October 2007 - Leaving England
I feel very privileged to be posting on Steve's website now that I'm his wife. Come to think of it, I feel very privileged to be his wife! Contrary to the impression that the title of this blog may give, I am also very much looking forward to being his wife in Africa.
Over the last couple of months in England I've met people who are horrified to learn that I am going to live in a place where the temperature gets to 48 degrees, there's no running water and they eat millet for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These people have read The Poisonwood Bible and they've seen The Painted Veil – "it's all going to go horribly, tragically wrong!".
Well by God's grace it won't, and I'm actually rather looking forward to having bucket showers and seeing the sun again. The millet, though - that'll be the difficult one, I think, because I love food – I mean good, nutritious, yummy food. I've got more recipe books than Steve thinks is morally right and my idea of a good evening is cooking up a three-course feast for friends. The idea of sitting silently around a bowl of rancid milk mixed with millet doesn't sound like my cup of tea at all, if you'll pardon my Englishness.
If I'm beginning to sound spoilt it's probably because I am. I've only ever gone hungry out of choice and I've more or less been able to eat what I want, when I've felt like it, for most of my life. The idea that there are millions of people living in this world without enough food and without any variety in their diet is really hard for me to grasp. It's just not right. It breaks my heart and I know it breaks God's heart too.
He spoke to me clearly in December 2004 when I was in Wales, on a training course with World Horizons to prepare me for my move to Cambodia where I was to start Precious Girl Magazine. One day I was fasting, and it was about 4pm. I was intending to break the fast at 6pm and was suddenly tempted to break it early by a food stall in the market I was walking through. As I wondered if it would matter to anyone if I broke it, I looked up and saw a sign that clearly read 'AFRICA IS STARVING'. The words sliced straight into my conscience. I looked closer to see what the words referred to, but the sign dissolved into nothing – there was no such sign, just a whole mass of commercial signs in the market. As I walked away and drove back home, the phrase kept repeating in my head, pummeling my conscience because I knew it was true. People were dying of hunger as I contemplated breaking my fast for the pleasure of a pint of prawns. People are starving while I am feasting. AFRICA IS STARVING. The phrase haunted me for days. When I walked around Asda and saw the heaving shelves, the trolleys piled high with food, it went round and round in my head. I cried a lot that week over Africa, and I prayed too because that was about the most useful thing I felt I could do.
Later that week in Wales, Steve came to talk about his work in Burkina Faso. He talked about his plans for the radio station, and also about the swarms of locusts that were destroying crops and causing famine in his region. I went to talk to him during break-time but I didn’t say very much before I burst into tears – I couldn't actually say "Africa is starving'' out loud to anyone then without falling apart.
So that was how I met Steve. I thought he was interesting, he thought I was weird. But we stayed in touch and the rest is history. Just how God managed to bring us together when we lived on different continents with different callings is beyond me but it was apparently easy for Him and a testimony of His goodness. I don't know what His plan and purpose is exactly for me in Burkina but I know that it is to be there with Steve and share Christ with the people there. He came to be with the poor and the hungry, and that's where I know I'll find Him.
