I’m Jennifer Yates. Here’s how I’m living deeply. 

“The tears were dripping down her chin before she even got through her first few paragraphs. She’d started as a Prince & Princess (P & P) of the King, God Almighty -a child our church helps get through school because she doesn’t have both parents to provide for her- all the way back in preschool. Now she was standing under a rented tent, in front of a slaughtered cow & 50 chickens & several hundred people who’d helped build this place, telling us what God & the school had done in her life. She’d made it to university. I don’t think there was a dry eye under that tent. But before I tell you more, let me tell you why I was standing there to hear it. I’d wanted to go on this trip for years- since the first time I heard Sybil Baloy speak to our Sunday school class in the old choir room at CSPC. She told us how God called her to Chokwe, Mozambique 30 years ago to start backyard Bible clubs for vulnerable kids. That grew into a preschool, then kindergarten, & eventually a prestigious Christian school that now goes all the way through 12th grade. I heard her speak two or three times over the years. Every time, it moved my heart. Part of that is because of what I do all day. I’m a teaching assistant at an inner-city elementary school, helping kids who are behind in reading catch up to grade level. So when I heard Sybil’s school was teaching kids to read -English & Portuguese, starting in preschool- something in me just latched onto it. For years I couldn’t go. But I started collecting anyway: books, flashcards, alphabet cards, math games, anything the teachers at my school were giving away at the end of the year that I didn’t want to see thrown out. I just kept it all downstairs at my house, in case I or somebody else ever got the chance to take it to Sybil’s school. This summer, I finally did. Six of us flew out June 21st, each carrying two 50-pound bags of the supplies we’d spent weeks packing: 600 pounds of books, toys, games, & clothes in all. Before I left, I only prayed one thing: that I’d be open to whatever God wanted to show me, without bringing my American assumptions along in my suitcase.

Before I left, a friend at church had warned me the poverty there is extreme. I was grateful she told me, because it meant I could prepare my heart. I didn’t want to see someone’s home and think, ‘Oh, this is so different from what I’m used to.’ I wanted to see the person, not the poverty. So when we did home visits with the kids in our sponsorship program (we interview them, so we can provide updates to the families at CSPC who sponsor them), that’s what I tried to do. One family lived in a small block house with a dirt floor and no indoor plumbing. Another home was built out of reeds. The kind of home that gets washed away when the rains come. But what I saw first wasn’t the house. I saw a mother working hard for her children. A little garden somebody was so proud of. Kids who wanted to learn. The roads out there are so rutted, Sybil jokes they’re African roller coasters. They tear up cars and school buses alike. My first instinct was to think, ‘Why isn’t somebody grading these roads?’ But then, instead of stewing over it, I just decided to pray that the roads get fixed. That was God doing a work inside of me. We spent time in the classrooms, too, doing English activities with the 5th, 6th, and 7th graders. Bingo with African animals I’d found on a teacher’s website (finding that felt like a God thing, honestly), spelling words with magnetic letters on trays. I sat in on a career day with the 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, where each of us told them what we do for a living and let them ask us questions. What struck me was that I kept meeting mothers and grandmothers who wanted exactly what I want for my own kids- for them to grow up following Jesus, to work hard, to do well in school, to be respectful. They lack the conveniences that we in American couldn’t live without- no indoor plumbing for a lot of families, no medical safety net at all. But underneath all of that, we’re not nearly so different as you might think. As image-bearers of God, we have much more in common than not.

In February, my family started sponsoring a 12-year-old girl through the school’s P & P program. As I mentioned, it’s for kids who don’t have both parents to provide for them, and it covers their tuition, uniforms, and food. The name of the child we sponsor is Fiona. I’d only ever seen her in a photo. Fiona had had an American sponsor family before us -someone at our church who’d sponsored her and then passed away- so she was already used to the idea of having one. Still, when we walked up and introduced ourselves, I wasn’t sure what to expect. She got up, walked straight over, and gave me the biggest hug. I’d brought her gifts: a sketch pad, some colored pencils and crayons, and a coloring book I found at Walmart, wrapped in pink paper. I chose those because I remembered how much I loved to draw and color at her age. She loved it! A couple of days later, I saw Fiona again at school, and we hugged again like we’d known each other for years, not minutes. I got to meet her mom, her two siblings, and her uncle, and to hear a little about what she needs prayer for. Some of the kids are shy about sharing that kind of thing, and that’s completely understandable. But Fiona told me some of her main prayer requests. She needs help with certain subjects at school, because in Mozambique, kids have to pass specific tests to move up a grade level. Chemistry. Physics. Math. English. It’s one thing to write a check every month for a child you’ve never met. It’s another thing to sit in her front yard and hear, in her own words, what she’s struggling with and hoping for. Now when I pray for Fiona, I’m not praying for a photo anymore. I’m praying for a girl I know.

One afternoon, Sybil asked if anybody wanted to help cut chicken for the school’s 30th anniversary celebration. Several of us from the mission team said sure. At first, I helped cut chicken alongside the school’s cooking staff. When they didn’t need me for that anymore, I went and washed dishes from lunch, then peeled garlic, then helped put together appetizers for the party. Some of the women we were working alongside spoke English well, some just a few words, and some none at all. So we motioned, we laughed, and we picked up a little Shangaan and Portuguese along the way. (‘Thank you,’ in two languages we didn’t speak before.) The celebration itself was something I’ll never forget. Sybil and her staff rented a tent, tables, and chairs. They’d bought a whole cow and 50 chickens for the feast. Every staff member from both campuses had been practicing a song together for weeks, and when they sang it, none of us understood a word, but we didn’t need to. Kindergartners got up and recited verses. Older kids performed traditional dances. Grown adults stood up and told the story of how the school came to be. Sybil, who wasn’t even in the program, got pulled up to speak about what God has done. And then there was the girl I told you about at the start. She’d come up through the school as a P & P, all the way from preschool, and now she’s at university. She told everyone what the school had meant for her life- and the tears just kept coming. Her own tears, and those of everyone else in that tent. What a moment. Somebody asked me afterward what God did in my soul on this trip. As I reflected, I think it came down to this: I got to spend eight days seeing that we have so much more in common with people on the other side of the world than we have different. Believers in Mozambique want their kids to know Jesus and to grow into who they’re meant to be- just like I do. What a joy to spend time seeing Sybil’s school, a place where God’s been making that happen for 30 years now. It’s amazing, it’s beautiful, and it’s already informing my prayers for the families, students, and staff whose faces are still flooding my mind.”