What the heck did the boys do??!

Today, for whatever reason, I felt way more tired than usual and realized it had been awhile since I‘d been alone for a whole night. So I decided to say no to going to a house dinner with the two slightly-older-than-me girls and the three my age-ish boys that are here.

Usually, I leave my door open and the screen door closed so I don‘t suffocate. But tonight I debated shutting both, remembering how unless your outer door is shut here, it is more than normal for people to just drop in. In the end, I concluded that if I was going to shut anything tonight, it shouldn’t be to keep people out.

And just a few minutes after my decision, I heard a “knock knock” (people say it here not do it because the doors are always open)…a Swiss medical student and a wonderful friend. She had tears rolling down her face and said she had left the dinner because she needed to cry. Laying in my lap and sobbing, she talked about how hard it was to work at this place and all the pressure she felt to save lives that were not being saved.

After we were almost done crying and praying, there was another “knock, knock“…the other young girl, a pharmacist from Romanian. She hadn’t shown up to the boys’ house for dinner because she too was crying, so upset about situations going on at her far away home. And desperately feeling like she needed prayer, God had led her here…where we were, already praying and crying...so ya, we had another solid round.

After hours, my friends left, filled with God’s peace instead of dinner. And finally left alone, I couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if I had instead decided to close my door.

I’m sure I would have had a normal maybe even great night, and those two women of God might have found a different door with a missionary that proclaimed them self available. But I’m so glad they didn’t have to. I’m so glad God gave me the privilege of being the one to pray for them, an experience of fellowship, and an excuse to eat too many sour patch kids.

I’m not even saying that there won’t be times when I need it to be closed and someone else will receive the opportunity to be used. I just learned, that as a servant, the decision to close it can’t be made too quickly or too selfishly....(for those of you having trouble keeping up...we have moved on from literal doors).

And if after all that, you’re just thinking how the heck did she have sour patch kids?? The answer is yes, I brought them all the way from the states to Niger and have been practicing miraculous self-control rationing them for a moment such as this…worth it….but that doesn’t mean I would be able to do it again.

A better question might be what the heck did the boys do while we ditched dinner to sob our hearts out and eat sweets?? Man talk, I guess?