They are far away from the Lord; this land was given to us as our possession.’

Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.’

Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’

They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it. The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia in the vision given by the Spirit of God.”

Ezekiel 11:15-24

Wow. The Sudanese refugees mourn their land. It is their family heritage, their possession. I have seen the extra grief of loved ones buried in Ugandan soil, and the burden of knowing they will be left behind if their family can ever return to Sudan. Their ‘exile’ as refugees feels like a punishment, like a sign that God is far from them. But God says otherwise. 

The Sudanese are not the same as the Israelites, and they don’t have the same promises and covenant that God gave to them. But God is the same God. And his heart toward his children holds the same loving care and desire to heal and reconcile them to himself. So, like the Israelites, God has sent many Sudanese away from their homeland. And as they have been scattered in Egypt and South Sudan and Uganda and Chad and elsewhere, he has been a sanctuary for them. 

God has protected many Sudanese displaced from their homes over these long years of war. He has been a place of comfort and safety for them even if, like the Israelites Ezekiel spoke to, they did not even acknowledge him as their God. But we hope and pray that, like God has done for many of the Jews, he will gently gather back the Sudanese and give them back their homeland. 

As I lament and pray, will you pray with me? Will you pray that through this painful and horrific process, when the Sudanese do return home, it will not be with worship and devotion to ancestors or evil spirits or any other false gods in their hearts—that they will return with an undivided heart and a new spirit. 

Just as God has done throughout all history for those who have believed and followed him, he can take away the Sudanese’s hearts of stone that are dead and numb and enslaved to sin. And he can give them soft hearts that turn toward him. We pray it may be so, Holy Spirit. May the Sudanese be your people, and you their God. Let those who have begun this war, who continue to hunger for violence, bring down their own punishment on their heads. 

Lord, may your glory and your presence still hover near to the Sudanese, and may those still waiting in exile find comfort in your words and in your heart for restoration. 

Abuses of Faith

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Content warning: This post addresses endemic sexual and spiritual abuse within Southern Baptist churches. No graphic descriptions are given, but please care for yourself if this content could be triggering.

Many of you have at least seen this week’s headlines about the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Southern Baptist churches are loosely autonomous, but united under the SBC and the same understanding of doctrine. The SBC and its organizations range from church planters in the States (North American Mission Board—NAMB), to missionaries and church planters overseas (the International Mission Board—IMB) to the Southern Baptist Seminaries and State conventions of cooperating churches in most of the 50 States.

If you have read the news this week, you have learned of the horrific extent to which spiritual leaders have abused those under their care. Those who were meant to be shepherds, instead of caring for their people have directly abused them or covered up for those who did. Not every pastor or every church has been implicated, but the shocking numbers from a third party report indicate that many more of us have been touched by this egregious sin that we would like to believe. If you would like to read the full report, you can find it here, as well as the actions proposed by the investigation team. 

My Experience

I have a particular stake in this endemic abuse. While I have not been sexually assaulted by a Baptist leader, I have been in the petri dish that provides a nurturing environment for abusers. I have both experienced great abuse and brokenness within the SBC, and great healing and care. If you are tempted to breeze past these headlines, to wonder why they’re important to you beyond this week, I want to tell you. If you have experienced abuse and lived in the dark with it, I am so very sorry. I want to speak up with you and stand by your side when you cannot speak. 

Too often, to our shame, abuse survivors are pushed to the side. Their stories are silenced or muffled, or worse, discredited and ignored because their words are ‘divisive’ or ‘hyperbole,’ or perhaps because they’re seen as a radical whose beliefs do not align with most Baptists. If my experiences and my history mean anything to you, if they help you sympathize with abuse survivors or recognize the lifelong consequences of abuse, I will share them. If the platform I stand on helps you listen or understand, I will use it. 

I was born to Southern Baptist parents, and even after multiple moves I have only ever been a member of Southern Baptist churches. SBC summer mission camps led me to follow the Lord to the mission field overseas and in the States. I have faithfully attended, volunteered at, spoken, and taught in these churches, and worked for nearly 6 years overseas with the IMB. But more than those facts can show, Baptists have been home for me. They have prayed for me, fed me, paid my salary, and been my family. They have discipled me and held me while I healed. I have come to know the Lord and follow him in obedience through a Southern Baptist lens. 

But I have experienced sexual harassment and mild assault while performing my job with the SBC, and many of my claims were ignored or handled poorly. I was asked not to speak openly about these experiences for a variety of reasons. I have experienced specific instances of discrimination from IMB leadership, both as a woman and as an unmarried person. I suffered sustained emotional and spiritual abuse from IMB leadership, and experienced retaliation and reprisal as a result of reporting this abuse. And while some of my concerns were heard and responded to in the end, the hurt and trauma are not erased. 

I bear these emotional scars, and they run deep enough to affect the rest of my life. Like Paul when he ‘foolishly boasted’ to the Corinthians, I share these facts not out of pride or desire for respect or notoriety. I foolishly speak of these things to this end: I wish for you who read this to understand that my words are written here not out of a spirit of malice or a desire to sow disunity. I want you to know that my eyes see the decaying roots in the SBC, my experiences help me to understand it, and my memories still feel the rot. 

I still have tremors in my hands when I walk into a church. The part of me before who could speak freely and movingly to a congregation has been quieted and replaced by a dry-mouthed and fumbling speaker, unsure and shrunken under the gaze of men and women whom my mind will no longer allow me to instinctually trust. I have questioned many times whether I should leave my work in the hands of others and abandon what feels like a sinking ship. I have fought with my conscience time and again over the ethics of my paycheck. And I have stood my ground with the support of other Southern Baptists to leverage my experiences for the sake of repairing that sinking ship. 

What This Means for Survivors

To any of you who have left the SBC denomination because it is no longer safe for you, to any who have stepped aside from churches at wide because they have not healed from damage and hurts, to any who see the apostasy, hypocrisy, or corruption of the SBC and their consciences will no longer allow them to stay: I understand and stand with you. I sympathize and empathize. The Lord will give us all convictions, and obedience and self-protection can look different for each of us. 

But to those of you who stay, you need to understand what an abuse survivor may have experienced. Unfortunately, sexual abuse is part and parcel of power abuse at large. Believers still sin, and those far from the Lord and walking in sin can fall into patterns of abusing whatever influence or control they hold. This love for power is the same root underneath racism, sexism, discrimination, spiritual abuse, and emotional abuse in our churches. And if any of you are completely shocked that such abuse could happen here—in our fellowship halls or youth rooms—you have not been listening to the voices of your brothers and sisters with different shades of skin who have cried out about the mistreatment they’ve experienced from behind our pulpits. You’ve chosen to look aside from the smaller paycheck the women or divorcees on church staff receive compared to others. You’ve failed to recognize when singles are understood to be less spiritually mature than married individuals on principle. 

