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.\u00a0 To give you an idea what that looks like, let me illustrate a few examples.<\/p>\n
Shortly after arriving here this summer a man knocked at our gate late one rainy evening.\u00a0 He said his wife was pregnant and he needed money for fuel for his car to take her to the hospital.\u00a0 We have him money.\u00a0 A few days later he returned to say she had given birth to triplets, and the mother had died in childbirth.\u00a0 He needed diapers for the babies.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Normally extended family takes care of these kinds of needs, but he said he’s from Central African Republic and has no family nearby.\u00a0 Locals treat him, an\u00a0outsider,\u00a0with disdain, and he was waiting for his sister to come from CAR and help him care for the babies.\u00a0 That was the last we saw of him.\u00a0 Was it true?\u00a0 Was it a scam?\u00a0 We may never know, but Ron felt compelled to help him.\u00a0 So we’re only out about $50 and he claims that God saved his family through our help.\u00a0 Only God knows.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She claimed that the father was not\u00a0in her life anymore and that\u00a0she had no where to go for the night.\u00a0 Here’s the dilema: Do we find her a place to stay for the night?\u00a0 If so, will she bolt, leaving an unwanted child for us to take care of?\u00a0 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)?\u00a0 So I prayed.\u00a0 I wrote on facebook for any who read it to pray for wisdom, and I asked trusted Cameroonians\u00a0around here\u00a0for advice.\u00a0 Everyone said to take her to the police.\u00a0 Didn’t seem like a compassionate thing to do, but they said the police would know what to do.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The supposed deadbeat dad is living with her and her family.\u00a0 They took her back home.\u00a0 It was best that she return to her family.<\/p>\n
The third example is another young girl of 15 who approached me (sans bebe) as I was walking down the street.\u00a0 She asked if I would keep her.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Since that encounter I have heard from 3 Cameroonians that kids today just want everything given to them, they don’t want to work.\u00a0 Staying with her family is the best thing for her.<\/p>\n
And the final example was an obvious need.\u00a0 A man came to the gate introducing himself as the neighbor who lives behind our houses.\u00a0 He had been in a motorcycle accident and needed money to have a wound cared for.\u00a0 Well, he showed me and Mary Noren the wound – a big hole in his shin, which had already healed a great deal.\u00a0 We prayed for him and gave him money and sent him on his way.\u00a0 We heard that he’d been to the homes of several missionaries with the same story.\u00a0 Did it really cost him that much, or was he using it to get a little extra money?\u00a0 Again we’ll never know and we’re not responsible for the stories we hear, only for our response to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So now you have a better idea what we mean when we say we need discernment regarding needs of the various people we meet.\u00a0 Pray also for them (God knows who they are) and that he will care for their needs, whatever they are.\u00a0 And thank you for praying.\u00a0 God has given us wisdom and discernment for some most unexpected encounters.<\/p>\n