Rise-up, Africa!

글쓴이: Suzie Bae 날짜: 2009.08.24

  Whenever I finish working for Africa, I am not satisfied. Especially, this time, because I didn’t prepare enough for them. But He had been working for them. Even though when I prepared something for them, it had not been worked the way that I expected. Maybe, God made me give up my will so I would obey Him. I felt it was not enough for Africa that I came to Africa only once a year so I have been in Africa almost for a year. But more important is that we be what God wants. No matter where our location is, we have to give ourselves over to God’s will.  

I find something different whenever I have come in Africa every year. 7 years ago, when I had come in Rwanda, many people were depressed and destroyed everything because of genocides. But, recently they recovered spiritually and economically. So, they have pride in themselves. Even we found ourselves worth praying for them. Our team praying has borne fruit. Above all, environment changed to be good and clean.

Tanzanian had been so lazy because of peace, but now they try to wake up. In Uganda, It developed economically but on the other side Christianity is decaing because of church leadership. Genocides never stop in the Congo. It stops one place and another place begins. So, they pray eagerly more than any other place. In Burundi, genocide stopped a few years ago. They determined to rise up and the vice-president’s wife who is a good Christian attended seminar. We hope for them  

Particularly, this year, we held the 2009 Africa-Korean Woman's Conference. The purpose of the conference is Korean women leaders who are trained in Christianity wake-up African women leaders and rise-up together. The first week, it started with that CCC team praising God and proclaiming good message by famous guest speakers who were invited from Korea, America, and Africa. After that there were response messages by African women leaders and those messages were powerful and graceful. We cried out together. After that, traditional African dancers showed us rhythmical African dance that had never been seen in any other place else except in Africa. It was so impressive that the musical of Voham teem expressed ‘the cross of salvation’.

Every day, almost at the end of the conference, we prayed for Africa. The first day, we prayed for refugees. Many refugees stayed in Rwanda because the president is Christian so, there is political peace. The second day, we prayed for orphans of the genocides. Poor children! They do not have food or parents. Whoever prayed for them they felt as miserable as a parent of orphans. The third day, we prayed for HIV/Aids. What a sad land! Africa! But we were comforted because Almighty God who is our father was watching us and listening to us. And than, it was African lunch time which was strange for Koreans. But it was familiar to me and I liked it. After lunch time, we started workshops. 

My lecture was ‘The skill of counseling’. The goal of counseling is to serve someone who has a problem and empathize with them. It is that helping others to find something to be glad about- even when bad things happen. Our workshop “Why we become counselors?” rather than the skill of counseling; “How we do to counsel?” One lady who was from Congo, attended the conference for helping women who was raped and was a captive. Also, her daughter was raped and killed. Another lady wanted to be good counselor for helping a woman who is the wife of a Muslim who has five wives. The other lady who is a doctor is helping women with HIV. One lady who is an orphan helps orphans. We cried and pray together. Even the Tanzanians who are in peace cried for them. The most important thing of counseling is empathy. All of us were empathizing with ladies who are in suffering.

O Lord, you receive our broken heart and repair this land.  

We finished this conference and the following week, we separated to five countries with the Gospel as Jesus disciples did.