If you have missed these signs of abuse or neglect, there is plenty of time to open your eyes to them and recognize that they are not accidental or isolated incidents. You have plenty of time to turn your eyes to your wounded brother on the side of the road instead of walking by. These reports show clear patterns of abuse across our denomination, and the safe assumption right now is that you know other church members who’ve been abused, and that your church could do better in preventing or caring for abuse victims. 

To let these headlines pass you by without evaluating your actions is tantamount to what David did for Tamar. After David’s illicit sex with Bathsheba (arguably rape), it took him some time to see his sin. When he did, he repented and married her, but that was not enough to bring her husband back from the dead, or to save their baby from death. Later on in David’s life, his greater love for his sons, or his own hesitancy to hold others accountable for mistakes he felt capable of making himself, kept him from caring for his own daughter Tamar when she had been raped by his son. That sin festered all the days of their lives. Tamar lived alone and abandoned. Her rapist was murdered by a half-brother who’d fruitlessly urged David to take action. And the half-brother murderer soon claimed David’s throne for his own and exiled his father, before the son’s tragic death and David’s overwhelming grief. Abuse festers. When we are tempted to ignore it, only exponential hurt can come from that path. 

Because of the manipulation inherent to abuse, many survivors like myself still struggle to tell their story without still wondering, in their heart of hearts, if it wasn’t their fault. And telling their story can be painful, often because in the SBC environment we live in, the risk of not being believed and the consequences that would follow are just too great. Will they be fired from their jobs? Lose their standing in the church or community? Will they be blamed for disrupting peace? Will they lose their church family altogether and be looked on with mistrust until they finally leave the church voluntarily? 

Those are all fears and consequences we have in our hands to change. By denouncing abuse openly, we set minds at ease who fear revealing it. By aligning ourselves more with the kingdom of God than any political or administrative kingdom, gender or skin color here on earth, survivors can trust us more to treat them with the compassion and healing Jesus would. By openly expressing support for abuse survivors, over the SBC or a particular leader or ideology, we show our value for people made in the image of God. If we truly value each person made in the image of God the same, we owe abuse victims the dignity of valuing them with urgency when they have suffered so great a spiritual, physical, and psychological blow. 

Many abuse victims, myself included, have been answered with the subtly destructive phrase, “let’s keep the main thing the main thing,” or its variation of “We need to put the gospel first.” But recognize with me, church, that the gospel is not just a message of Jesus on a cross and heaven eternal. The gospel message was embodied in Jesus, whose kingdom values compelled him to welcome women as well as men in his closest circle of followers. The gospel compelled Jesus to provide care for his marginalized mother even as he was dying on the cross. The gospel compelled Jesus to stop his teaching and welcome little children to him. The gospel compelled Jesus to stand between a woman accused of adultery and to take on her case and shame in the eyes of her accusers. Jesus himself said he came to call out good news to the poor, to release prisoners, give sight to the blind, and set free the oppressed. And those weren’t metaphors or solely spiritual realities. Who else are victims of abuse but the poor in spirit, those blinded in the dark by their isolation, prisoners of lies, oppressed by their abusers?

Church, the gospel IS the main thing, and it compels us with every fiber of our being to be a balm to the hurting. And that includes those abused in our church buildings and by our pastors and leaders. 

Where I Stand

So how am I with all of this? This week has been a hard one. With every next piece of news, both my mind and body have to process through tension, grief, anger, humiliation, helplessness, devastation, and so many more emotions. The grief is so fresh and deep that some days I feel like I’m right back in the middle of what I experienced. Many others who have suffered church abuse are experiencing the same things. Plenty of you have reached out to listen and encourage, and I have been more than happy to talk with many of you as you process and understand what this means to and for you. I still have plenty to learn myself. But for now, I feel convicted to stay with the dumpster fire and help put out the flames. Having been burned a few times myself, maybe I’ve learned how to help suffocate the fire in the process. 

This very Sunday as I stood trembling in church, praying for the Spirit to overpower my anxiety and help me to worship and learn, the congregation started to sing “He Leadeth me.” In the few churches or groups I’ve spoken to since I’ve been stateside, the ones who’ve reacted most powerfully to what they have heard were the ones I told my personal story to. When I revealed some of my deeper hurts and how the Lord sustained me, others connected to stories of their own and the Spirit connecting us was a strong encouragement. As I sang that song in church, I sank into my seat and fell into a silent prayer. I recognized that the Lord had led me to and through my experiences. He led me out the other side not quite the same Caroline who went in, but with a story to tell and a burning desire to see the church comfort her abused and broken brothers and sisters. 

Later that same Sunday the news broke about the SBC investigation, and the Lord had already answered my questions for me. I will stay and be a safe person for others to come to. I will keep in dialogue with those with IMB and SBC already hard at work to help things change. For now and until I hear otherwise from the Spirit. I’ll be the man Jesus healed who was told to stay and tell his story to his village. I’ll be the woman at the well who took a risk and shared her shame so that others could come to know the Lord. 

I do not believe that our southern Baptist theology and beliefs necessarily end in abuse. Many Baptists on my path toward healing have proved otherwise. But I do believe that our cultural identity at this point does lend itself to abuse. We have to roll up our sleeves and return to the Word to see how Jesus honors the dignity of the vulnerable and oppressed. We have to keep pressing our doctrines and theology until they meet our practice and show through in all the ways we interact with women, men, and sexuality in our churches; until the pages in our Bible reflect the pages of our lives as leaders humbly shepherd, and use their influence to protect and nurture instead of tear down or feed their own egos.

What this Means for You 

Those are my convictions for now, and I plan to continue evaluating to make sure I obey the Lord. You might not land in the same place I do, and that’s okay. But for what it’s worth, my opinion is that further involvement with the SBC should be a choice instead of inaction. If you stay, if you move past this news, please do so with the knowledge of the hurting around you. Do not turn your eyes away from them. If you stay, stay with a task and a calling to learn, to rebuild, to comfort, and to change. 

If you have caught yourself wondering if this affects you, it does. If your body is diseased, the whole system is compromised. Even a small infection can multiply and damage the whole body. In the same way, a disease in your church, however subtle, affects whether or not your body of believers worships in spirit and in truth. If your church’s handling of this causes even one of the little ones who would come to faith to stumble, it would be better for a millstone to be hung around your neck before you’re thrown into the ocean. Jesus is SERIOUS about protecting his sheep, and he is serious about those in power who could cause them to stumble, or mislead them, or even make the gospel unwelcoming and turn away those who could become little children in the faith. 

