God’s Divine Appointment Book
This is Part 2 of Aisetta’s story; Part 1 is below.
It’s a rare thing to meet someone with a genuine hunger for God like Aisetta has! We met with her four more times while we were in Chicagoland. We did a discovery Bible study on Jesus calming the storm, showing us how He is able to rebuke the powers of chaos and fear and speak calm and peace into our lives. Together, we studied the Genesis account of the creation of human beings, and saw God’s intention that men and women reveal His image and live in relationship with Him. We read the story of Jesus’ healing of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage, and reflected on His power to overcome death with life and uncleanness with purity and healing. We were able to share a few of our own testimonies of God’s restoring power after traumatic experiences.
Along the way, we heard more of Aisetta’s story. Arriving as a refugee, she had been enrolled in World Relief’s resettlement program. World Relief had recruited volunteers from local churches to help new arrivals with getting settled. Aisetta expressed deep gratitude for the volunteer family who had taken her under their wings and helped her with housing, shopping, English classes, finding a job, dental care, learning to drive, and many other things that could have been overwhelming. They also took her to church, and there she had her first experiences of the Body of Christ. And when she listened to the pastor preach, she said, it had seemed like he was speaking directly to her!
The Spirit was at work in her heart, and after some months, Aisetta put her faith in Jesus, and then decided to be baptized. She looks back on her baptism as a turning point in her life. Before that, she said, she had often felt depressed and her life had seemed dark. She usually wore black clothes and kept her apartment dark, with the shades drawn. She kept to herself and had few friends. After being baptized, suddenly she felt that light had come into her life. She began buying colorful clothes and letting sunlight into her rooms, going out with friends and feeling hopeful. Aisetta had a real experience of being buried with Christ and raised to new life!
Aisetta has had no contact with her family in Guinea since she ran away; because of her feelings of betrayal, she doesn’t have any desire to renew those relationships. It’s unusual for an African to be completely cut off from family, and it’s a painful and lonely situation to be in. She has friends that she made when she first arrived who are Muslims from other countries, but because they put pressure on her to come back to the mosque, she avoids them now. We pray that God will grow in Aisetta a desire to someday reach out and share the new life she has found with her Muslim friends and perhaps even with her family back in Africa.
We’re grateful for the small part we’ve been able to play in Aisetta’s remarkable story, encouraging her on her journey, and look forward to the new chapters God will be opening up for her in the future.
Posted in Uncategorized by Lisa
Divine Appointment with a Fulani Refugee
How surprised I would have been, a few months back, if someone had told me that one of the highlights of my time in Chicago would be making a Fulani friend! Aisetta is a special woman, and the way God brought us together was one of many signs of His loving care in her life.
Brad & I had been invited to a back-to-school barbeque sponsored by a local church, at a low-income housing complex. We were hoping to meet Muslim immigrants there. There were very few Muslims, but we got into conversation with a couple from Uganda, who were Catholic. As we talked, we mentioned our time living in West Africa among the Fulani, and they told us that they knew a Fulani woman. In fact, they said, we can give her a call right now! So they did, and after she had answered the phone they passed it to me and I stumbled around trying to remember bits of language from more than seven years ago. We switched to English, had a brief conversation, and I told her I would come see her soon.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when my husband and I went to visit Aisetta for the first time. But when we met and exchanged traditional greetings in the Fulani language, it felt like the ice was broken and we were already friends. It had been a long time since she had spoken her native language with anyone!
Aisetta is 27 and has been in the US for about two years. When I asked her why she had come here alone, she told her story. In her home country, Guinea, her parents had married her off at age 13, to an older man who already had several wives. She was treated like a slave in his home. She was miserable and finally decided to run away.
She was able to connect with a few other women in similar situations, and they joined a group with a guide (trafficker) to travel north across the Sahara Desert. It was a long and difficult journey, during which Aisetta was subjected to further abuse and suffered in many ways. Finally they reached Morocco, where she was able to make contact with the UNHCR. She was given housing, medical care, and counseling, and was able to apply for refugee status. Eventually she was sent to West Chicago to begin a new life.
Aisetta told us that, because of her experiences, she had turned her back on Islam. She had started going to a local church, but we sensed that she didn’t fully understand the Gospel. I used the “Jesus Film” app on my phone to pull up the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son in her native dialect of the Fulani language, and she was delighted to see it. We talked about the importance of Jesus’ death as our final sacrifice, and she seemed to understand. We spent some time praying together. Brad also pulled up the New Testament in her language on the YouVersion app; she had never seen God’s Word in her native language! She was fascinated, and read several chapters from the beginning of Matthew.
It’s hard to imagine the challenges and trauma that Aisetta has experienced, and how alone she must feel without any family or friends from her own culture. We are grateful for the coincidences that brought us together to hear her story and support her in prayer and friendship.
Posted in Uncategorized by Lisa