Doing God’s Work in Spite of Ourselves

My husband’s father William is from Nigeria and started Glad Tidings Ministries in his native village Lewe. Glad Tidings Ministries focuses on starting small entrepreneurial businesses to help support the local people in addition to supporting and developing a local church. My husband Josh and I went with a team of Josh’s father, his two brothers, and my parents to Lewe, Nigeria for two weeks this past March. In preparation for the trip I tried not to have many expectations of what we would do or accomplish while we were there. The only concrete plans we made in advance were to do a medical clinic one day and consult at the ministry’s farm. One day our team, plus a driver Deede, planned to go to the city of Port Harcourt to do some shopping and for William to run a few business errands. The whole day felt like a bust: William was unable to meet with a government official to help move the approval process along for one of the entrepreneurial business ventures because the man was out of the office; lunch at a hotel took over an hour to get our food and it wasn’t very good; William’s errands took the whole time so we were unable to go shopping; and the trip there and back was not very enjoyable because the city was over an hour away and very polluted, which meant I felt nauseous most of the way. At the end of the day, I felt like the day had been wasted. God had a different perspective.

I received this email from our driver Deede after we had returned home. “Your love and cares towards me teach me a great lesson. You guys affected my life positively in the short period spend with us at Lewe. Your life have challenged me to humble myself the more. This act of yours was demonstrated at the hotel that day we were eating and sharing life experiences. I see myself among brethren. In fact, forgot about my pains. I was in a way optimistic that life still have much to offer people like me.”

I am very thankful that God chose to show me the work He was doing that day and am humbled by my arrogance and self-centered perspective. Thank God that He is bigger than we are!

​Contributed by Darcy Nyone