If you believe this sin is only at higher levels in your church or organization, the same applies: a pattern of sin unchecked at any level is dangerous. As Paul says, an eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you,’ and the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you.’ God put the whole body together, and there should be no division within it. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If we Southern Baptists align ourselves together and understand each other to be a part of the same body of Christ, we cannot ignore a destructive habit in one part of the body and assume it has not manifested in the DNA or cellular level elsewhere. 

If you don’t believe that you are contributing to these problematic abusive patterns, you are most certainly enabling them. I say that not to condemn, but to point out that these patterns that allow abuse are ingrained even at the smallest levels. If you are not knowingly and actively working against them, they will continue on, unchanged. If you are not advocating for transparency and safety in your church, if you aren’t praying for the integrity of your leaders, or advocating for their accountability, you are contributing to a pattern in the same way that the religious leaders left the wounded man on the side of the road because they assumed he wasn’t their problem and would be more trouble than he was worth. 

If you are one who wants to give grace in situations like these, please recognize the nature of grace. In Ephesians 3 and 4, Paul writes about how we are all united by the same faith and the same baptism. If we believe that, we believe that any Christian is united with any other through the same Spirit of God who lives in them. Paul says that he became a servant of the gospel by God’s grace, so that he could make the gospel known to others and it would unite them. Grace unites and makes whole.

God’s grace isn’t something that spares us from judgment: our judgment still exists, and Jesus suffered it in our place. Grace from God is that Jesus suffered to redeem us to live rightly before God. Grace redeems and restores; it does not turn a blind eye to sin. Grace in the case of abuse holds an abuser accountable so that their sin has consequences and they can learn to live more fully like Christ. And grace for an abuse survivor restores them and treats them with the dignity they have as an eternal bearer of the image of God. As Paul says to the Ephesians, “Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” To truly show grace, we must speak truth both to abused and abuser. We must recognize that if sparing a legal consequence of pain for one member causes ungracious suffering for an another in the present or future, it is not grace we show.

            The emotional scars that I bear most likely will not go away in this lifetime, before I see my redeemer face to face. Be mindful that there are similar scars in your congregation. Whatever his reason, the Lord has given me the privilege to see many of my own scars begin to heal. He has given me a community of faith that supports me and reminds me through their own actions how the Lord loves and restores. So as often as I can, I intend to wear my scars as a badge of honor to glorify the Lord. Jesus proudly showed his scars to his followers to testify to the Lord’s power over death. Let my own scars show that, as deeply as sin can wound, the Lord can heal even deeper. As much as my scars may ‘disfigure’ my experiences in church or with spiritual leaders, their dull ache will always remind me of the hope I have in a Lord who will heal all wounds and dry all tears.

If you have experienced sexual abuse, please reach out to safe people around you for help, or go to this website for resources or to file a report. You can also call the national sexual assault hotline 24/7 at 800.656.4673. If you have experienced abuse of any kind connected to the IMB, you can call the confidential hotline at 855.420.0003 or email advocate@imb.org . 

Resources: 

Practical steps: A few simple actions to take in response

  • Talk with your church to clarify how to report abuse.
  • Confirm your church’s procedure on what to do in the instance of an abuse report.
  • Develop a plan or procedure if your church does not already have one.
  • If you work for a faith-based company, educate yourself on their HR procedures and policies.
  • Urge your church or workplace to develop a more formal HR department or procedure to ensure that complaints and accusations are taken seriously.
  • Encourage your church to vet ministers they hire by following up on their references.
  • Help your church plan a service where they address abuse and make their commitment to stand with survivors clear. Your congregation should hear loud and clear that your church is committed not to make it more painful for them to speak up than to stay silent. 
  • If an abuse victim should speak with you about their ordeal, do not treat their confidence lightly. Believe, support, and report. 
  • Give survivors safe time and spaces in which to process and to have holes in their faith.
  • Educate yourself on spiritual abuse so you can understand how an abuse survivor has been made to believe that God himself sees and treats them the way their abuser did. 
  • If someone in your life has been vocal with his or her story of abuse, listen to them and hear their perspectives and experiences.
  • Verify that your faith-based workplace has HR policies for responding not just to sexual abuse, but also to spiritual, physical, and emotional abuse, and advocate for policies if there aren’t any.

At the Border (between the old life and the new)

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We stepped out of the car onto dirt packed hard by thousands of feet that should never have been there in the first place. Refugees are driven here in endless lines by war, and this was one of the first places their feet rested after fleeing Sudan and South Sudan. I had gotten in the car with little-to-no idea of where we were going or how far away it would be. We followed a UN car and listened the whole way to stories about Mama Salome, a Ugandan woman in the car ahead who cared fiercely for the refugees and often spent her days working with them here. They loved her. They unburdened themselves of their stories to her. The people respected her.

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I knew we had arrived by the blue and white UNHCR tarps covering mud and stick structures. Those tarps are recognizable from a mile away. We hopped out of the car, steeling ourselves for what we were about to experience. This was a place on the border of Uganda and South Sudan, a place where thousands of refugees have been first received, processed, given identification cards and basic medical treatments, clothed, and sent on their way to live in the refugee settlements. This site was relatively new. It had been moved there from a location closer to the border. Sometimes stray bullets from the fighting had whizzed overhead. It wasn’t safe. But that word was relative to all the people crowded into this place—over a thousand people today, we were told. They had moved to a location farther than a stone’s throw from the border. And now they were here. I didn’t even know if ‘here’ had a name.

 

In some ways this place was nicer than the refugee camps themselves. There was a kitchen, with wood-fed brick ovens and gigantic pots for cooking huge quantities of rice, posho, or beans, to feed hundreds of starved figures. The water pump never ran dry, and it was only a few yards at most from anywhere on the compound, not miles like some of the water wells in the camps. Everyone was seen at least once by the medical staff. They were given clothing. Conditions can be harder for some once they are transported to their plots of land in the settlements.

