(In no particular order.)
Nature Valley granola bars, peanut butter, band aids, toilet paper, bug spray, Malaria meds., pocket knife, flashlights, batteries, drawing supplies...
I would post a picture of the sheer insanity that is my room as I get ready to pack, but I am way too embarrassed to show people. My mom left yesterday for Indonesia with Compassion International. It's sad for me to say goodbye knowing that I'll be gone before she gets back. BUT I'm so beyond excited to get started with One Mango Tree. This next week will be a lot of planning travel arrangements from Entebbe to Kampala and finally to Gulu. I just found out that I have a meeting with a buyer in Kampala which is very good news for OMT, but also good because it means I get to spend more time with my dad before he flies back to the States. Looking forward to keeping everyone updated on this next step in my life.
I wanted to share the journey that brought me to Uganda. This is an abbreviated version of my testimony that I shared with Asbury United Methodist Church back in May:
My journey in missions started in a seemingly unlikely place – New York City.
A recent graduate from art school, I had just moved to the City for my first job in the fashion industry. This job was everything to me. I felt like I finally made it – I got my foot in the door. I thought it was going to be nothing but a steady climb to the top.
As we are all very much aware, in the fall of 2008 the economy tanked. The company started making cut backs and they couldn’t afford to keep me. I rode the subway to my apartment in Brooklyn devastated.
God, how could you bring me here to have everything taken away? This isn’t fair! I JUST got here. I have a one-year lease. How am I going to afford to stay?
Those four months of unemployment were some of the hardest I’ve ever had to go through, but they proved to be some of the most rewarding. God showed himself during that time. He provided for all my physical needs…my rent, food. Looking back, he was teaching me how to live simply. He wanted me to trust him completely.
Lauren, do you believe in me? Don’t you know how much I love you?
As much I wanted to believe, I struggled with trusting that he had a bigger better plan for my life. One Sunday morning at Brooklyn Tabernacle Church, I sat there feeling defeated. Like a deflated balloon, I sat empty desperately needing to be filled – with hope.
The pastor preached on God’s promises that he makes to his children. God uses these promises to give us specific prayer direction, asking him to make our path clear. He gives us promises to have hope for our futures.
That Sunday, God made me a promise through this Word. In Isaiah 43:18-19 it says:
“Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new, even now it’s coming. Do you not see it? Indeed I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”
Wow! Really, God? Something new? Where?
Of course I had a very shallow vision, thinking that this something new was a new job. I had no idea what God had planned or WHERE he would take me.
In February of 2009, still unemployed, I felt like Jonah; I was starting to get real uncomfortable in the belly of whale waiting – HOPING – projectile vomited somewhere. ANYWHERE that would give me the slightest insight as to what I was supposed to be doing with my life.
Then the opportunity came to go to Ethiopia with Compassion International. Two weeks changed the way I see my life. My little world of one came crashing down. My never-ending ocean of wants and needs instantly became a leaking kiddie pool. My selfishness was all of a sudden thrown back in my face. I was confronted with who I was then and who God wanted me to become. In the midst of extreme poverty, I was the one who was poor. In Ethiopia, I met people who had absolutely nothing according to the world’s standards BUT were rich in heavenly treasures. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. They were vibrant. I saw Christ.
The veil was lifted from my eyes. Nothing was going to ever be the same.
I went back to New York, within one week I received a job offer and started back into the industry. But it looked very different. It wasn’t satisfying anymore. It all seemed gray in comparison to the vibrancy of Africa. Over the next year and a half, it only got darker. God was allowing me to see the difference between the world’s work and his. I couldn’t justify working only for the bottom dollar, being expected to exploit others to meet a deadline. This once beautiful idol of mine was now rotting right in front of me.
It was time to leave.
But where? Where are you taking me, Lord?
In the newness of January 2010, God made me another promise. He was taking me out of New York, out of the United States – back to Africa. That summer I quit my job; I was moving to Cape Town, South Africa. God spoke confirmation through Psalm 18:49:
“Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O Lord, and I will sing to your name.”
