Modern Day Heroes

The middle of the table was piled high with moringa branches, which Juliette had just cut from the garden. Moringa is a "super food" plant, meaning it is rich and nutritious, not to mention that it grows fast and easily even in climates as rough as that of Burkina Faso. Every few months, the branches can be harvested whole, the leaves plucked and dried, and then ground into powder that can be added to food - in this case, baby cereal. This moringa powder is like a natural vitamin that helps the babies in the infants in distress program grow big and strong. This miracle plant is God's gift to poverty-stricken west Africa. 

I watched as the women who sat around the table each pulled out a branch and started stripping the leaves off by running their fingers down the individual branches. I tried to mimic what they made look so easy, but I kept accidentally breaking the twigs, which meant throwing an occasional stem in the bucket along with the leaves. The women were kindly laughing at my attempts, probably wondering how I could make such a mess out of something that is so easy for them, but I smiled and kept going, and I think they appreciated my effort because they kept giving me new branches every time I finished one. It must have taken me at least twice as long as it took them to strip even one branch. 

As the women harvested moringa leaves, their babies sat close by. Most of them are orphans, and the others are ones who had a rough start to life because of sickness or malnutrition. One sat cross-legged on the table, and he kept reaching for the branches, waving them in the air or sticking the leaves in his mouth. Another baby crawled at our feet, picking up fallen twigs and branches and putting them in her mouth. Either those babies put everything in their mouths, or they know good moringa when they taste it. I think it's a combination of both. Other babies sat in their caregivers' laps. A pair of newborn twins napped on a folded up blanket. 

While the women plucked and the babies watched (or got involved), Rebeca spoke to them about how to keep their babies healthy and protect them from sickness. Although I don't speak enough dagara to understand exactly what she said, I know at one point she started talking about God. Because that's what she does. She just naturally transitions into telling people about Jesus. If you want to know how to turn any conversation into a spiritual one, talk to Rebeca. She is an expert at it, but I think it just comes naturally to her because she loves the Lord so much. 

I sat there pulling moringa leaves off the branches with my fingernails, letting them accumulate in my lap, dumping my collection every now and then into Juliette's bucket as she would whisper "thank you, my sister", and listening to Rebeca tell these women about life and God while orphan babies slept and played and made noise because they are alive and not abandoned...and I just thought there is no place else I would rather be. 

After this milk and moringa distribution, I invited Rebeca and Juliette to come to our house for a celebratory lunch. Juliette brought tô, and I warmed up some traditional leaf sauce and sliced fresh cucumbers from our garden. Before we filled our bowls and our stomachs, we prayed, and Rebeca, filled with the joy of the moment, started to belt out a worship song at the top of her lungs, and we all joined in until the acoustics in that house were happier than a recording studio. We sat on the floor and ate one of the most joyous meals I have ever eaten, but it had nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the people I was sharing it with. 

As if things couldn't get any better, I remembered it was my mom's birthday, and so Rebeca, Juliette, Emily, and I surprised my mom with a video call and a happy birthday song in French. It made my day to see how happy it made my mom and how happy it made my African sisters who also call her mom. In that moment, there was no longer an ocean between us, and it reminded me of heaven, where "there was no longer any sea." 

So I sat there with an empty bowl, a full stomach, and a heart exploding with joy as I saw my mom on the screen in front of me and felt Rebeca and Juliette pressing in on either side of me to get their faces in the picture and tell my mom how much they love her...and I just thought there is no place else I would rather be. 

I had to write this to tell you about Rebeca and Juliette, how they work with all their hearts as if they are working for God and not for men. How they see their job as a ministry and take every opportunity to tell people about Jesus. How much joy they radiate. How beautifully they sing and pray. How they each handle life with grace and faith even when it's really hard. How Juliette, a single mother who constantly faces opposition from her deceased husband's family, raises her six children alone and with such courage. She only wants them to know and love Jesus. How Rebeca, a single mother of her own twins plus the other five orphans she has taken in to raise on her own, never gets tired of loving. How she thanks God for everything, how she trusts him in everything, and how she feels that he has called her to love orphans and evangelize her people. She does both extraordinarily well. 

As I type these words tears well up in my eyes when I think about these moments, when I think about these women. How for some amazing God-ordained reason, they have room in their hearts to love me, too. If only I could be half the woman that these women have been to me. 

I write this for them, even though they may not ever understand the depth of my love and thankfulness for them until I can adequately express it in heaven. Oh, heaven! How I can't wait to spend eternity with these women of God and all the ones who have been touched or even saved by their witness. Getting to live life with them in earth, rejoice with them, struggle with them, pray and worship and minister and evangelize with them, be loved by them, and belong to their families in some small way has absolutely changed me and left a mark on my heart that will be visible and palpable for the rest of my life. 

I honor them, and I know they would just tell me to honor God, who has given them a joyful faith-fullness that is as undeniable as a brilliant light shining in the darkness. He is using them to change the world, and he has placed them here in west Africa for such a time and place as this. I'm forever in debt to him for allowing me to be here at the same time and place as them, these women who are truly heroes of the faith.