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Next to the open-air industrial African kitchen, there was a protection house, completely walled up, floor to roof with sheet metal. That was odd for this area, where the roof usually sits a few inches above the walls to encourage a breeze to enter and bring some relief from the hot equator sun. Just recently, we were told, four Dinka women had to be hidden there. The Dinka are ethnically different from many of the other Sudanese refugees, and in their trauma and anger with no way to vent their emotions, the Dinka people can often become targets of aggression for the other Sudanese. The four Dinka women had to be locked into the protection house to keep them safe from the hundreds of new refugees who wanted to kill them. Police were called and they stood guard around the small building. But in calmer times, the protection house is a place for mothers to birth their babies. As if on cue a woman walked toward us from that direction, carefully holding a bundle of blankets. One of our people walked toward her with a smile, and at a returning smile from the mother, gently pulled back the bundle where a head should be. A days-old baby. The protection house had an apt name. It preserved life and brought it into the world, even here where lives had been treated so cheaply by the war that drove them away.

 

We walked deeper into the compound, toward a long, low building separated into three rooms. To enter the first, we squeezed past a line of people standing in the hot sun. They were all waiting to be sent inside, where they would receive small, yellow, crumpled pieces of paper. These papers were life and death. They had an identification number that registered a family and its members for basic human rights—healthcare, rations, water, a kit of items and tools to make a home in their new places at the camps.

 

We squeezed back out through the lines and this time I felt bold enough to look up at the faces around me. As I raised my head I noticed that my shoulders had unconsciously stooped in response to the sorrow of this place, and under the acknowledgement that the crowds parted for me without question because of the lack of color in my skin. But what really separated me from the people I brushed past? I had grown up in a different country, one not at war. It was the luck of the draw. These men, women, and children, they had lives before. Some had educations, they had homes and family traditions, they had all the members of their families at one time. And now here they were, with nothing to their name except the clothes on their backs. For some, even those clothes were alien. We knew that many times children who have been separated from their families would band together and come across the border in groups, naked and traumatized, after wandering through the bush. We’d brought two small bales of clothing with us today that we gathered in response to one such report of a thousand children coming across with no adult in sight. Today we learned that the men and the women would often come across naked too. Many had been forcibly stripped along the way, and they first came into Uganda without even the dignity of a shirt or a pair of pants.

 

Before I knew it, I’d followed our people into the second room. It had medical posters covering the walls, and the stench of illness in the air. Here everyone was checked for any records they may have of vaccinations and given what they lacked. They were tested for malnutrition or any other diseases they might be carrying and suffering under. Privacy screens hid the patients, and the room was quieter and felt more somber than any other we had been in. The next room in the row had only a waist-high wall on the side facing us. It was originally intended for a children’s play room, we were told. But because of the overflow of refugees, some slept in here. There were cartoonish posters on the wall, and bedrolls on the floor. My brain didn’t know what to make of what I was seeing, and at first impression the room reminded me of some bizarre, out-of-place church nursery.

 

After the last of the rooms in the low building bordering the lot, we came out not far from a large bus. It looked like a charter bus, out of place here. This was the bus that took new families to the camps when they had been processed, either to Imvepi or Omugo where the openings are at the moment. Families stay here at this way-station for anywhere from 3 days to two weeks before they take that bus out. Our guides pointed out a warehouse-like building diagonal from us and perpendicular to the building we had just left. This is where the women and children slept. The men slept separate, all males over the age of 15, at the far end of the lot. We had seen the UN tarps draped and stretched over what must have been their sleeping quarters on our way in.

 

We walked back toward the kitchen area and the water pump, at the opposite side of the rectangular compound. The shock was wearing off some, so we started to use our stumbling Arabic to speak to people and say anything we could—we are praying for you, God bless you, what is your name, I like your smile. The urge to say something, anything, to these people—to remind them that we saw them as humans with names and needs—was so strong. We were starting to feel so small in the face of such need.

 

We followed our bales of clothes over to a flat area. Some of the workers had already laid out plastic mats and started to unpack and sort the clothes. It looked like a big Goodwill bin from America. In fact, some of these clothes might just have come from somewhere like that. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed over a tiny lavender dress with a sparkly tutu attached at the waist. We laughed as the workers raised a little boy’s costume shirt—soft green back, pale tan belly, and a ridged dinosaur tail handing off the center of the back. As the clothes were sorted, tables were brought for them to be laid out on in stacks of size and gender. The people began gathering in a crowd to save a spot in line for their children to have some clothes. We stood around and tried to strike up conversations.

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Even in this place so much life was happening. Some of the smiles made you forget where you were or what some of the people had been through. But there were always reminders of the displacement and the transient, perpetually uprooted lives these people led. We heard the bus engine crank and several heads looked up in dismay. Several tongues clicked disapproval and frustration. These men and women couldn’t leave the clothing distribution or they’d risk not getting clothes for their children. But I wondered how many had friends on that bus, or fellow travelers that they might not get to see again. And how many got to say goodbye before the bus left?

 

Some of the pairs of eyes were doggedly fixed on the ground, thinking of far-off events in far-off places. Many heads swiveled to look in our direction. They wanted to observe, to touch, to smile. Some of the braver tried out their English to greet us or ask us how we were. I found myself most of the time squatted down and talking to children, or smiling and tentatively sticking out my hand to greet them. The smallest ones are often afraid of our skin and don’t know how to respond. One little boy waved at me and flashed wide grin. I made my way over to him and his siblings to clasp his hand but his face immediately froze in fear and he hid behind big brother’s leg. I raised my gaze to the older siblings, “He’s afraid,” I said in Arabic. They giggled to confirm, and smiled at the familiar sounds in the words.

 

One lady sat on the ground embroidering one of the beautiful Sudanese sheets that are used for everything from bedspreads to seat throws to curtains. Hers was an elephant with gleaming white tusks, surrounded by abstract leaves and flowers, with maybe a few birds begun on the outer edges of the design. I tried to imagine how far that one piece of home had come with her, and where she’d managed to get the needle and embroidery floss. The bright lime green sheet somehow made even this clustered mass of people seem more homely. It was a piece of settled life. She proudly unknotted the edges to show us and model for a picture.

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I wandered off to another part of the mass of people. A small baby was crying hard. His head looked too big for his malnourished body. “He’s hot,” someone said with a knowing smile. No, “He’s sick,” said his mother. Rubbing his back turned into the back of a hand to his forehead, rubbing his head. His mother nursed him to calm him and his eyes closed for an untroubled second. He raised his tiny had to rest it on the arm rubbing his head.

 

I wandered off again, this time finding a mother with a welcoming smile. She held a baby and had two little ones circling her feet. Babies usually cry the loudest at my pale skin, but this one reached out for me. I offered my hand and he was fascinated with it. He held the fingers one at a time and would reach for it again if I ever thoughtlessly dropped it while trying to talk to his mother. The white skin on my palm looked almost luminous in that light, up next to his richly colored fingers. “What is that?” I asked in a high baby voice. “It’s white!” I said in Arabic, to the giggles of those clustered around. The crowd shifted and I said goodbye to this mother so she could move with them and not lose her place in line.

