Esther

While I was in Uganda, I found that my
main ministry and passion was with one woman called Esther. This blog
is dedicated to her for the many ways that she touched my heart.

It must have been during our first week
in Uganda that my team did an ATL (Ask the Lord). When we do an ATL,
we come together in prayer and ask God what He wants us to do and
where He wants us to go. On this particular day, we ended up at this
hotel/soda shop called Angels (I will explain more later). We
invited the woman who served us drinks to sit down and enjoy a soda
with us. She was a bubbly woman whose beauty was not only external,
but came from a light within her. Her name was Esther and she told
us about how she has a baby girl named Tresie, how she is 24, how she
wants to be a singer, and how she loves God. We invited her to
church and sure enough we saw her at church that Sunday. The whole
church service I only remember being able to think about her; so the
whole service I just prayed for God to open up opportunities to spend
with her. After church, she came looking for me and asked for me to
come to Angels to talk about Jesus; do I did. She and I were
connected by God; I truly believe that God brought me to Busia to
know her.

I started to visit her on a regular
basis and we grew to be very good friends. The more I got to know
her, the more of her stories she shared with me and the more I
realized how truly incredible her faith in Christ is. She was always
quick to laugh and has this heart that loves like Jesus. She always
welcomed us with a bright and enthusiastic smile that could only
possibly be reciprocated with a smile that matched. She was always
concerned with those around her; every time we visited, she went
through the list of our team and asked how they were doing, where
they were and how much she was missing them. But I would say the
biggest affect that she left me with was the light that was inside of
her. As many of you know, the Muslim population is very large in
Uganda and she too was raised Muslim, but she found Christ in all His
truth apart from all obstacles. She fully relies on Christ for
everything and she lives to bring the light of Christ everywhere that
she goes. She taught me that there is nothing too big for God to
handle and let me tell you, she has been through a lot that could
easily destroy someone’s faith; and yet it remains and it seems
that for her, even under all circumstances, God has provided.

I won’t go too much into this next
part but I feel like this is testimony of God’s provision.

There was always something hidden with
Esther when we visited her at Angels. She would often, in hushed
tones, mention how Angels was a bad place and how she wanted to get
out. From the first time that we went there, there was always
something strange, a darkness even, and there was a lot of evidence
that basically led us to believe that Angels very similarly resembled
a brothel. So we prayed, and Esther prayed daily for change because
I could feel God saying that change was going to happen. When I
found out that we were leaving Busia, I was very much disturbed at
the fact that nothing had changed when I had so strongly felt God
saying that there would be otherwise. I was crushed that I was just
going to be leaving her in the hole that she was in and I felt
defeated that there was nothing that I could do. But this is not my
story, this is not my life, and God is bigger than what I am capable
of doing.

I went to visit Esther about a week
before we left and found out that she had typhoid. She ended up
being hospitalized for 4 days and when we went to visit her when she
came home, she had big news. Now one thing that I have to say is
that her stories were always a little jumbled so I don’t know the
exact story but basically, they found out that she had been going to
church and refused to give her a paycheck. So she no longer works at
Angels which in itself is nothing short of a miracle. A friend of
hers got her a job in Nairobi Kenya as a cashier at another hotel
(but she promised me that it is not a “bad place”).

Only God knows the future but I have
every bit of faith that we will one day meet again and that she is in
a place where her light can shine. All I know is that God loves
Esther and whether I see her again or not, every day I thank Him
that I was able to know her and see God’s provision through
answered prayers in her life.