Strangers in a Strange Land

Can you imagine being displaced from your home, being driven from the land and the country and the family you love to a new country? Angelique doesn't have to imagine it--she's living it. Far from the people she loves, in a country where no one speaks her language, she can't even find the ingredients to cook the foods she loves and has to settle for the blander fare of Uganda.

She and I made an instant connection the first time I visited her home, both of us thrilled to find we shared a language and were able to speak and pray together in French. Both of us strangers in a strange land who found a connection in our foreign-ness. At church the next day, when the whole congregation split into groups to pray together, she was left sitting in middle of the room, alone. Edwin nudged me to go pray with her, so I did again.

The topic of prayer was "what has God done in your life to show you his goodness?" A tough question for her, I thought, since I already knew part of her story, about her health problems that kept her in the hospital for months and about how her daughter that came to care for her died on Christmas Day.

She didn't hesitate, though, to share the goodness of God. "He's healed me," she said. "Before, I was so sick, needing care and medicine all the time. Now, it is like I am healed. I can take care of my family again."

We spent a day with her and, as we left, she hugged me and begged me not to come back and see her, perhaps to move to the Congo and work with her, planting seeds for God's kingdom and--above all--to not forget her.

Don't worry, Angelique, I won't forget.