In The Community...Seeing God BIG, Part 6

One of the things that amazed me was how Dr. E., the Director of the Orphanage, teaches the children to care for those less fortunate than themselves…orphans, who may have watched their parents die from AIDS…many who have been enslaved and abused…many who have truly known hunger…caring for those less fortunate than themselves.

She is walking them through Matthew 25:35-36, giving them opportunities to care for each group of people listed in these verses… “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…'

One thing she did was take them out into the community to interview different families, and then they chose 14 families to ‘adopt’ to help care for…

As we packed to go on our trip, we all tried to pack things that we thought would be useful for the children at the orphanage and the community… clothing, craft items, etc. While I was deciding what to take to the community, I found a lady on ebay who was selling a huge lot of clothing from her consignment shop, it would have been perfect to take to the community…one box came, but the second one never arrived. I was so frustrated, so I ended up having my boys go through their closets and give me anything that was in good condition that they weren’t using…

My cousin, S. reminded me… “Sharla, you need boy’s clothes more than you need those other clothes…remember, God knows what you need to take.”

So the day arrived when we were to bring our things to the orphanage…I took them into the office and explained to one of the staff what had happened and that I hoped she could use the boy’s clothes, they were all young men’s clothing…no smaller sizes.

As she began pulling things out, her eyes welled up. She looked at me and said, “We were short bigger boy’s clothing…we didn’t know what we were going to do about Christmas.” God in the details again…He tells us not to worry about what we’ll wear! S. was right…I didn’t need adult clothing…they needed young men’s clothing and God orchestrated the details to provide for those precious young men.

Well, the other things we brought were sorted and packaged, into large garbage bags, to take the families in the community on our last day there. This was a very hard day for me…I had so been looking forward to going into the community again, but on the day before, I had torn my ACL in my right knee… I wasn’t in a lot of pain, but my leg looked like a tree stump, it was so swollen (I’ll tell you more of this story tomorrow because it is the story that brought us to Abby…)

Many of the homes in the community were not accessible by car, so we had over a one mile hike, through really rough terrain to get to the house we were supposed to go to… My mom, who is a nurse, was not pleased with the stubborn streak in her daughter… She thought I should stay behind, and really she was right…I could have fallen and hurt myself much worse…plus, at the time, we didn’t know exactly what was wrong with my knee…I wouldn’t let them take me to a hospital in Africa. So, I probably could have done even more damage to me my knee…

But, my heart was aching to be a part of this and desires like that don’t come from ourselves…it would have been much easier to sit down and wait it out back at the orphanage… But I went instead…

As I said, the terrain was very rough and I was very slow…but everyone was really patient with me and we eventually made it to our first house…

What a blessing to meet this mom and to watch Nick present her with this bag of clothing, shoes, and other things we had brought to her…





One of our team members asked her what her favorite verse was, and through our translator, she told us, Psalm 23 and she said, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” I shall not want…but look around you…you have nothing…what faith…what sweet understanding of God’s provision…contentment is just not about the stuff!

And then she said, “I know that God is holding me in the palm of His hand because you came here today.” I will never forget those words…that our simple little offering could be such a source of encouragement and assurance to her…her words spoke volumes to me about God’s faithfulness…about how God can use the littlest thing…that all we have to do is be a willing vessel…

Later that evening, the preschoolers had made cards for each one of us… Each card was unique… As I walked up to receive my card, I had no idea of the blessing I was about to receive…

On the front of my card was a little hand print and the words, “I am in the palm of God’s hand.” The very words that had gripped my heart earlier that afternoon, were written on a card, personally addressed to me! Who but God?

I think if I hadn’t been in a room full of people, I might have just sat down in the floor and cried… I was tired, my leg was hurting and I was dreading the 40 hour trip that lay ahead of us… But God wanted me to know, I was in the palm of His hand…

You know, God speaks to us all the time…we just have to be watching and listening. And if we are, He speaks to us and shows Himself in ways that we really can’t miss… The things that happened during our 10 days in Africa could not be attributed to coincidence…the odds are practically impossible…

Just like the odds that Jesus fulfills every single prophecy in Scripture…but He does…God is not a God who is hemmed in by odds…by the limitations of time and space…God can reach across eternity and speak to our hearts in a way that is personal and intimate…in a way that we really can’t miss, if we’re just waiting and watching.

Well…one more day…tomorrow I’ll tell you about how God touched my heart for the children outside the gate and how that burden, in many ways, led to my knee injury and eventually to Abby…