SYDNEY REFUGEE TEAM
"Recently I went to a Sudanese lady's house for her regular English lesson. She wasn't at home, and as I sat in the car, feeling a little frustrated and trying to decide how much longer to wait, I heard someone calling my name. It was Rachel (name has been changed to protect identity), an African lady I had met once a few months back who was out for a walk with four of her seven children.
I was amazed that she had remembered me and we chatted while I cuddled one of her gorgeous little babies. Her husband had been in Africa for eight months and within ten minutes she had shared with me her loneliness and struggles in coping with all the children while he was away.
The next week I visited Rachel and her children. The kids were delighted to have a "special visitor" and spent the day climbing all over me, and Rachel was happy to have another adult to talk to and have some help with the babies. Since then we have become good friends
and I feel like I have been welcomed not only into her home but into her family as well.
Rachel is an amazing woman. She has spent 20 of her 29 years in two separate refugee camps in Africa after fleeing civil war in southern Sudan. She came to Australia five years ago, speaks four languages, manages a household of seven children and does it all with a smile. We talk about all sorts of things - cooking, life in Africa, life in Sydney, our joys and sorrows - we even compare notes on raising teenagers! I've been able to talk to her about God and his love for her, and she acknowledges his presence and where she has seen Him go before her in her own journey.
As I think back on that day, I am reminded again that God's plans are different to mine, that his thoughts are higher than mine. I thought I was there to teach English, but He had a different agenda, one that has made a huge impact on the lives of others.
Pray for Rachel. I count it as a privilege to call her a friend. My visits may have helped ease her loneliness a little, but I wait expectantly to see God himself step into her life and fill the voids in it". By Sally Jones.
(Reprinted by permission of International Teams Australia)
Web: http://www.iteams.org/
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