Written by a Cafe 1040 Student

Setting down my chopsticks after yet another dinner of chicken and rice, I looked up to see three rough, wrinkled fingers waving in my face. “Three… three”, she says in her best English. Although we couldn’t communicate verbally, I knew what she meant.

She was planning for me and my team to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to go fishing with her family, a daily routine for most people in this remote fishing village. She seemed overwhelmed with excitement to be hosting three American girls in her home for the weekend to experience their culture first hand. 

Three a.m. came much too early as we dragged ourselves down to the lagoon to hop in their small metal boat. It wasn’t long on the water before I looked up to the most breathtaking night sky I had ever seen. She pointed and smiled and we both nodded in agreement that it was a scene that we could have gazed at for hours. (She couldn’t say that to me, but I knew it’s what she meant.)

I couldn’t help but to thank God for such an incredible view and stand in awe of Him as Creator.

THEN IT HIT ME

Then it hit me: this kind, elderly woman--the one who opened up her home for us to sleep, who spent hours cooking every meal and sat with us as we ate, who eagerly showed us around her village even when we couldn’t communicate--she does not have the chance to thank her loving Father for the view she sees every single morning.

She has no idea that He wants her to know Him and talk to Him. She has no idea that His love for her outshines all the stars in that sky and has the ability to change her entire life, to give her more purpose than fishing for the day's provision. 

Sitting in that boat, I couldn’t help but to question God. “Why doesn’t she have the chance to know you like I do? Why is this country so lost? Don’t you see all of this going on?”

In the midst of what seemed like an endless list of questions leading me to nothing but more questions,

He whispers, “Rachel, what if this is the reason you have been sent?”