“Wow that’s a huge sacrifice. You’re going to miss Chinese New Year, your firstborn’s birthday, your own birthday, and time with your family. That’s too big of a sacrifice, no?”
My heart seared.
When God invited me to be deployed as a consultant to provide humanitarian assistance in Africa via WHO/UNICEF, I had no idea where I’d be sent, how it’d be like.
In the weeks waiting for the big announcement, the days grew heavy with dread.
Then the news came. I had less than two weeks to leave.
Overnight, time turned to sand.
I desperately clung onto it, breaking into tears while playing with my then four and two-year olds, only to have it slip through my fingers.
As I packed up, I received a text from an acquaintance who was a missions mobilizer, “I do not recommend anyone leaving his or her spouse and children behind to do His work.”
I read the text, eyes stung with tears. Was this right?
“You must go,” said Cliff. “This is God’s will.”
On my birthday, away from family on my own in Africa, my pastor Ps @dianbotha1964 sent a voice message to me, “When we make sacrifices for God, He always comes back with a beautiful gift for us.”
Now that the weeks have flown by, I can look back and say- although many of us had lamented what a costly series of sacrifices this would be, God has shown us otherwise.
When the local team sprung a surprise farewell for me, tears glinted in their eyes as I said, “God showed me- When your sacrifice is done in obedience, what you perceived as loss turns into the biggest gift back to you.”
I leave with my heart full- filled with a series of beautiful gifts and farewells, but most of all, with His gifts of affirming my identity, growing my faith, and being bathed in His love.
Beloved, there is no sacrifice too costly for Him, if He asks it of us.
For when we lay what is so dear to us at the altar, as Abraham did Isaac, He turns our pain for good, our tears to joy, our failings to breakthrough and our loss into the biggest gift of all- the gift of Christ alone.
Completely caught by surprise by this beautiful farewell. They’d told me the Director needed to see me urgently- I went to the office, wondering if I’d made a grave mistake… only to find myself greeted by song, moving speeches, gifts, a slideshow with photos of myself at work, a ceremonial adorning of the traditional Lihiya dress…
The Swazis tell me their farewells never end… only because they find it hard to say goodbye ❤️❤️❤️