Emily is from Nashville, Tennessee and is 23 years old. She graduated from the University of West Florida in the summer of 2013 with a degree in English, while also playing on the women's basketball team. She currently serves as the BCM Associate at UWF. She's been on some overseas mission trips with FCA in Europe leading sports camps for kids, as well as some mission trips in the states. Earlier this year, during Spring Break she went on another mission trip with BCM to Miami. In her spare time she loves to read, write, and go to the beach. You can follow her blog here.
It’s the question that I’ve been dreading answering ever since we got back to America: “How was Africa?”
Don’t get me
wrong; it’s not that I didn’t enjoy my time there. No, the problem is, I just
don’t know where to begin. I can’t sum it up in a few words or sentences or
even in a blog post. I won’t be able to show you what I’ve seen – a picture
isn’t enough. And I can’t make you feel what I felt over there. I can’t fully
communicate the things that the Lord taught me while I was there – mostly
because they’re things that He is still teaching me and will continue to teach
me.
So here’s my
best shot at it.
We landed in the
Cotonou, Benin airport in a haze –we’d been travelling for probably about 30 hours.
The drive to Trey and Kristen’s house was surreal for me. Even in the darkness
of night, it was evident that I was in a place like nowhere I had ever been
before. The poverty was evident: trash in the streets, buildings and homes made
of scrap materials, bumpy dirt roads. And there were people everywhere: women
carrying baskets on their heads, children mostly naked or in the streets or
strapped to a mother’s back. And so many motorcycles – only inches from our
car, driving on every side of us.
We spent most of
our mornings in the bush – deep in the jungles/forests of Bohicon, a few hours
north of Cotonou. The people there were even more impoverished. Most lived in
tiny huts side by side. We broke into groups and went hut to hut, where the
people would invite us in. I was so humbled by the kindness and hospitality we
were shown by these families – though they had next to nothing, they would
offer us everything they had. They would bring out stools and benches, giving us
a place to sit, while they would sit on the floor. Many of the families passed
around a bowl of water for us all to drink from. One man even offered our group
money to buy fresh water with as we were leaving his home.
When we were in
the houses, we told them that we had come thousands of miles to share something
with them. We often started from the beginning – that we were all created in
the image of God, but that sin had caused us to be separated from God. We
shared about Jesus – and that He came so that humanity could again be in perfect
relationship with God. We shared that they, too, could have a personal
relationship with God. Many of them believed the message of God and received it
with joy.
On the last day
that we did evangelism, some of the church people brought instruments and we
all walked down the dirt roads singing and dancing. It was so beautiful to hear
the high-pitched voices of the African women and to see their strength as they
danced, moving their shoulders and their backs to the rhythm of the music. It
was such a beautiful worship to the Lord. And, as we worshipped, a crowd would
form. Kids and adults alike would run from their huts and begin following us.
It might have been both the worship and our white skin – rarely seen in their
village – that peaked their curiosity. Excited shouts of “yovo” (which means
“white person”) were heard throughout the village. When a large crowd would
form around us, we would stop the music and one of us would walk into the
middle and begin speaking to the people.
I was able to
speak to one of the crowds. I shared with them the simple message of the
Gospel. I also told them that we had not come to condemn them, but to share
love and life with them. I told them that we hadn’t just come to share with
them our beliefs – it was much more than that. We had come to share with them
the God-given purpose for all of our lives. At the end, I asked if anyone
wanted to believe and begin following Christ. And honestly, I didn’t really
expect anyone to say yes. I assumed that they probably didn’t understand what I
was talking about – that I hadn’t made any sense to them. But about 25 kids and
a few adults, too, raised their hands. But I still doubted. I clarified,
telling them that this was a serious decision – that they must live for God and
not for themselves now. Still, they looked me straight in the eyes and their
hands remained in the air even when I explained the costs of following Jesus –
waiting, perhaps, for me to believe with the same simple and childlike faith as
they had. So we all prayed together. The Gospel really is simple – we just so
often try to complicate it.
We were able to
experience the African church while we were there, too. I was inspired by the
faith of those at church – many had walked miles just to be there and to hear
the message. There were many kids there, too – some of whom had come to church
on their own accord, without their parents at all. The worship was really
beautiful – much like the singing and dancing in the streets. Some of our group
even joined in the dancing.
On one of the
last days, we went to visit an orphanage. I was so inspired by the vision of
the missionaries, Jon and Ashley, who keep the orphanage. They have about
thirty kids there, all from different backgrounds – some who have lost both
parents, some who have lost one, some whose parents didn’t want them or
couldn’t afford them, some who have been sex-trafficked. Jon and Ashley said
that their purpose was not to pack the orphanage out and fill it with as many
kids as possible, but that their purpose was to invest in the kids who were
there – giving each of them a real life. They are literally making disciples.
And that’s what
Jesus commands us to do – to go and to make disciples. He tells us to go to the
nations – and I’m convinced now that the call is not only to spread hope and
truth to those to whom we are sent, but it is also to bring a change within us
who are going. It’s amazing to be in a place so unlike America and so unlike
anything you’ve ever known before. It makes you have to strip away everything
you once considered normal. There are a lot of cultural “norms” that we have in
America, and so we believe that everyone MUST live this way or think this way
or understand this way. But it’s not true. Stripping away all “normalcy” allows
you to get to the core – the core of humanity and of life itself.
It makes the
Gospel that much more real. Africa opened my eyes to the poverty of the world –
not just physically, but spiritually. It may look a little different in America
than it does in Africa, but we are all desperate for love, for purpose, for
truth. We all want and need something – Someone – to put our hope in.
The Gospel
transcends culture. It allows a privileged American girl from Florida to
connect with a poor African child from Benin. Nothing and no one but Jesus can
bridge that gap.
There’s a lot
more I could say – I could talk about the African cuisine, not least of which
was the pounded yam and the goat and the bush rat. I could mention the
underground village and the king’s palace and the “fetish” market, where they
sold voodoo statues and animals to sacrifice to the voodoo gods. I could talk
about the boat ride in and through Ganvie, a village built entirely in the
water. (Yes, IN the water – all of the houses and buildings are on “stilts.”) I
could also mention the 40-hour trip home, which included renting a big, white
church van to drive from Houston to Pensacola after 30 hours of plane rides and
little to no sleep.
But, as we
learned to say – it’s all part of the adventure.
