During this furlough, well meaning American friends tried very hard to convince my parents that it was absolutely unthinkable, unreasonable and perhaps even sinful to take such a tiny child to that horrible, dark continent with all those poisonous snakes, scorpions and wild, man-eating animals. As I reflect on this, I wonder where they thought I had been all of my three-and-a-half year life, up until that time.
I have heard of other missionary kids whose parents succumbed to that pressure and left their young children at home with friends or relatives, and the children tragically felt that they were unwanted and had been abandoned. In fact, some have even said, “If they didn’t want me, why did they even bring me into the world?” I’m so thankful to God that He had other plans for me and my parents. Every single day that I was in the United States I would ask: “When are we going back home to Africa?” My intense persistence with that question helped remove any doubt from their mind as to what they were to do with me. As a result, I’ve always known I had parents who loved me enough to keep me with them, even when others thought that was the wrong decision.
In addition to that, when I was nine, and until I was twelve years old, my mother stayed in America with me while my father went alone to Africa for three years. At the time I wasn’t mature enough to really appreciate the sacrifice they made on my behalf until years later when I was married, I finally realized the greatness of their sacrifice, and their love for me and for the work of spreading the Gospel.
Well, after this first furlough, we arrived back in Africa. In Nigeria we stayed a few days with some American missionaries and I had a wonderful time playing with their children. Leaving them, we went over trails, primitive roads, and at times just foot paths to reach our home in Yagoua, Cameroon. Now that I had arrived back home in Africa, and had such wonderful memories of playing with the American missionary children, my tune suddenly changed so that it became: “When are we going back to America?” But God had so graciously brought me back to Africa with my parents; for this I am now truly grateful.
As I think of my young dad with changeable desires – wanting to go home to Africa, then wanting to go back to America – I think about some of my own changeability. I would like to think my changeable desires are much more adult…mature. But I know better. That’s why the older I get, the more I truly want to defer to my Heavenly Father’s guidance. Not that I hold back, often anyway, from telling Him what I think I want. But the whole, “yet not my will, but yours be done,” is added onto my prayers with more genuineness and truthfulness than ever before.
The other thing I found myself thinking about as I typed Dad’s words, is how God always leads us when we ask Him for wisdom, and truly expect Him to give it to us. (It’s a promise in the book of James, for one...) Grandpa and Grandma sought God’s wisdom concerning whether or not to bring Dad back to Africa with them. And God answered them, in part, through their vocal three-year-old’s daily stated desire to return to Africa. A little boy who would change his tune once he arrived there…
I cannot think of a time when I have cried out to God for wisdom, and He has not answered me. He may not choose to answer in my preferred timing…and yes, some answers I am still waiting for… Yet I know His promises are trustworthy. He has shown me that over and over again.
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