“You have no idea what you’ll be doing?”
“To be honest, no,” I replied.
“But you always plan. Obviously you planned not to plan this time,” my husband said with a smile.
Six hours later on our first flight as a family of three, we arrived at my internship at IRIS Global, not knowing what to expect.
Months ago, frantically knocking on several doors searching for a practicum and internship opportunity for my Masters In Public Health program, I desperately wanted to embark on a research project of Significance. Little did I know that after a convoluted journey, God would lead me back to the start to start a social venture with Kitesong and the other picture books I had published over the years.
People had told me this was a mistake. That as a new mother and student, starting a social venture was too much and bordering on being irresponsible. They said doing something “serious” like a research project would have been much better than starting this nebulous entity, or traipsing across America with my husband and trooper baby in tow, not knowing exactly what it was I would be learning.
I don’t blame them. I felt the same too.
When I submitted my application, I knew my chances were slim. After all, starting a social venture for a practicum was very, very unusual. And in the public health world, my desired internship organization (IRIS Global) was no Gates or Rockefeller Foundation. Yet, I felt I had far more to learn from them, having been inspired by their Founder Heidi Baker several years ago, a woman who had and continues to lay her life down to serve the poorest of the poor in Africa.
Little did I expect Hopkins to sponsor our trip on the Field Experience Award. Little did I expect to arrive at a time where all the senior staff and board members around the world would fly in to discuss their major plans for the year ahead. Little did I expect to meet the Founder, Heidi, herself, a woman who lives in Mozambique serving orphans and vulnerable women, whom many and I had only seen and heard and been moved by from afar.
There she was.
If there ever was a fan-girl, starstruck moment, I would have botched it. Because so overwhelmed was I when she gave me a hug that all I could say was, “This is so surreal.”
So overwhelmed was I when she asked me to sit down with her when so many others were needing her attention. I spoke, and she listened as if no one else existed. Just as how she always spoke of “stopping for the one” in need, she stopped for me.
“I want your books translated into Portuguese for all our schools and children centers in Africa.”
I was shocked. Did she know, that after the longest silence, in a tidal wave of beautiful miracles, God had moved people all over the world to contact me regarding translations for the books in the last one month. First, East Timorese, then Japanese, then Mandarin. On the first day of my internship, an American lady texted me to say, “God impressed upon my heart to translate your books into Spanish for the Latino population. Would you let me?”
But I had no idea how to move forward, how to build a team. “I am no entrepreneur. How do I even begin to lead?” I asked God.
All I knew was that after a series of closed doors, several ones opened, and God had led us thus far. I just had to keep trusting that He knew even when I did not.
I arrived on the first day finding myself with the staff team undergoing a Life Language training, one of the most enlightening leadership and relationship profiles and trainings I’ve ever done.
“You are a Mover. Movers are entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders.”
I nearly laughed out loud, seeing how that was exactly what I told God I was not, just the day before. Yet, in divine candor, it was the encouragement I needed.
The next day, a world-class trainer flew in for free to conduct a leadership training for the team.
Building a Team. Casting your vision. Setting your goals.
I had arrived not knowing what to expect, wondering if this all had been a mistake, but God had my itinerary all planned.
The director told me, “We’ve never had such trainings back-to-back with board meetings and conferences- it’s like God WANTED you here with us at this time. And there were no other dates you could come- Incredible!”
It made me wonder, that perhaps, all He expects of us is to trust and obey. Unlike what we think, we need not always have plans made and all our steps laid out. We need not always have all the qualifications before we answer a call.
The little we have, even when we feel like we have nothing, He can take and multiply.
Just as all this was going on, another lady, who was a blog-reader-turned-friend, contacted me long-distance to say she felt God wanting her to take the step of courage to journey alongside me and help be part of Kitesong, to use its stories to impact communities.
When I shared with her the vision God had laid on my heart regarding the books traveling to different nations reaching people of different tongues, and how uncanny it was that the very first team member He had sent to encourage me with was a blog reader who is a linguist, the phone went quiet when she replied, “There are tears in my eyes as you share this. For so many years I’ve asked God why- but I’m a linguist too.”
I thought about the many nights of tears as I struggled with not knowing what to do, wondering if I had wasted coming to Hopkins. I questioned why God would make such an uneconomical choice in sending me all the way here just to start Kitesong. I pondered upon my initial worries about traveling with a baby, and how much of a trooper Sarah-Faith turned out to be, winning compliments on the long flights and surviving the long road trips, with Cliff being a champion of a Dad and husband planning everything to a tee.
But I am learning, that He knows the end better than us, and that truly, closed doors do not mean His rejection. God’s silence do not equate to His neglect. Rather, very often, they are exactly His way of speaking to us, directing us, guiding us.
And if we will choose to see things that way, how joyful will we be to luxuriate in the knowing that He was there with us all this while, and will be till the very end.
