Fore September 2021

Summer 2009 found me venturing into six weeks of service at Rafiki Village Ghana. Days before leaving I overheard my parents, “She is not going to want to come back.” A thought retorted, “Yes I will!” The morning I left for Ghana, Daily Light read, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45). My parents were right… and God was hinting at something.

Since fifth grade, the Holy Spirit had been quietly stirring in me a desire for long-term missionary service. This led to multiple short-term mission trips through high school and college, and I thought this was just another. Three weeks into that Ghanaian summer, I knew. The structure of the Rafiki Village coupled with God’s Word being at its heart made the work incredibly fruitful. I was captivated.

Two years later, September 15, 2011, I moved to Rafiki Village Rwanda as a long-term missionary. That day’s reading in Daily Light was memorable: “Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’” (Luke 9:62)

It has been ten years since that day. Ten years in Africa. I have thought a lot about the action of plowing over the past ten years. One step at a time… one day at a time… just do the next right thing. And then one day you look back and it has been ten years. But most importantly you look back and you see.

I see three-year old Karina, abandoned by her parents, now sleeping peacefully in the arms of Rafiki Mom Alice. I see teachers around a table discussing the philosophy of classical education. I see Given, Mary, and Daniel, along with hundreds of other day students, receiving a scholarship to the Rafiki School. I see a dinner table surrounded by missionaries every Friday night—some of the sweetest fellowship I have known. I see resident student Julia’s tense body melt as the gospel is proclaimed over her. I see messages of gratitude flood my phone over Rafiki’s purchase of craft from the Acholi widows group; because of that purchase they were once again able to send their children to school. I see leaders of the Presbyterian Church of Uganda drive away from the Rafiki Village with a substantial gift of Bibles and Christian literature for seminary students and pastors. I see graduates of the Rafiki Institute of Classical Education thriving in their new teaching profession. I see grade 3, 6, and 12 students beaming as they receive their own Bible through the Rosemary Jensen Bible Foundation; for many of them, this is the only book they have at home. I see Immaculate faithfully serving 4,500 meals each week from the Rafiki Kitchen. I see a room full of teachers singing “And Can It Be” while sounding percussion instruments; their voices boom on the line, “no condemnation now I dread!” And I see the ways God has emptied me of myself and filled me up with Christ.

Me with the Rafiki School teachers

Presbyterian Church leaders with a Reformation Study Bible

Grade 3 students with their new Bibles

Immaculate, part of the Rafiki kitchen staff

Wow! What a gift.

Thank you for partnering with me in this good, good work. If you need me, I’ll be over here taking it one step at a time, doing the next right thing by His grace, until He calls me elsewhere… and singing hymns with our teachers while sounding a percussion instrument or two. Care to join us? It is great fun!

Resident students in traditional Buganda attire

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