 

A man introduced himself to me, desperately trying to tell his story in English. He had a toddler boy with him, and his said his wife had a five-day old baby. It was hard to understand whether she was here in the camp, if she had passed, or if she was still in Sudan. As the man broke off the conversation to follow the shifting crowd, he said they were making it little by little. “Little by little,” I repeated in Arabic. His eyes brightened and his wiry body almost bounced with energy. “You speak Arabic?” he asked in his heart language. “Little by little,” I said with a sly smile. Later I saw him trying out his English on another of our group. The little toddler was escaping behind him toward the latrines. He was so intent on his conversation he hadn’t noticed until a group of mommas were almost yelling to get his attention. He sprang off after the little one as I turned my head with a smile.

 

We waited around as some of the clothes were handed out. The mass of children who’d been pushed right in front of the tables by their parents was overwhelming. So many and so much need. My Arabic felt so insufficient, but I don’t think I would have had the words in any language to know what to say, how to comfort, how best to listen. As we were leaving one mother pushed her way through the crowd to show us her daughter, beaming in a new dress, posing for us. He mother looked on in pride and thanked us for the clothes. The little one let us take her picture before we said goodbye and walked to the car.

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We all crammed into the car and someone asked to pray before we left. I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak for a while. I’d kept the tears in until we were behind the closed doors of the car, but they came silently in waves for most of the trip home. Thoughts raced through my head quicker than I could sort them out. What can be done in the face of such deep, dehumanizing need? How can you help or encourage? Who was I to even think I had anything to offer to help, or that I could make a difference at all? Pray for my team and me in the coming days as we sort through what we experienced and brainstorm what to do and how to help in situations like these. Pray especially for Casey and me as we consider how to find a way to help, work with, or minister to some of the separated children that come through check-in stations like these and can be sent to the refugee camps without family to speak of, in prime positions for exploitation in many different forms.

The Call to Lament

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In Western cultures, the call to lament is often an uncomfortable one. In a country where it’s easy to avoid seeing pain or loss, where entertainment is the air we breathe, where every screen we see and touch was sold to amuse us in some way, we have to go out of our way to listen to sorrow. We have to seek out hurt if we are to engage it. In our culture built on instant gratification, glamorized social media, and modern convenience we choose when we want to inform ourselves and when we don’t. We can choose to look the other way as we pass a food stamp mom in the grocery store or to avoid the street corner with the homeless man. We can skip commercials for relief agencies on tv, and we can be blissfully unaware of apartment complexes in our own city filled with refugee families.

Christians have a higher obligation to dwell with the grieving in their loss, yet we have let our culture inform us about what is ‘appropriate.’ It isn’t in vogue to schedule up a free afternoon to weep with someone. When someone loses a family member how often do we visit? Do we stay away for fear of impinging on their privacy? Do we send meal or a card in place of our presence in that room with inconsolable loss? When was the last time you held someone rocked with uncontrollable sobs?

No. Grief is for privacy, says our culture. Run to the next thing, return to work, plaster a smile on your ache because you shouldn’t be upset after a few weeks, certainly not in public. As a friend of someone grieving we offer books instead of blessings and cards instead of care. We offer Hallmark brand peace instead of presence and lament: ‘I’m sending prayers,’ instead of the visceral, skin-to-skin prayer in which your uncomfortable words ring somehow even more hollow into an already hollow silence.

Those of us in grief are no better. We’d rather stick our hand down a paper shredder than ‘inconvenience’ someone with an outburst of emotion or ask them to listen to our jumbled thoughts and emotions. Why do we feel the need to put on a happy face no matter the circumstances? A fake mask of peace does not show the world God is sufficient in our time of grief. Jesus said he gives peace not as the world gives. His peace does not lead to a sunny disposition in the face of loss. It led him to weep at the tomb of a friend three days dead while cherishing hope of resurrection. His peace hopes for miracles, trusts in the goodness of God, and looks to the Lord as the only one who can satisfy in the ‘even so’s of grief.

The peace Jesus gives does not lead us to sing the same happy songs at church every Sunday. His peace holds us at anchor so well that we need not fear sorrow will irreparably rip us apart and we need not hide our lamentation for fear he is not good enough or big enough to answer it.

 

I’ve just spent over a month in Jeremiah and Lamentations. It’s overwhelming how deep and many-sided grief is. I filled half a piece of paper writing down one-to-two word descriptions of the emotions in the first chapter of Lamentations alone. The poetry is powerful and it evokes feelings too strong for prose. I feel helpless and useless immersed in grief that real and raw. And I think that’s the point. Emotions stronger than us remind us we are made in the image of God. Though we feel them imperfectly our reactions to loss, injustice, and brokenness are echoes of divine design in the deepest parts of our souls. Such emotions stretch us outside of ourselves. The depths of such grief remind us that we long for the better country, and for the perfect presence of God.

Lamentations is the gut-wrenching account of God’s people taken into exile after a brutal defeat in war and ravages committed against their land and people. The first half of the book repeatedly records the speaker’s longing for a comforter. He watches in horror as all his people depended upon falls away. National allies desert them. Neighbors become enemies. Enemies gloat. Those who would take pity on them recoil and hiss at God’s people as at a nation unclean, wicked, and cursed.

In such indescribable grief, the poet laments a suffocating aloneness. He feels totally cut off from friends, family, allies, or even strangers who would offer aid and comfort. His words demonstrate that grief can be too wild for reason, and lamentation and hope are the only comforts fit to deal with such a powerful force. He longs for a comforting presence. His repeated requests for a friend to comfort knell like a haunting church bell at a poorly attended funeral. What he wants is a person to share in his lament.

We don’t share emotion often; we hold it as a personal matter. Lamentation is the opposite of that. It’s the tradition of keening, of a period of mourning, of wearing black. It’s the throat-tearing cries of grief as well as the continual undercurrent of stifled sobs. Lamentation is taking on and sharing the grief of another. Lamentation helps someone deprived of a homeland or a child, someone with a broken heart or a broken body—someone who has lost—by inhabiting their grief with them so they do not feel so alone in it.

The book of Lamentations shows that grief is meant to be shared if we ever hope to find comfort, and that the only ultimate unfailing comfort is in the Lord. The third chapter brings the book to a climax, stating that the poet’s only hope is in the Lord, whose mercies are new every morning, who is good to those who seek him, and who is the portion and inheritance of our souls. The Lord is our hope in suffering because he sees injustice and judges. He hears our cries, calms our fears, and redeems our life. These are the words of the poet in his desperate grief. Knowing God is his hope.

