Our 10th Anniversary
On August 2, 2003, Jake and I boarded a plane in Canada, holding one-way tickets and owning nothing except what fit in our suitcases. We were on our way to Ghana with very little except faith in the God who was sending us. At our destination we expected to fight against poverty, sickness and death. What we didn’t expect was the incredibly abundant life that was waiting to engulf us. If we had foreseen the real trials that we would face, we may have lost courage and turned back. But on that day, as we looked down out of plane to the azure blue of the Atlantic Ocean below reflecting the glorious sky above, we knew that God was sending us as an answer to the commitment that we had made to follow Him anywhere.
The trials were beyond anything we had expected:
A brush with death from typhoid fever (but I was healed!)
Arguments between missionaries (with far-reaching consequences),
Misunderstanding between missionaries and local ministries (again, consequences)
Living without electricity for four years (we had everything hooked up to car batteries!)
Finances (but the Lord provided, miraculously, over and over again!)
Communication (but then cellphones and the internet found their way to Africa!)
Threats of deportation (3 times and every time the Lord turned it for our good)
Threats of imprisonment (for another group’s “good deed”! we got the credit and/or blame for it!)
Finally having our own baby after eight years of infertility (the trial? Giving birth in our house in the bush with only the two of us present)
Two more baby girls (born in our house in the bush with only us present)
The daily difficulties of living in another culture (being misunderstood and cheated and stolen from, etc.)
This list is getting long. I’ll let you know when “the book” is published!
video edited by: soarwithitinc.com
The joy and the abundance of life was also more than we could handle at times
The African family that God added to our natural families
The births, the baby dedications
Seeing women have safe, easy births when their previous births had been traumatizing
The overwhelming sense of God’s presence at times
The miraculous provision
Receiving into our family volunteers from different parts of the world
Seeing people turn to Christ and being absolutely changed
The joy of giving to people that can never pay you back
The joy of receiving gifts from people that have so little (like a bunch of bananas, a chicken, a goat, a smile, a prayer, a blessing)
The joy of working on a well-cultivated field
The joy of rain when we’ve all been praying for it
And the children playing in the puddles afterwards
Again, my list is getting long. I really need to work on that book…
by Katharine Reddekopp
