For those of you who only read the blog post a few weeks back, I was intercepted by providence on my way to Nigeria. Our passports and everything arrived just in time for the trip, quite literally one week before my departure. It seemed as though everything had lined up for our trip.
We received the passports and since the rest of the team was in Boston, I quickly sent all the passports out to Boston the same day. What I didn’t know is that I’d sent all the passports, including my own. I realized this a few days later when I was searching for it. But it was no big deal, it was still a week before the trip and my passport was only a quick priority mail away.
One of the men going on the trip shipped my passport back and I eagerly tracked it. And then something strange happened. It never got delivered. I went back and checked my e-mail and quickly realized that the man had written down my address one digit off. I went to work tracking it down but it was too late, our postman had marked the package “Return to Sender”. I found this out the day I was flying out. My bags were packed, but the only reason I went to the airport that day was to cancel my flight.
Yet the Lord taught me many things back in the states that I would not have learned in Nigeria (besides of course humility – or humiliation, take your pick).
Mid Asia
Fast forward several weeks and I’m sitting here writing this in a ten story apartment overlooking a city that sprawls as far as the eye can see.
I didn’t think I would be here on this trip either, for when we arrived at the airport, our flight was an hour and a half late leaving, which meant that we would probably miss our connecting flight.
We got on the plane, searching through our options. If we had any hope of making it, we would have to sprint the entire length of the terminal, reach the gate, notify them to switch our bags, and board, all in a matter of fifteen minutes or less. Simple right?
As soon as our plane landed in Washington D.C., I sprinted out the front door, ignoring the people around me who said there was no way I could make it. I knew differently. And I was right.. well, sort-of. I got to the gate just in time to see our plane before it left. I watched in disbelief as the plane left thinking, “Not again.”
Fortunately, because the flight delay was the airline’s fault, they put us up in a nice hotel nearby while we waited for our flight the following night. But when we arrived at the front desk, we realized that our bag full of medical equipment was missing. Missing that bag would cripple our ministry.
So back we went to the airport, sprinting down the halls in search of the lost bag. As I was running outside in the chilly night air, I remember thinking about how insane the whole adventure was, especially since we had not even left the United States. By God’s grace the police had picked up the bag and we were able to retrieve it from them with no other problem.
Missing the flight put our trip one and a half days late.
But now we are here. It was God’s purpose that I missed Nigeria, and it is God’s providence that I am here typing this.
This country is nothing short of amazing. I have a great burden for the thousands of lost we encounter when we walk the crowded city streets. The people here are much warmer to our presence than I expected. Indeed, I was pleasantly shocked when one of the shopkeepers we visited embraced me warmly before I left. And as my love for these people deepens, the question that keeps coming to mind is “Who will tell them the good news?” They are wandering without hope and without God like sheep without a Shepherd. I want to see them to see salvation and to know Christ more than my words here can express. This trip will not soon be lost on me.
Tonight we visited a group of believers who have all lost friends and family due to Muslim persecution. Their hospitality and friendliness is unparalleled, though they are suffering in incredible poverty. Many of them are unable to get even a simple job because they are Christian.
My burden is growing as I learn to love these people more and more. Pray for them – that God would save them and that God would also protect our brothers and sisters who face grave danger daily for their faith. I read this yesterday in the Psalms:
“Yet for Your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Psalm 44:22
Pray that our brothers and sisters would not grow bitter toward their Muslim oppressors, but that they would continue to speak the truth in love, in the hopes that many will be saved.
In Christ,
- Paul