But the poet doesn’t trust God in blind faith. He trusts God because of his character. No matter how one answers the question of how a good God could let bad things happen, Lamentations answers with a profound sense of God’s justice and his mercy. Only the mind and heart of God can fully grasp and balance satisfactory justice against sin, with abounding mercy for the repentant, and whole justice for the victim. His inexplicable character solves the conundrum that seems to have no logical solution to the human mind. The Lord’s fresh mercies for sinners who are victims and victims who are sinners are always a source of fresh hope, and the Lord’s love to any who seek him and “kiss the rod,” is the best rescue we could imagine from any kind of loss we can experience.

“For the Lord will not

cast off forever,

but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion

according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

for he does not afflict from his heart

or grieve the children of men.

To crush underfoot

all the prisoners of the earth,

to deny a man justice

in the presence of the Most High,

to subvert a man in his lawsuit,

the Lord does not approve.

Who has spoken and it came to pass,

unless the Lord has commanded it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

that good and bad come?”

The Lord is just, but he also deals in compassion and steadfast love. We could not imagine a better anchor in grief and sorrow. And as we open our eyes to the call to grieve with others, the book of Lamentations should be our guide. Its poetry is impressive. Capturing deep emotions in few words, it crams the whole spectrum of human grief and loss into five short chapters. Hope in loss is a theme of Lamentations, but that hope depends fully on knowing God and following him in grief. Psalm 126 must have been written in answer to Lamentations. The words are too similar to the last chapter be anything otherwise. They’re a reminder that when God restores a broken, grieving world, he gets all the praise, and recognition.

Lamentations 5:14-15, 19-22

The old men have left the city gate,

the young men their music.

The joy of our hearts has ceased;

our dancing has been turned to mourning.

…

But you, O Lord, reign forever;

your throne endures to all generations.

Why do you forget us forever,

why do you forsake us for so many days?

Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!

Renew our days as of old—

unless you have utterly rejected us,

and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

Psalm 126

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then they said among the nations,

“The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us;

we are glad.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,

like streams in the Negeb!

Those who sow in tears

shall reap with shouts of joy!

He who goes out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

bringing his sheaves with him.

Lamentations ends with the words above: a statement of faith, a request for hope and restoration, and a humble question about whether God’s justice has yet been satisfied. The book ends there, but the story does not. Psalm 126 is one answer, and in it God’s people recount his goodness and his answer of comfort. Jesus came to earth later in redemption history and died as our sacrifice so that we might be reconciled with God and live continually in the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Grief will always be around until Jesus comes back, so lamentation will be necessary until that time too. But in Jesus we have an even clearer answer of hope in the face of life-shattering loss.

As I read through Lamentations and processed my thoughts for this blog I was broken for the billions on our planet who grieve with no comfort and no hope. They have no answer and no anchor to hold them steady in times of sorrow unless we who know God do something about it. I have felt convicted and challenged to probe deeper with friends, believers and not, to find and empathize with their past and present. As a believer I should be a person of safety and comfort, always ready to help people unburden themselves and put it on Jesus. I should be the comfort in answer to the poet’s plea ready to point any and all to the hope I have in Christ. I should invite confidence and have a listening ear ready. Kindness shown to someone in distress is the surest way to point them in earnestness toward God.

So, dear reader, take time in your life to seek out the sorrow our culture buries under a sympathy card or a well-meaning meal. Ask an immigrant what she loved and lost in her home country. Ask what he would be doing in the spring in his country. Share wordless tears and a hand to hold with someone who just lost their grandparents. Ask about their ache, even if it has been years ago now. Listen to a single mother grieve about the life she cannot give to her kids. Remind someone with a chronic illness that their drawn-out grief is not an inconvenience to you but an invitation into their life to comfort and listen. Do not limit grief to hushed parlors, but share it in the congregation. In all these situations, call out hope. Point to the God who deals both justice and mercy, who restores our soul.

Tears

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The hardest part of overseas trips for me has never been the food, the language, or the culture; it has always been the departure. And it hit me today that I’ll be on a plane in 48 hours. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my friends and family from home. But as we drove through the city today in a tuk tuk I almost cried at the thought that these may be my last few moments of the familiar smells and cries from vendors. As the smoggy wind blew through my hair and I wiped the road grit out of my eyes I was not annoyed—I felt embraced by the culture, the people, and the familiar scenery. Do I feel called to this culture long-term? Not necessarily. Will I miss my time and my friends here? Absolutely.

Not too long ago in a place closer to me now than my own home, a Gypsy pastor consoled me as I wept for the people who will forever have a piece of my heart. He said to me, ‘Sister Caroline, no matter how hard it is, leaving is part of ministry. Even Paul talked about how he was burdened for the believing communities he left behind.’ I have never forgotten his words, and I am reminded how true they are in times like these. The longer I serve in this kind of overseas ministry, the more people I will have to leave behind, the more dear hearts I will add to my prayer list, and the more chrch bodies I will carry in my own heart. There will always be bittersweet goodbyes without a promise of meeting again. And because of who the Father has made me to be, my heart will always ache for His work and His people that I leave behind. We have not witnessed any salvations on this trip, but we have planted many seeds. I have told quite a few stories, and I know I am leaving behind friends who may or may not continue in their seeking for the Truth. My heart breaks for them, and every time it does I wonder why I find this ministry so appealing.

But then I read Philippians, and I am always encouraged by Paul’s words. He got it. He knew what it was to leave a place and to wonder what would happen in his absence. He was burdened for those he discipled and those they in turn would disciple to take their places. I am reminded of the Father’s gift of his global community. “We all share in the same grace,” he says in the first chapter, and that unites us. I will always be connected to the Body because we are one in the Son. I will always have someone, whether they speak English, or Khmer, or Romanian, or Spanish, to mutually encourage and lift up. And that is a blessing beyond anything I could ever ask. Our Father knew leaving a community would be difficult, so he connected us in a beautiful way that blows my mind. We all serve the same Lord, no matter what language we use to do it.

And this trip is different from the last, because I will be able to take back a little of the country with me. Father has given us a wonderful team of five students and a professor who’ve shared experiences and trials and triumphs. We’ll always be able to recall fighting over the last scrap of toilet paper, tasting the smelliest fruit in the world, having late-night hair stylings, and laughing with our jmen so much that we cried. We’ll be able to remember together laughing and haggling at the markets and sweating with our knees laced together in a tuk tuk. We will be able to grieve for this culture together and its people’s hardships, and we’ll be able to lift of the students we have come to know and love.

