I threw myself wholeheartedly into plans to go to Africa. Our baby girl was born, and when she was four months old, the church where we were serving released us to spend part of our time to begin traveling to other churches to raise our missionary support. Two Sundays each month we went out to share our vision of going to Liberia to teach in a Bible school, helping prepare leaders for the Liberian church. That was in April 1986. In May, we put our mobile home on the market. Our farewell service at the church was set for June, but no one seemed interested in buying our home. As the farewell loomed nearer, friends in the church started saying, “Maybe God doesn’t want you to go.” But the day before the farewell service, a man called to say he was interested in buying. He gave the mobile home a once-over and wrote us a check. We took the check to the bank on Saturday morning, had the farewell service on Sunday, and left town on Monday. It seemed God really did want us to go to Africa.
June through September found us traveling around the country, visiting church after church to share “our” call and vision (really, I still was just going along with Craig’s calling). We traveled in a donated station wagon with our girls, ages 6 months and 2 years. Eight to ten-hour drives between churches were the norm. At each church we stayed in people’s homes until it was time to get back in the car and move on to the next church. As someone who before this had rarely stayed in a stranger’s home, this was way outside my comfort zone! Trying to keep our active two-year-old calm and quiet after spending all day in the car was a constant challenge.
Finally, in November 1986, the time came to say goodbye to our families and get on that plane to fly to what was, for me, a complete unknown. Our girls were now 2 ½ years and 11 months old. I knew I was doing what God had told me to do, but I was terrified. We arrived in Liberia just before American Thanksgiving, which only increased the awareness that I was thousands of miles from my family and all that was familiar. Everything in Liberia was so different. In the airport I asked Craig what language the people were speaking. He replied, “English,” which surprised me. Because of the different accent, I couldn’t understand most of what was said!
The first church service we attended, I learned that women and children sat on one side and men on the other. Craig, who I looked to as my security in this new land, was seated on the other side of the church, and I was left to fend for myself. A woman in the row ahead of me turned around and startled me by grabbing my baby out of my arms. Everyone wanted to touch my girls and feel my hair. Now I was the one who was different from everyone around me, and everyone was curious. The distinct cultural boundaries in Liberia felt invasive to me, but I had to be brave for my children and supportive to my husband. I didn’t know what I would be able to do or how I would possibly manage.
But I had said yes to God that long-ago day in Minnesota. And as time went by, I found to my surprise that I was not just surviving. I was thriving! Still, there were a lot of ups and downs in getting to that point.
I look back now and wonder how I did it. Everything was new; there was so much to learn. I just tried to do the next thing.
There was something about being more than 5,000 miles from home, with no family to call on, that made me take on things I never thought I could do.
I made curtains for our new house – and I don’t sew! (It became a joke in our family that by the time I made curtains for our current house it was time to move to the next one.) The first time I ate goat was almost my last – the person who cleaned it missed a lot of the hair! But eventually I learned to cook goat myself. I had never cleaned whole shrimp, but now I found myself buying buckets of live crawfish that the villagers caught in the river.
I wanted to protect my children; I didn’t want to be a wimp and raise fearful children. When I heard my little girls screaming because they had wandered into a swarm of driver ants, I ran to rescue them and pick off the ants. When my 2 ½ year old had a chigger (a sack of parasite eggs) in her foot, I held her down while she screamed as a Liberian woman dug it out with a needle. I walked on a log bridge over a river because I had to. We sat in church services at night dodging huge flying beetles, with me reassuring the girls with a calm I didn’t really own yet.
Some days were harder than others. There was the day when my husband killed two snakes inside our house – one I found in my study area early in the morning, and the other came under the door as we sat on the floor in the living room. For a month after that, all four of us slept together in a double bed. I stuffed towels under the door to make sure nothing got in. Finally, after several weeks I realized I couldn’t go on living in fear. It was time to go back to trusting God.
One day Craig and I were riding a motorcycle on the road between the mission and the nearby rubber plantation. I hadn’t been off the mission base in several weeks because of vehicle breakdowns and rainy season, so it was a welcome diversion. Craig turned to me and said, “Why can’t you be more adventurous?” I responded, “Listen, I am on a motorcycle in Africa riding through the jungle! What more do you want?” (We laugh about that now!)
I discovered that missions is really about loving people and letting them see Jesus’ love in me.
I loved taking my girls for walks into the student “village” and watching women braid each other’s hair into elaborate styles. The Liberian pastor’s kids regularly joined us for snack time. We shared laughter and tears with our Liberian family. I learned that the cockroaches, tarantulas, poisonous snakes and rats I so feared were very real – but in reality, they were such a small part of my life in Liberia. I realized that God had been preparing me for this my whole life. What a surprising revelation! All my experiences to that point had been preparation for the life I was now living. And I loved that life!
It is many years later, and we are now working in Belize, our fifth country. Each country, each challenge along the way, each disappointment has required yet another yes. But it all began with that first yes – yes, I will trust God. When facing the unknown, despite all my fears and shortcomings, I wholeheartedly continue to say yes. Yes, I will trust you, Lord.
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