Our latest prayer update included a request to pray for daily discernment regarding people who come to the door or meet us on the street with various needs.  To give you an idea what that looks like, let me illustrate a few examples.

Shortly after arriving here this summer a man knocked at our gate late one rainy evening.  He said his wife was pregnant and he needed money for fuel for his car to take her to the hospital.  We have him money.  A few days later he returned to say she had given birth to triplets, and the mother had died in childbirth.  He needed diapers for the babies.  Ron walked with him to the nearest “convenience” store, but there were no diapers, so he gave the man more money so he could buy some in town on his way back to the hospital.  About a week later he came to tell us that one of the triplets had died and he needed money for the other 2 who were still being cared for in the hospital.  Normally extended family takes care of these kinds of needs, but he said he’s from Central African Republic and has no family nearby.  Locals treat him, an outsider, with disdain, and he was waiting for his sister to come from CAR and help him care for the babies.  That was the last we saw of him.  Was it true?  Was it a scam?  We may never know, but Ron felt compelled to help him.  So we’re only out about $50 and he claims that God saved his family through our help.  Only God knows.

A second example of our need for discernment begins with a young girl of 15 walking up to our gate one hot sunny September afternoon holding a 2 month old baby.  She told me the baby is hers and her mother, unhappy with her for ruining her chances at school by starting a family so young, had kicked her out of the house.  She claimed that the father was not in her life anymore and that she had no where to go for the night.  Here’s the dilema: Do we find her a place to stay for the night?  If so, will she bolt, leaving an unwanted child for us to take care of?  Is she telling the truth, or will someone come looking for her and accuse us of kidnapping (possible to the first part; not likely to the second)?  So I prayed.  I wrote on facebook for any who read it to pray for wisdom, and I asked trusted Cameroonians around here for advice.  Everyone said to take her to the police.  Didn’t seem like a compassionate thing to do, but they said the police would know what to do.  Sure enough, the police contacted her parents; she had run away from home with her baby when she was supposed to be cooking for the family.  The supposed deadbeat dad is living with her and her family.  They took her back home.  It was best that she return to her family.

The third example is another young girl of 15 who approached me (sans bebe) as I was walking down the street.  She asked if I would keep her.  After long discussion I figured out that she wanted to live with us in our house because her father had died so she’s “orphaned” (i.e. raised by a single mom).  There are other children also living in the house with her mother, out in an area where land is still plentiful (not built up yet).  So I offered to pray for her (she refused), and sent her on her way with a lecture about how she needs to work a garden, help her mother, and how all the kids need to work to help each other.  Since that encounter I have heard from 3 Cameroonians that kids today just want everything given to them, they don’t want to work.  Staying with her family is the best thing for her.

And the final example was an obvious need.  A man came to the gate introducing himself as the neighbor who lives behind our houses.  He had been in a motorcycle accident and needed money to have a wound cared for.  Well, he showed me and Mary Noren the wound – a big hole in his shin, which had already healed a great deal.  We prayed for him and gave him money and sent him on his way.  We heard that he’d been to the homes of several missionaries with the same story.  Did it really cost him that much, or was he using it to get a little extra money?  Again we’ll never know and we’re not responsible for the stories we hear, only for our response to them. 

So now you have a better idea what we mean when we say we need discernment regarding needs of the various people we meet.  Pray also for them (God knows who they are) and that he will care for their needs, whatever they are.  And thank you for praying.  God has given us wisdom and discernment for some most unexpected encounters.