So much has happened with them in the short two weeks we’ve known them. We’ve done everything from karaoke night, arcade games, and sharing more than questionable food, to visiting market, going to the zoo, playing endless games of mafia, and storying until we’re blue in the face. As hard as it is to believe, we’ve built relationships with people whose language is foreign to us, whose culture sometimes astounds us, and who live halfway around the world from our homes. Sunday we had another worship time and 7 of our students came. The entire things was orchestrated by Father, but they heard a short message on the wide and narrow paths and houses built on sand and rock, they sang their favorite songs Waves of Mercy and 10,000 Reasons, and then they heard the story of the crucifixion and resurrection. I was brought to tears as I storied about the beautiful love of our savior, and I was amazed at the whole-hearted response from the students. They followed along with emotion on their usually reserved faces, and a few times there were even exclamations at parts of the story. I was amazed to see Father at work through our team and I was blown away by his grace when I saw the students’ reaction to the greatest story in the Word.

And after all of that, we have to leave. We have to go back to school and hectic schedules and health problems and stressors. But we have the same Father to go back to as well. If he is Lord in Southeast Asia, he is Lord in our hometowns. He promises that His Words will not return to him empty, so we know that our teachings here have not fallen on deaf ears. We know that someday He will bring a harvest, even if we are not here to see it. He has taught us much, and we will take much home with us. Please continue to lift up our team as we prepare to leave and return to our ‘normal lives.’ Pray that we would not be overcome with sorrow as we experience our last meal of Lok Lat, our last time with the students, and our last time in the crowded market. And as I read Philippians, I am reminded of Paul’s overwhelming joy that answered to his sorrow and burden for the community. He was completely and utterly filled to the brim with joy because the Lord is faithful, and he will finish the work he has begun. For that we will praise him, and our tears will be tears of joy.

One Month Past

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It’s been a little over a month since I last posted. I’ve had a month to process, a month to let America sink in, and a month to miss Romania. I’ve used many Romanian words, sung many Romanian songs, and even made a bit of Romanian food. I’ve spoken to my county’s WMU group, and I’ve given reports at different churches and told stories from my trip to anyone who has two ears attached to their head. I’ve read my Romanian Bible and prayed a couple of times in my choppy Romanian, but all of that has done nothing to bring back to me the people, the sights, the sounds, and the love that I saw in Romania. I am still more or less an emotional wreck, and if I find myself in just the right situation, I find it easy to weep or easy to laugh – all because of connections to events and people in Romania. If you’ve kept up with me, you know that I feel called to return one day, and you also know that I went by myself (with no Americans). Even though I expected my culture shock to be worse than I’ve experienced before, those two things combined to make it, at times, undeniably overwhelming.

I could bore you with stories about how hard it’s been to work inside a schedule. I could tell you how difficult it’s been for me to remember to say “Thank you” instead of “mulţumesc.” I could tell you about how many times I’ve just wanted to forget college and go back home so I can physically feel the hugs and kisses of family as often as I want without being looked at like a creeper. I could tell you lots of things, but that wouldn’t even come close to expressing the sadness and grief I feel at times. It’s not that I’m completely overwhelmed by those emotions; at times I am, but for the most part they crash and recede like waves.

I’ve told you before how much God taught me, not just spiritually, but physically as well, about the unity he desires for the Body of Christ here on earth – my brothers and sisters and me. Naturally, Satan attacked that when I returned home. I felt isolated physically (because people in the States don’t make a habit of kissing you on each cheek when they greet you), but also emotionally (because no one here shared my experiences and sorrows from Romania) and spiritually (because no one really understands what that Romanian communion felt like or the way that it thrilled my soul to sing a hymn in harmony in two different languages). I didn’t feel as surrounded by love in reality as I knew, at least mentally, that I was.

So many prayers for this tangible feeling of love have been answered. I cannot being to tell you the number of people who make and effort to hug me. The most amazing moment of answered prayer came, though, when I was reading an assignment for my British Literature class. We were reading Julian of Norwich, a mystic/anchoress who was given visions of Christ. While she sounds a bit crazy to some, her theology isn’t as wacky as it would seem at first glance. At one point she sees Jesus and observes

“that He is to us all thing that is good and comfortable to our help. He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us and windeth us, [envelopes and embraces] us and all becloses us, haangeth about us for tender love that He may never leave us.”

At the moment that I read this I almost broke down into tears. I know my Savior’s character. I have experienced Him enough to know that what Julian spoke was true. About a paragraph down from this observation, Julian imagines she holds all of the universe cupped her hand, no larger than a hazelnut. She says,

“I marvelled how it might last, for me thought it might suddenly have fallen to nought for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth and ever shall, for God loveth it; and so hath all thing being by the love of God.”

I was struck again by the love that is in and around us and that unavoidably holds us together. Without the love of God, none of the things I hold dear even have their being. Again, I knew this stuff mentally, but to see it so beautifully presented blew me away. That was my answer. I was embraced in the the arms of my dear Savior, and enveloped as far as I could see by His love. “And in the arms of my dear Savior/ Oh there are/ ten thousand charms”

One more thing I’ve been struggling with, that God gave me beautiful resolution in, was my restless and overwhelmed heart. America hits a body hard, and when you’ve been away for a month, sometimes it’s easy to forget how hard things get to balance. After I came back my heart and mind were in Romania, not here, as I began to deal with a schedule and deadlines and homework and ministry and two jobs. I allowed the waves of busyness to separate me from my Abba God. This Thursday at Bible study our leader talked about being overwhelmed, and she read Psalm 107:23-32 to us:

“Others went out on the sea in ships;

they were merchants on the mighty waters.

They saw the works of the LORD,

his wonderful deeds in the deep.

For he spoke and stirred up a tempest

that lifted high the waves.

They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths;

in their peril their courage melted away.

They reeled and staggered like drunken men;

they were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,

and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper;

the waves of the sea were hushed.

They were glad when it grew calm,

and he guided them to their desired haven.

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love

and his wonderful deeds for men.

Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people

and praise him in the council of the elders.”

When we read that passage, I began to weep. I wept for sheer joy. The storm inside of me was stilled to a whisper as my Savior stretched out his hands over the chaos and said, “Peace, be still.” Though I had been at my wits’ end, where I literally had no wisdom left, the fear was broken. I knew that I lay in the palm of the Lord of the raging sea’s hand. I felt that I could rest peacefully and unafraid in my Father’s love, because no amount of earthquaking or wave rolling or wind buffeting was going to move Him. I pray that I continue to seek his face as I work through adjusting, but I also pray that you, no matter where you are in the States, no matter how long you’ve been here, and no matter how desensitized you’ve grown to the buffeting wind of busyness, that you would also cry out to the One who saves the overwhelmed and the One who loves and the One who calms the storm and guides us safely home.

