Sister Freaks (16 page)
Sheltered in Britany’s basement, seventy kids came to the first CoEd event. Thirty asked Jesus to be the Lord of their lives. None of the kids who came were churched kids—they were the band members, druggies, and popular students who roamed the halls of Britany’s high school. Fifteen-year-old Britany was surprised to see so many kids from such a broad spectrum come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Britany, who attends Roswell Church of God in Woodstock, Georgia, credits Mark and Gwenn, her youth leaders, for mentoring her while she leads Spoken For. It was Gwenn who first helped Britany see herself as a bride of Christ, as His princess.
Though she’s involved in many aspects of school, including being captain of the cheerleading squad, Britany chooses to spend most of her time planning retreats, preparing to speak, praying for friends—all things related to Spoken For. Because of that, “I feel as if I am out on a limb for Him every day,” she says. “What is Christianity if we don’t venture out to a place where we have to have a little faith? Every time I speak, do a retreat, hand out flyers for Spoken For, go on a mission trip, or pray passionately for someone, I am making myself vulnerable.”
Every Tuesday night, when Spoken For meets, Britany has learned to wait on God for what He wants her to say. “Each week I prepare a message,” she says. “This is all in faith that the girls are going to be there. There have been times I was to speak at a church or retreat and the Lord told me simply ‘Go without a message.’ I had to have faith that when I opened my mouth, He would give me the words to say.”
More than learning how to trust God for messages, Britany relishes spending time with Jesus. She loves to enter His presence while singing or listening to praise and worship music. “This is the place where He searches me and either heals me or breaks me, depending on what I need.” As a busy student leading a new ministry, she’s needed refreshment from the Lord. “These are the moments that give me the strength to carry on this ministry for the last two years. These are the times He has whispered to me exactly what the girls needed to hear.”
She likens herself to Esther—available to others in “such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). “The biggest lesson the Lord has taught me is that His people are desperate. His eyes wander the earth, looking for someone to step forth, to not remain silent, to be an Esther for this generation.”
She still marvels that God chose to save and use her for His purposes at Woodstock High School, located in a suburban community thirty minutes north of Atlanta. “The Lord spared me,” she says. “He gave me beauty for ashes and called me out to go forth and allow Him to use me.”
More than sixty kids from Britany’s high school have met Jesus Christ because of the ministry she started out of simple obedience. Weekly, girls approach her for prayer and advice. “I’ve had girls admit to drug use, suicide attempts, molestation, sexual promiscuity, pregnancy, alcoholism—you name it. And they have all come to me during a Spoken For meeting and looked for godly counsel. I know nothing, but I do serve a God who knows everything. He has spoken through me to these hurting girls.”
Britany loves sharing Jesus with the friends she meets through Spoken For. “This has been fairly easy for me, sharing Jesus with these girls. They are hungry and God is willing to give them food. He just needs someone to deliver it for Him. It’s not that He is looking for anybody perfect or incredible, just a willing person. With a simple okay on my part, the Lord overflows my life with more blessing than I can hold, and a plan I can’t even comprehend.”
Britany is now on the cusp of a new life at Lee University. She has a dream: she wants to start a new ministry to high school and college-age girls while she’s there. In the midst of school, cheerleading, and ministry, Britany realizes that only Jesus matters. “For this ministry to be successful, I have to go beyond people, beyond the physical, and enter into a supernatural place where I see with spiritual eyes and ears. I am not satisfied with a glance or one word from Him.”
She’s found life in ministry lonely at times. “Of course everyone sees me preaching every Tuesday, but what does God see? What does He require? These are the secret decisions I have to make on my own in order for God’s blessing and favor to be upon us. Everyone wants to be there when things are easy, but when it’s hard, sometimes the Lord requires me to go forth alone.”
In this place of willingness and even loneliness, Britany has been able to see God do miraculous things, including changing the lives of those around her. “When we allow ourselves to undergo a purification process and then are brave enough to speak the word of the Lord with genuine motives and a passionate heart, nothing is impossible.”
At eighteen, Britany’s had the privilege of seeing just that. Who knew what could come from a spiritual encounter in a Waffle House parking lot.
As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But, just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
(1 Peter
1:14-16
)
shirley
The Joy of the Lord
M
eeting Shirley is a pleasant experience. Joy shines in her eyes and her beaming smile. She seems to know the secret to living with gratitude. She wears no banners of self-entitlement; she is unassuming and sweet. But behind her pleasant, jovial nature is a woman with strong faith who understands the pain of rejection and loneliness.
Shirley grew up without her mother and father. She was three when her mom died, and soon after her dad abandoned the family. Shirley then was sent to live with her aunt and uncle.
Life on the farm with her cousins and new guardians was not easy. Shirley remembers as a very young girl wanting desperately to fit into the family. She prayed, “God, please help me to be a better little girl so Aunt Edna and Uncle Chester will love me.” Shirley worked hard around the farm but never received praise or a second glance for her hard work.
Maybe if I just scrub the floors harder or wash the dishes better, they will learn to like me,
she would think.
Edna and Chester did not treat Shirley the way they treated their own children. They often spanked her when a situation wasn’t her fault. Her cousins never had to do any work, but Shirley worked from sunrise to bedtime each day. She had to wash her face and brush her teeth outside in the bitter cold. At such a young age, Shirley knew only a life of labor. The day was full of washing, cooking, and cleaning for the whole family and the hired hands, day in and day out. The workload never decreased, no matter how much faster she worked.
Once she asked, “Aunt Edna, can I go shopping with you today?”
“You can’t go. You are too ugly,” answered her aunt.
