“When you are willing to step out in faith and follow His lead, God can do amazing things.”
I was called to do VBS in Kibera, Kenya, the world’s third largest slum. I knew it with every fiber of my being. I had prepared, prayed, organized my prayer team, and was excited. As I left my room for the airport, I picked up a 500 schilling note (Kenyan money worth about $7.00) left over from a previous trip and tucked it in my pocket. This was unusual as I always cashed in my paper money before leaving a country and never remembered to bring any local coin currency back with me. A missed flight in London had us hitting the ground running in Nairobi with no time to acclimate or exchange money. Fatigue and spiritual warfare hit me hard. I was one of the oldest team members and while the rest seemed to run on hyper-speed, I didn’t. I questioned God. Why am I here? Did I misunderstand your call? Wouldn’t it be better if someone younger and more adaptable had taken my place?
Meanwhile, my prayer team at home was praying. I am a nurse, so it wasn’t a surprise at VBS when four-year-old, Elizabeth, was brought to me with her left eye almost swollen shut and leaking pus. I knew her affliction was much worse than I could handle but the local pastor said she didn’t have the funds for a clinic visit. In Kenya, there is no welfare, Medicaid or Medicare. If you don’t have the cash in hand for treatment, regardless of the severity of your condition, you aren’t treated. The cost was 500 schillings, the exact amount I had in my back pocket! Due to the severity of her condition, she was sent from the clinic to the hospital. The money God had provided covered that visit as well, but there was no money left for the medicine she required. An additional 500 schillings from an ATM in town bought her multivitamins, antibiotics, de-wormers and an anti-malarial drug.
A few days later, Elizabeth, her mother, and three younger siblings came up to me, her eye completely healed. Through a translator, her unbelieving mother said “I was so worried about her but I had no funds for treatment. God has healed her!! I want to attend this church to learn more about this God who has heard my prayer!” God, at that moment, confirmed the reason for my being there. I was the only one of our team who could recognize the severity of the infection, and “just happened” to have the exact amount of needed Kenyan schillings in my pocket. Elizabeth shared my own daughter’s name AND her family position as eldest of several younger children. For $14.00 U.S., less than the cost of a large pizza, her eyesight was saved and her mother sought God. None of these were a coincidence.
My prayer team’s intercession was as much a part of Elizabeth’s and my story as I was myself. A dedicated prayer team, never leave on a mission trip without it! You may not know why the Lord put you in your circumstances, and you may doubt that the Lord can use the little you have to offer, but when you are willing to step out in faith and follow His lead, and when you have a group of people praying for you, God can do amazing things.