My Last Romanian Blog

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“Turn your eyes upon Jesus

look full in his wonderful face;

and the things of earth

will grow strangely dim

in the light of his glory and grace.”

– Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus, hymn lyrics by Helen Lemmel

I’m a sucker for a good hymn, and I love this chorus. I’ve cried and prayed and sang myself to sleep a couple of nights—at home and in Romania—with these words of comfort. I think the most encouraging idea contained in them is that, when our focus is on Christ and His glory, all of the lesser priorities become periphery. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if I’m working alongside American or Romanian brothers and sisters. It doesn’t matter if I’m working with Gypsy babies or with spoiled American ones. It doesn’t matter if I’m eating ciorbe or mac-n-cheese. It doesn’t matter because the important thing is that the cross and the face of my savior are before me. With my eyes set on that goal I am given the vision to see that whatever else is around me doesn’t hold nearly as much importance.

Dear friends,

I would like to thank you all for praying and reading to watch how God was working in and around me in Romania. You were all a great encouragement to me, and your prayers were felt. I continue to ask for your prayers as I readjust to life here in America and hurry off to school again. The reverse culture shock has hit me harder than it ever has before. I blame that mostly on the fact that I didn’t take anyone with me to Romania that shared those experiences with me — someone who can relate to what I’m feeling and thinking and someone who shares many of the memories with me. I have been wonderfully blessed, though. God has given me a loving and understanding family, and they’ve given me plenty of hugs and prayers. I will also soon be moving into my apartment on campus with three other girls whose hearts and minds God has also claimed for missions, and each one has spent her summer in service to God as well. We’ll have plenty to talk about, and I know that the four of us will be an encouragement to each other. So, while I feel somewhat like a water sprinkler because of the inordinate amount of times that I’ve cried since I got back, I know that God is showering me with comfort and encouragement. Last night I served my family Romanian tomato salad and clatite (kind of like crepes or pancakes). That was an enormous comfort, not only to my suddenly picky tummy, but also to my Romania-sick heart.

So, as promised, I’d like to give you a recap of my trip, hitting the highlights and summarizing some of the things I saw and learned. The overwhelming sentiment the trip has left me with is that God is beautiful and faithful: beautiful because during my month in Romania I saw many parts of His character displayed as He worked in His children to glorify His name, and faithful because I saw over and over again how He keeps His promises and fulfills His plans. I don’t know how many of you have been blessed to see an orchestra perform, but I have always found that to be an interesting experience. My favorite part is watching the conductor. He isn’t the composer of the music being played, but he still seems responsible for the symphony of sound that meets my ears. The tempo, volume, intensity, and layering of the music all seem to depend on the movements of his hands. While the pieces of the orchestra all have to play their parts well, it isn’t hard for me to imagine the sound flowing from the tips of the conductors fingers and baton. The beauty and layering I saw in my last month came directly from our Conductor’s hands. He led each one of His children’s hearts as they served and worshipped Him, and after I backed away and looked at what He had led us in, I saw how beautifully He had layered our efforts and led us in an intricate dance. I worked with one missionary couple, two pastors, a dedicated children’s worker, a 3-person team of Gypsies, two translators, a team from Norway, a Pentecostal congregation, and an American from Missouri. God led us in a beautifully coordinated dance of ministry — not without a few trips on our part, of course. I was amazed at how He worked all around me and continued the work He had started with teaching and discipling and seed planting. Almost every morning when I woke up I was confronted with the joy of being hand in hand with my savior, serving in a new and exciting place. It has been a long journey for me, and I cannot tell you the number of doors God has opened for me to bring me safely to and from a month of His service in Romania.

I certainly learned a lot during my Romanian month. I am truly not the same. I will forever hold a different understanding of the unity God wishes for those in His kingdom. He taught me in many different ways how He has planned to unite us and executed those plans. I gained practical experience in working in an oral culture, working with the Roma people, and storying the Bible. I learned a bit of the language, too, and of the history and current conditions of a few people groups in Romania. I learned about myself as well. I learned that within me rests a bit of my savior’s heart for His glory among the Roma. I also learned how beautiful God’s strength is when displayed next to my weaknesses. I didn’t know the language, but God proved that His love knows no language barrier. I was an outsider to the Roma and Romanian cultures, but God formed strong friendships between me and my brothers and sisters. I was little better than an orphan in a strange country but God in His providence showed me that He has given me family all over the world within His kingdom. I have no special talents, but God has made my willing heart a beautiful and honorable sacrifice.

I was blessed to see God’s hands working around me to build and heal and invite. Isaiah 55 details the winsome invitation I saw offered again and again.

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Give ear and come to me;

hear me, that your soul may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

a leader and commander of the peoples.

Surely you will summon nations you know not,

and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,

because of the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel,

for he has endowed you with splendor.”

Seek the LORD while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way

and the evil man his thoughts.

Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the LORD.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD’s renown,

for an everlasting sign,

which will not be destroyed.”

We fed bellies and souls. We watered gardens and gospel seeds. I saw children learn of God’s character and they learned more of their own nature as well. I watched adults begin to seek and children who found answers to their questions. I saw the need for human affection met alongside the need for affection from our Heavenly Father. I saw God working in Romania like crazy, and I will continue to pray for His work and His workers there. I miss it, and I can’t wait to go back, but for now, I will watch and pray.

I want to leave you with a few prayer requests until you hear from me again. Firstly, there is an overwhelming need for workers in Romania. It took me, a translator, and the three FARM team members to conduct the program for fifty kids in the slums, and all the while the children’s families were left in the dark. My heart burns for those Gypsy parents. They know nothing of the gospel, nor of the life that it gives and the joy it contains. The parents need to know as much as anyone else that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them and will give their lives meaning. The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Secondly, please pray for discipleship. There are new Christians in each of the places I served in Romania. Their hearts are full of passion to serve, but they have been given no training or discipleship. Pray for God to burden the hearts of His children to spend time with their younger brothers and sisters in fellowship and training. The Gypsies are an unreached people group, and because of that most of the believers are first generation Christians and many lack maturity. I saw Gypsy believers whose hearts yearned for service among their own people, but on their own and without a mentor they were not sufficient. Pray for our Father to glorify His Name among the Gypsies and for Him to become a beacon in their isolated worlds.