Prayers from Africa

You know, I've been a part of a church for most of my life. All have, in some way, been evangelical. At the very least we were encouraged to pray for missions in dark and scary places like Central America or China or Africa. You know, the people in Africa, they need Jesus or at the very least the pity of us wealthy Americans.

Some years ago, long after I accepted Christ and really understood the importance of missions for real, I went to some Christian concert and signed up to sponsor a child from Africa. Her name is Maureen and she is from Uganda. She's 14 now I think. I'm glad to say that I've been able to faithful to that commitment financially over the past few years. (Let's remember that money and I have a love/hate relationship...I used to love to spend what wasn't mine and hated the bills. I'm working on righting that, thanks to a lot of grace.) But, I have to say that I'm not the best at writing letters to her. I just didn't know what to say to her a lot of the time. You can't exactly talk about the latest movie to a child who lives in a village in Africa. Worse yet, I probably didn't pray for her nearly as much as I should. Her picture is on my refrigerator and I try to remember to pray for her when I look at it, but it's one of those things that has been there so long, that I rarely actually look at it.

About two weeks ago now, I got a letter from her. In one of my more recent letters I told her that I had cancer and was undergoing treatment. This is what she said to me:

"I want to inform you that one night I dreamt that you were completely cured from cancer and above all I realised that you were walking with me. There and then I woke up and prayed to God to heal you. And I believe that God's divine healing is still taking a gradual process."

Wow. That's really the only word for that letter. Wow, that this girl who hardly ever hears from me had me so on her heart that she dreamt about me. Wow, that she was so obedient to the heart of God that she didn't roll over or think "what a weird dream," but she got up out of the bed to pray for me in that moment. Wow, that I have a God who loves me so much that he spoke in a dream to a girl in that "dark, scary place" Africa about me.

Ow. That's the other word for that letter. Ow, that I don't take the time to write her like I should. Ow, that I sometimes I only think about her when it's time to write the check to Compassion International. Ow, that I pretty sure I've never been immediately that obedient to a call of God. Ow, that I can arrogantly think that THEY need MY prayers. Talk about a humbling experience.

So the next time you pray for Africa or Central America or China or the Middle East, maybe someone there is praying for you.