Things Don't Always Go as Planned

Bumping along the narrow dirt road that was sometimes only as wide as a bike path, I tried to prepare for what I thought I was going to see. 

A few weeks ago, I had learned about a man in a nearby village who had two wives, and each wife gave birth to twins last year. We served the twins for one month in our program, providing them with milk and nutritional cereal and watching them grow. Then I learned that the father is sick and unable to work, which is why he can't provide for his family, especially his four new babies. So instead of just giving handouts, we decided to make a trip to the village, talk more with the family, and see how we could truly help. 

I expected to pull up to a mud brick house and sit on a bench under a shade tree, having a nice conversation with the family while bouncing a twin on my knee. 

Yet when Rebeca, Juliette, and I arrived, we came to where the church meets under a hangar, and found about sixty church members were there, participating in a church service in full motion! I parked the car under a nearby tree and couldn't help but wonder if I had somehow miscommunicated or missed something along the way. I thought we were doing a home visit, not a mid week church service. 

As we got out of the car, the church got up and moved towards us, like a parade of singing and dancing to greet us. They warmly welcomed us, shook our hands as they sang, and then walked back to the hangar with us in a procession of joyful worship. 

At the end of the song, when everyone sat down, all eyes turned to me. 

I turned to the church leader, Mathieu, and said, "Do you have a midweek service like this every Friday?" 

"No, our midweek service is Tuesday! We've gathered tonight just because we knew you were coming!" 

Everyone looked back at me and I suddenly realized that I was supposed to lead this thing. 

I had prepared for a head-to-toe medical exam and history, not a church service! 

I leaned over to Rebeca who was sitting beside me and asked her to lead a song while I thought of a Bible story. I fell back on a story that I knew well in French and have told many times - the feeding of the 5,000. I used 14 kids from the crowd to be Jesus, the twelve disciples, and the little boy with the bread and fish. They acted it out well, especially the part where they went into the crowd and passed out the imaginary fish and bread. The crowd really enjoyed that part, too, so that when I asked, "Is everybody full? Have you eaten well?" they all responded with a shout and a round of applause. 

We drew some applications out the story, talked about how God provides for our needs and is still capable of performing miracles today. We talked about physical hunger and the spiritual hunger of our souls and how God satisfies both. After we prayed, people started coming up one by one to share testimonies. 

There was an older woman who took in an orphan child when he was young and has brought him to church ever since. "Here is the child!" she placed her hand on his shoulder, a boy of about 8 years. She wanted to have a service just to praise God for him and dedicate him back to the Lord.

There was another woman who had been sick and used animistic practices to search for healing until someone told her about the church. She gave up her idols and instead found her true healing in the church. 

Even another woman shared that she had decided to be baptized this coming April 2, the date picked by this particular church to be their Easter baptism ceremony. In preparation, the people who want to be baptized go through a series of classes and studies. Then, all together in onr big celebration, they follow Jesus into the water and he washes their sins away, resurrecting them into new creations. 

Before I knew it, two and half hours had passed. We had officially lead a beautiful church service by winging it. Let me correct myself - the Holy Spirit directed a church service that no one had prepared for and yet everyone was encouraged by. Since evening was quickly approaching, we pulled the family out of the crowd (they were there for the whole service) and talked to them briefly - just long enough to refer one of the sick babies to the clinic and arrange for the father of the family to go to the nearest city for a medical consultation. 

Things don't always go as planned. And I'm glad. 

Even if it had gone as planned and I did a full nursing assessment and came up with my nursing diagnoses...I would have missed an amazing opportunity to encourage the church, worship alongside them, and hear testimonies of how God is working in the villages. I may not have accomplished the nursing that I wanted to do (instead of doing a history and assessment, all I was able to do was blindly refer to a local medical center), but at least something was put in motion. If we can help the father get well, then he will be able to work, and we can restore his dignity, pride, and ability to provide for his family. That's how transformation sometimes starts. 

As the sun set over Friday night in Burkina Faso, I thanked God that things don't always go as planned. I think we would miss a lot of great things if we always stuck to the plan. Things like spontaneous worship, prayer, testimonies, and sharing of truth from God's Word.