Despite Shirley’s early experience with rejection, she knew the Lord loved her. Her favorite day of the week was Sunday. Her aunt and uncle did allow her to go to church with them, and how she loved it. There, Shirley learned songs and hymns of praise that sustained her through long days of drudgery: “I sing because I’m happy / I sing because I’m free / For His eye is on the sparrow, / And I know He watches me.”
Singing became a healing balm for her soul. The barn became her sanctuary, where she sang to the cows and the pigs while she went about her chores. She knew God cared for the animals and for her. Though the days were long and she was always tired, she had strength to sing praises to the Lord, offering up her calloused hands and lonely heart to Him.
One Sunday, Shirley’s aunt and uncle invited Pastor and Mrs. Johnson, a young African American couple, over after church. Shirley was instantly drawn to them. They paid attention to her. She could tell they even liked her. For the first time in her life, she felt love. Over time, they became the parents she never had; she called them Mom and Pop Johnson. Through the years they grew closer, and Mom and Pop became aware of how mistreated Shirley was. They kept an eye on her, even though they had eight children of their own.
It didn’t matter how hard she tried, Shirley’s life with her aunt and uncle never improved. Finally, at age sixteen, she decided to run away. Out on her own, she managed to get a job and support herself. On the weekends she stayed with Mom and Pop Johnson. She felt safe, loved, and accepted at their house—a part of the family. Mom and Pop even decided to name their youngest daughter after Shirley.
As Shirley grew older, she desired a family and home of her own. She married Robert when she was twenty-one, and the couple were very involved church members who sang at weddings, funerals, and revivals. Life was good, and with several children, Shirley was finally building the family and home she desired.
But after a while, Robert grew restless. One Sunday after church, he said, “Shirley, aren’t you just sick and tired of going to church?” Shirley knew something was desperately wrong. Soon, Robert left the family.
Once again, Shirley endured the pain of rejection and loneliness, and she was left with a dairy farm to run. Shirley cried out to God for help. She wondered if Robert had left because she was so hard to love, and she asked God to show her if it was her fault. Robert did come back for a while, only to leave his family again.
Shirley had five children to take care of and didn’t know how she could manage the farm. The cows needed to be milked, but she could not tend to her infant son and other children as well as run a farm. Soon, the owners picked up the cows; Shirley couldn’t pay for them. The police found Robert, but he told the officials he had never been married and had no children. Robert was thrown into prison for a while, but Shirley purposely lost contact with him to protect the children.
In her deep despair, she began to wonder if even God loved her. Perhaps she deserved all that had happened to her. Providentially, in the midst of her doubting and questioning, Shirley opened her Bible to Exodus 33:
Then Moses said . . . “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
And the
LORD
said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name. . . . I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name. . . . I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (vv.
15-17, 19
)
Shirley knew God had opened her Bible to those verses to remind her that He loved her with a fierce love. In the midst of her sorrow and pain, God’s care and mercy were there.
The days ahead were not easy. She began to feel nervous, living all alone on the dairy farm with her children, and decided to look for a better home. Shirley remembered a Christian family, the Buchsmans, that she had met a while ago; for some reason she thought they might help. Driving all night with her children to Colorado, she found their house. Miraculously, rather than turn her away, they said, “The Lord has already been talking to us, and we are supposed to take care of you and your children.”
The next day, Shirley and her children moved in, ready to help manage the couple’s farm, thankful for God’s miraculous provision. The days began at 4:00
AM
with daily devotions and milking the cows before the kids went to school. Shirley taught her children to sing in the barn, just as she had as a child. They knew their father had abandoned them but that the Lord was taking care of them.
There they stayed for three years, until the Buchsman family decided to sell the farm. Shirley knew God would provide another house. He was her family’s Husband and Father, and he proved it when one day a complete stranger knocked at the door and said, “Shirley, I have a home for you.” Without question, she knew the Lord was providing for their needs once again.
Throughout uncertain times, Shirley taught her children to sing, and there was laughter wherever they went together. Even as a single mom of five, Shirley was always able to provide a safe home for the family, something she never had as a child. And there was always an abundance of love for everyone.
No doubt, because of the loving home Shirley maintained, today all of her children are Christians. Her joy through the hard times made God’s love a reality.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
(Hebrews
11:1
)
claire wibabara
The Ministry of Reconciliation
S
o many men had betrayed Claire, she vowed never to trust one again. It started in her childhood. Her family, ethnic Tutsis from Rwanda, fled the violence and discrimination of their troubled African homeland, moving to Burundi when Claire was a small child. But their dream of safety and happiness was short lived. Not long after the family settled into their new home, Claire’s father abandoned his wife and children and ran away with another woman.
A lonely teenager, Claire longed for love, especially from a man. Instead, she faced more heartbreak and abuse. A schoolteacher raped her but was never punished for his crime. Claire turned to her boyfriend for comfort, but when she was seventeen she discovered she was pregnant, and he too left her.
Several years after her son was born, Claire left her child with her mother and sister and returned to Rwanda to find work and support her family. There she lived with an uncle.
Rwanda was a dangerous place in the early 1990s. Decades of conflict had built suspicion and hatred between the major ethnic groups, and violence simmered all of the time. Not long after Claire returned to her home country, a wave of anti-Tutsi riots broke out in the area where she was living. In the ensuing chaos, someone turned the young Tutsi woman over to the vicious Hutu army.
The army did not kill Claire; instead, officials accused her of being a spy for Burundi, which was often a base for Tutsi rebellions and guerilla attacks. They threw Claire in jail, beating and torturing her almost every day. She was not allowed to contact her family; no one knew where Claire was, or even whether she had lived through the riots.