Wonderstruck

Three years ago today, we opened the girls home.  Five girls entered the moment it opened.  And over the next few years, the house reached capacity.  But we weren’t without loss.  Some girls came and went, taking my heart forever with them.  But as I look back, I’m awestruck with the goodness and richness of God that has filled that house.  I’ve witnessed the miracles of seeing the brokenhearted healed, the demon-possessed freed, the lowly raised up, those in mourning be restored to joy, and the undeserved be transformed by grace.  We still have a long way to go, especially with the ones who remain in ashes, and that’s why God continues to grow this ministry and stretch this dream. 

As we grow and stretch, God constantly surprises me with more and more support, and sometimes in the least likely of places or people.  A recent example is about a couple old students of mine.  When I return to the States for a business trip in June/July, I need to also raise my support money so that I can keep doing what I’m doing.  But I really, really don’t want to spend all that time raising support for myself, I’d rather be raising it for the ministry and spending quality time with people.  So I’m beginning to contact people now to get monthly donor commitments for me for the next year.  Well, just the other day, two of my old students posted phenomenal announcements to their friends and family on Facebook, asking them to help support me.  I was struck by their words in the post and moved at their compassion.  Though they may not be in a place to financially support me, what they did was just as – if not, more – important than someone giving money.  It’s in these moments that God reminds me, “Kate, I got this, remember?  I’m in control.  I sent you to Swazi, I will sustain you.”  And then I’m not so worried anymore.

I’m also struck by the amount of support God has grown for me in Swaziland.  My basketball team is a major source of stability and joy for me.  They make me feel like a million bucks and are constantly complimenting me.  Recently, I’ve gained another support group with other local female missionaries.  We are going through a 7-week bible study together called “Wonderstruck” (now you know where I got the theme for this blog) and, yes, the content is great, but it’s actually the people that I love the most.  Our group is hosted and led by Julie Anderson, who works for Adventures in Missions.  (Cool story: I met Julie my first trip to Swaziland in 2008 when one night she had our entire team over for dinner.  We were so refreshed by her and her food!  One act of generosity and hospitality goes a LONG way to weary, hungry, ministry-filled college students.  Julie is also a single mother who adopted a beautiful baby girl, who is now 10 or 11.)  This is the second year she has hosted a bible study for us female missionaries and it is the second year I’ve been completely empowered by it.  It’s SO nice to talk to somebody who understands, yet is not involved in my ministry.  So it’s a fresh, yet similar perspective.  The devotion has also forced me to find awe in God in the small things and to also see God in the hard moments.

I’ve been filling my journal with small, daily wonderstruck moments of things like seeing the Milkyway light up the night, hearing Benji and Lucia pray for my family by name, getting snapchats pictures, or especially hilarious videos from my friend Lauren, daily conversations with my awesome roommate Morgan, finally getting wifi, getting gummy bears and chocolate from Austria, and so much more.  But the best Wonderstruck moment so far was seeing the biggest 24-hour transformation of heart I’ve ever witnessed.

Yes, I’ve seen amazing moments of growth and transformation in these girls over the past two years, but never have I seen anything as remarkable as a 24-hour life change.  And the best part?  It was after I posted something on Facebook about having a hard time (I couldn’t explain it in the moment) and I was bombarded with comments, private messages, commitments to prayer, etc.  In those moments where an incredible rush of support waterfalled around me, this girl that I love dearly—a girl who took to the streets— turned back to the Lord.  

Her prior demise was a slow fade.  Some personal experiences left her heartbroken and the hopes that she had built up in the previous two months came crashing down.  She had built a castle made of sand.  She even admitted to me that she trusted and loved me more than she did God, that she wasn’t sure if what she said she believed was to please me or if it was really for herself.  That forced me to take a step back and surrender her to Christ, saying, “Jesus, I am not you.  Please let her see that my love for her is not of me; it’s only of You.  And she can have so much more of it, if she fully comes to you.” 

This girl who took to the streets had been set free of a recently dark past—she had been raped, attempted suicide, resorted to drugs and alcohol, sold herself into prostitution, possessed by demons, and more—and had undergone incredible transformations and healing thanks to her Christian counselor.  But after her castle made of sand collapsed, she succumbed to defeat and resorted back to her behaviors from which she had been delivered.  She refused help and set herself on spinning a messy web of manipulation.  Through the counsel of a pastor and counselor, I was advised to give her options and let her go.  “You are not here to save her, Mary-Kate,” the counselor told me.  “You are here to show her opportunity.”  She didn’t want my alternatives, she didn’t want change.  So, she set her heart on leaving and when I hugged her goodbye I sobbed.  She didn’t even shed a tear.  I cried and cried because I was losing another daughter, another girl I had poured myself into laboriously, all because she gave up on hope.  When I couldn’t stop crying, she said, “I don’t know why I’m leaving, Mama.  But I am.  Pray for me.”  There it was, her desire to be saved.  But I knew it couldn’t be me this time.  She couldn’t see me as the one saving her.  She had to see the Lord.  She had to see the strength in herself.  I watched her go and I cried out to God, asking him to keep her from evil, to keep her from her old- now current – behaviors, to keep her from her determination to rejoin prostitution.  “I’m going to South Africa to sell my body, because I’ll get a lot more money there,” she had told a volunteer.  When she asked me for her passport, I didn’t hesitate.  I gave it to her, begging God to change her heart and change her path. 

That night, I went to bed after I wrote a Facebook post, a discreet cry for prayers and help that I didn’t even know I needed.  That morning I woke up to messages and prayers and love.  Even as simple as: “Mary-Kate, I love you.”    One message.  But I knew it wasn’t just from the lovely young lady who sent it to me, it was God waking me up with a morning mercy. 

And then within two hours of the morning sunrise, God brought the girl back from the streets. “I don’t know what I was doing.  I don’t want to lose God’s love.  I don’t want to lose the only mother I’ve ever had.  I know what I want now.  I want that program.  I want to know God.  I want to get healed of my emotions and past.  I want Teen Challenge.  Please give me another chance.”  When I asked her what changed her mind, she said a friend had told her to stop listening to the voices that tear her down and make her feel like nothing.  He told her to choose Christ.  To choose the hard things.  To persevere.  To cling to hope. 

Johannes.  Johannes told her these things.  The boy who nearly saved my life six years ago from a man who tried to assault me, the boy who stood side by side with me in the pursuit of Tenele-Belle for years and years, the boy who has encouraged me with wisdom that is not his own…the boy who is my continued guardian angel.  This boy.  Well, he’s not a boy anymore.  This man.  How fitting that God answered your prayers and mine through Johannes.  To speak truth to her that night and to be her place of refuge and keep her safe from the streets. 

How wonderstruck I am that in a girls ministry, God continues to use a man to keep us together.  Oh the sweet, sweet body of Christ.  Amen.