Once upon a time Sister Essymba and I were shopping last Tuesday at a
Von's. We walked down this one Isle only to find an African family! I
smiled and waved but as we passed them by, Sister Essymba leaned over
to me and said "They were speaking French..."
My response? "SISTER! YOU NEED TO TALK TO THEM!"
We crossed paths with them again at the end of our shopping trip and
Sister Essymba hit it off terrifically! They all talked for a good
while then exchanged information! They were interested in what we had
to share! Never have I met such a happy, respectful family so willing
to listen to what we had to say :)
The next day, the Mother of the family called! In what sounded like
frantic tears, this mom explained to Sister Essymba in French that
they had just arrived to America a few days prior to us meeting them
at the store. They had made an arrangement with someone to live in a
complex for a week or so until they could find something more stable
to settle in. Once settled, the father of the family was going to
leave them and head back to Africa for his work. They had come to
America having won some kind of "name drawing" system for those
countries effected by war and other calamities. This Mom continued to
explain that whoever they had made this temporary living arrangement
had decided to change his mind and they kicked out of the complex.
THEY HAD SLEPT OUTSIDE! Not knowing anyone and having limited English
communication, they called us. She told Sister Essymba that she didn't
know what else to do but felt like she had met the both of us for a
reason.
Here's the kicker:
It's a family of 10!
We of course told her we would help in whatever ever capacity we
could. Unfortunately, a good chunk of our family Ward was off on a
Pioneer Treck.
The family ended up heading to Escindido where a friend from Africa
was staying. Now in the African culture, "good friend" means family.
This Sister of theirs did what she could but she really only had a one
studio apartment, so that didn't last. We called up our Sister
Training Leaders and asked for their assistance! (Due to this families
new location being right next to their area)
AH! Sister Whitcomb and Sister Kratzer...
MY HEART COULD JUST EXPLODE WITH HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM! They were able
to set up an appointment for the mom of the family to meet with their
"transient bishop" after sacrament meeting on Sunday. The mom went and
LOVED CHURCH! Obviously this all took a couple of days of us racking
our brains trying to think of how we could help this family, but
everything is rolling out wonderfully. Ah. I love this church. We know
not whether they will be inside the San Diego Mission boundaries at
the end of the day. But we do know this family we put into our path
for a reason. The Mom has called us daily for the past week and we
have had the privilege of both providing peace and also more
information about the church. She thanks us every opportunity she gets
and I'm just so glad everything is working out.
Milagros.
Also... Potentially 9 baptisms heh! ;)
We've been seeing so many other miracles!
