Let us pray - Lesson #5

Lesson 5.1

Met a man named Sandrali. I don't know much about him, but I know that he is a praying man. My team probably sat with him for about ten seconds (literally) before he asked us to write down our names and ways that he could pray for us. It felt really weird at first. We knew very little about him, and he knew very little about us. He walked into the lobby of the hotel, sat down with us, and just expected us to share personal details about our lives? How dare he!

So, we hesitantly began to engage the conversation and started responding to his request.

Slowly, thankfully, he began to ask us more specific questions. He asked us if we were all married. Nope. He was finally getting somewhere...! Asked us what kind of men we wanted to marry, and we slowly, awkwardly began sharing specific details as he encouraged us to pray for specifics. And after a few minutes of sharing, he began to speak into our lives. He encouraged us in our individual spoken desires, and he recognized with us that God was with us, hearing our conversation and working in us in that very moment. And then he prayed.

He prayed like he knew us. He prayed like he cared that God hear and answer. He prayed with faith that God actually did hear and would respond. No shame. No doubt. No hesitancy.

We interacted with Sandrali for about 15 minutes, maybe a little longer. Then we left for the airport in Kigali. He was one of our last tastes of Rwanda, and we might never see his face again. But when he entered our lives for a short moment, he actually entered them. He was a brother, and he knew it. He didn't waste our short time with small talk and awkward, uninteresting, fruitless conversation. He made space for fellowship through prayer.

And he knows me better than some people I've been going through nursing school with for five years.....

Convicted and challenged.

Lesson 5.2

I assisted a French-speaking doctor in a C-section on my first day at Kibuye District Hospital. I'd never assisted in surgery before. I'd never seen a C-section in Africa before. I'd never seen any procedure done in this hospital before. I couldn't ask questions to the doctor when he handed me the scalpel...

I prayed a lot during that surgery.

I really wanted to be open to learn new things, but I didn't want it to be at the cost of someone's life. I was eager to get my hands dirty and invest myself fully, never turning down opportunity out of fear, but I also didn't want to make a devastating mistake on the first day. I knew that I had no experience in this area. I knew that I was not fully equipped to do the task at hand. I knew that at any point any number of things could go terribly wrong. But let's face it...that's life.

So I prayed. I knew for certain that God was in this. I knew that he had seen (and enabled!) every surgery in all of Africa, and he could guide my hands. I also knew that he was at work for my good in that moment, and I was sure that even if something terrible had happened during that surgery, he was beyond powerful enough to work in the broken system of life to redeem and restore and work sovereignly for my good. I was so confident that if the mom and baby both died because of some mistake that I made out of inexperience or ignorance or what have you, I would not have been falling out of God's good plan for my life.

I found a lot of peace in that operating room. God met me through prayer, and he met me with an unshakable peace. He met me with reminders of the truth of his promises that never fail. He met me with an understanding of his power over a fallen world. He met me as I sought him in my frail and vulnerable state.

Comforted and strengthened.

Dear friends, let us pray.