Chicken to the rescue!

After a very long and very emotionally exhausting day, I was ready to be home and dive into the world of my latest book “A Journey to the Center of the Earth”. A woman, O, from the village asked if we could take her into town so we agreed. We had spent most of the day in her compound and B had a little shadow, M that followed him everywhere. M is one of those kids that you hate to love. He’s ornery, talks back, and cries a lot, but he talked freely to us “tuubaako’s” after about 10 minutes, pulled some hilarious antics and is cute as all get out! So when O told us that she was sleeping at M’s family’s house in town, we knew that we had to go and greet the family of this hilarious kid.

By the time we arrived it was dark. We had to walk 15 minutes down the road because it was too bad to take the truck. We got the house and I realized that since it was dark, I wasn’t even going to be able to recognize anyone in the compound when I saw them again! But thankful when M’s mom came out she invited us in and we spent the next 45 minutes chatting about life, her kids, M’s antics and her dancing baby.

As we were walking out a couple of grandma’s came up to greet us. One of the grandmas had a rival last name so B, being the man he is, started teasing this old grandma! She laughed and then the other grandma told us that she was the same last name as ours. She was so happy and laughing, which filled erased all my tiredness and replaced it with joy. So as she walked us out, she stopped us and ran, yes ran, back to her compound and came running, yes running, back out with a chicken in tote! Now we have been given chickens here before, but it’s always right before we eat them. They usually present them to us and then prepare it for lunch. But she was giving us this chicken to keep because she was overjoyed that we had come to greet the house.

Our lovely gift!

As I walked back to the car , I looked back over our day. Our long, tiring day. We’d been in O’s compound, which is our people group, and they were so loving and open even though they didn’t really know us. Then we took a little trip to another people group’s village with a different heart language than we know. There were people that wanted to hear about JC, but when we arrived there, they barely talked to us, didn’t look at us, and barely even greeted us despite them knowing the language we speak. It certainly wasn’t the reception I had been anticipating. After that I was so drained emotionally, feeling defeated and worthless. But this old grandma renewed my energy, reminded me of why we’re here and how important it is to speak in the people’s heart language. It also reminded me of how faithful our God is. Even though I didn't get the reception I thought we would, and even though doing the work there wore me OUT, God still gave me the energy to greet another 10 new people and allowed me to have an incredible warm reception at this new house where we can now go back and share His truth. 

And a chicken. He gave us a chicken :) 

Our beauty! Our guard will keep him at his house until we are ready for a coop!

Update: And we got home to find two people waiting for us to share with them. B is outside as I type this sharing the Good News with them!! God's faithfulness never ceases to amaze me!