On September 15th 2010, I arrived in Cape Town. It was about 11pm so I didn’t get to see my new home until the morning. I woke up to roosters crowing. Looking out the window you could see the ocean and mountains in the distance. It is a country with many contrasts. Beautiful scenery and a bustling down town, but tucked away – hidden away – over the mountain are the townships that I was to work in.
I went to Cape Town with the intention of teaching design and skills training. I ended up managing a bakery. Obviously nothing I learned in art school.
Oh, Lord. Help.
Journal entry: “If the Lord is preparing me to start my own business or at least manage one, I'm taking the hint. So this afternoon I just completed my first devotional on self-discipline and weekly business update/review meeting with Five Loaves Bakery. I showed them what the total production was based on the actual amount of bread sold. Then we calculated the potential amount earned if everything sells, before expenses and wages.
It was like a small little light bulb lit up in the room.
I pray that they are beginning to grasp that the more they produce, the more potential money they will bring into the business. In short, the bakery has been in the red and if they increase their production next week like we planned, the bakery will break even. Phumzile asked if I thought they could do it. I told them I believe they can and asked him if he thought they could do it. He said, "I hope so."
Hope. Hope is the opposite of poverty. The Lord gives a hope and a future. I was so worried that I wasn’t going to be able to relate to the bakers. But God had prepared me to trust in him. He was…and IS…my hope to share.
Romans 15:4 "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope."
Throughout my time in South Africa I had been in prayer over the decision for where I needed to go next. I felt that God was very clearly telling me to wait. I was not excited about returning to the fashion industry doing the same thing I did before. God wanted me to be intentional about my decisions. I asked that God would give me the eyes to see how he sees. And there are areas of brokenness and hurt from New York that he was still mending. I was finally at a point that allowed him to break down walls and heal wounds.
One weekend, the Lord took lots of opportunities to speak to me. He continues to break my heart in order to teach me the ways his heart breaks. During church, emphasis was on being prepared.
“Get ready,” the pastor said, “God is getting ready to build you up.” He asked, “Who is your foundation? How solid is your foundation?”
God was preparing my heart by breaking down walls that I had built up. Then I heard God speak, “Go and rebuild what is broken.”
That Sunday afternoon, I woke up from a nap with the phrase: “Tear down what needs to be rebuilt.”
Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captive and freedom to prisoners.”
God was directly speaking to the brokenness being mended in my life and how I am to GO and love the brokenhearted through the experiences God allowed me to go through.
We are called to be missionaries to serve God’s people, whether that is in the continent of Africa or Manhattan. I definitely learned during my time in Cape Town that regardless of where I am, I am to be connected within the community. I need to be in tune with God in order to love and value those who I see daily. I need to make myself available to his people.
Ephesians 5:1-2 "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
My last week in Cape Town, a contact in Cape Town told me I HAVE TO LOOK at this company in Uganda. One Mango Tree. My friend told me that every time she saw me One Mango Tree came to mind.
So I emailed the company the week before I left to come home. The morning I was to leave, I received an email from the founder telling me her biggest production issue was with textiles. She did not have any textiles training and asked, “How do you feel about doing ground work in Uganda?”
Again, God has provided confirmation. This past February while in Tanzania, I was reading Philippians 4:3 “Indeed, my loyal companion, I ask you to also [GO] to help these women who have shared in my struggle in the cause for the gospel”
I don’t where this path is going. I know that it won’t be easy and will sometimes be dark, but I am encouraged to go because Christ has already gone before us. So I encourage you. Go.
Go in Faith.
Faith carries compassion. Faith is doing anything to stop the hurt. Jesus was moved with compassion for people. Broken people. Jesus showed us faith in practical means: food, clothing and shelter. You and I show faith by what we do. Our actions. What we can do may not make a difference to everybody, but it will make a difference to those we help.
Great opportunities to serve God often come as small opportunities to serve those around us who are in need. God is calling us a church body to go and rebuild the broken.
