Rachel

Tonight I watched Rachel dance. Rachel is an African woman from Sierra Leone who invited me to a cultural event to discover the foods, sounds, dance, and history of her country. I am so very grateful to have Rachel as a friend and to be a part of her story as well as have her be a part of mine. And it all started when . . .

My church has a secret sister ministry. To participate, we fill out a fairly short form with family member names, favorite hobbies, favorite foods, prayer requests, birthdays, anniversaries, etc., and then we draw someone else's name. We become that lady's secret sister. My first secret sister assignment upon arriving in Edmonton was Rachel. I had no idea who Rachel was, which was ironic since I knew most of the church (even though it was a large church) and most of the church knew me. It just so happens that this church was responsible for me coming to know Jesus Christ even though at the time I lived about 2,000 miles away and in a different country.

Anyway, I asked my friend Brenda -- a board member -- and she said, "Oh yes, you know, she's one of the women from Sierra Leone."

Well, I did not know, actually, though I had heard some of the stories about these amazing women who had emigrated to Canada in 2002 due to the horrific civil war in their country. I had heard that these women lost family members and many had to leave their own children to come to Canada. When people spoke about them, there was always a tone of amazement and awe associated with these women and their strength in their circumstances.

I asked Pastor Bob if he knew anything about Rachel. He said, "She has a bullet wound in her leg from being shot as she was fleeing." What?! My secret sister had been shot? It seemed like something out of a novel or something, you know what I mean?

Rachel's form indicated she had one child -- Prince -- in his late teens. Her favorite color was yellow, a favorite hobby was reading, and chocolate was on her list of favorite goodies. Rachel was alot like me in these regards. I knew from my other research that her husband had been killed and she had other children left in Sierra Leone. I could not imagine what this must be like on a daily basis.

The rules of the Secret Sister ministry indicate that our focus is on praying for our secret sister and offer encouraging cards or small gifts. Well, I felt a bit sorry for Rachel because I have not been in a position to give anything other than small gifts for a while! But I tried to make whatever I gave as interesting as I could by writing up a poem to go with it or something of that nature. And at the end of the year, when we revealed who we were, Rachel said, "Oh, it was YOU who gave me all those wonderful gifts!" She was quite kind.

After we "met" she went back to Sierra Leone for a month -- she wanted to find her family. When she came back, we were able to have our first real dialogue after beginning this relationship. I asked her about her trip. She had managed to find her daughters. When she originally left, her two daugthers were aged 12 and 16 or thereabouts, and now they are 16 and 20. Like most young women there through the strife, they were repeatedly raped and abused. After the war "ended", they managed to get themselves into a camp in another African country (can't remember which one). It is there Rachel found them. She took them out of the camp and made arrangements for them to live with an Aunt. Rachel started the process of trying to see if they could come here, and then Rachel returned to Canada.

I couldn't imagine how it must feel to have your daughters tell you about these horrific things, and I asked Rachel about it. She said, "I could not listen to it." I can only guess at her pain. You don't bring children into the world to have them hurt.

Rachel will be going back to Sierra Leone to live with her family.

Tonight I sit with mutual friends Margaret and Chuck in the midst of perhaps eighty people from Sierra Leone and enjoy learning about their traditions. We had a wonderful dinner (great fish and chicken and several rice dishes with sauces and hot sauces, as well as ginger beer), we heard beautiful music and saw traditional dancing, and we learned some of the facts and history of Sierra Leone.

I thank God today for Rachel, and for the example she is to me of a woman dealing with some of the worst difficulties a woman and parent could deal with, and doing it with God's evident grace. I pray for Rachel's daughters. I pray that the good memories have started accumulating in their minds, and that new good experiences and memories made begin to outnumber and outweigh the bad ones. I pray that Rachel's daughters be healed, both physically and emotionally, through faith in Jesus Christ. I thank you for allowing Rachel to bless me with her story, her culture and her friendship, and I pray God's blessing on her as she journeys toward Sierra Leone once again.