Behind the Veils of Yemen (15 page)

“Down at the beach,” I mumbled.

Kevin nodded and continued singing, turning back toward the stage. I moved my mouth, but I had trouble singing the words.

The keynote speaker delivered a message on trusting God. I sighed, listening with halfhearted interest. Then the speaker told a story. He described a missionary who had spent her life ministering to the needs of an African tribe. She had given her life to loving and living among the people. But a war broke out, and she was caught between warring tribes. She was taken captive, beaten and raped repeatedly by the very people she had come to serve. From the midst of the horror, she cried out to God, asking why He would let this happen to her.

The speaker shared the clear voice of God’s reply. “Do you trust Me enough without having to know why?”

I sat forward in my seat. The room around me seemed to become distant and dim. Faces faded away, and all sound seemed to stop as the question shot toward me like an arrow. It hit clean, straight between my eyes, piercing my soul like a firebrand.

Do you trust Me enough without having to know why?

My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed. The speaker moved on, but I could not. Time had stopped for me. I knew God had asked me the question. It was as if He had drawn a line in the sand, and I had to make a choice. I had to choose whether to cross that line and trust Him completely or stay where I was and struggle through what I did not understand with anger and resentment.

The room was cold, but sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I glanced at Kevin, who was focused on the stage as the speaker wrapped up his message and the pianist moved forward to play. I watched Kevin, seeing him not in his seat but in a hospital bed in Virginia. I remembered the long hours I had spent with Jesus over him. I remembered His sufficiency when nothing else, including me, had been enough.

I thought about Yemen. I remembered my doubts months earlier when I had struggled with the difference between what I believed and what others believed in their religion. God had resolved my doubts and definitively answered my question.

Now He was waiting for me to answer His.
Do you trust Me enough without having to know why?

Tears began to fill my eyes. God had always been faithful to me, even when I had been unfaithful to Him. He had always been who He said He is; He had never been less.

I lifted my face toward the ceiling, and the tears spilled out, pouring down my cheeks.
Lord,
I prayed.
I trust You. You are worthy of my trust, and I will trust You no matter what. Even when I don’t understand why something happens.

The storm within me ceased. The sun broke through like a clear morning after a night of tornadoes. I crossed over God’s line in the sand, stepping across with my heart locked on Jesus. I felt like Peter stepping out of a manmade boat to walk on water with the Master.

I joined Kevin and the rest of the auditorium in the final song. I knew days would come when my focus would shift to the water and what lay underneath. I knew I would probably sink in it, as Peter did. But I knew Jesus would be enough to pull me up and set me walking again.

The next morning my prayer leader studied my face as I joined our small group. “You look happy. Something has changed.” Her eyes searched mine. “Did you get Madison’s test results back?”

“Not yet.” I pulled my chair closer to the center of the group. Our group of five was one of several groups meeting in the hotel lobby. I spoke softly. “I crossed the line.”

The leader’s eyes grew wary. “What kind of line?”

“The line of trust.” I looked around at the women and took a deep breath. “I thought I trusted God completely. But God showed me that I had put limits on my trust. He wants me to trust Him not only when things make sense but also when they don’t. He drew a line in the sand between how I trust Him and how He wants me to trust Him. He asked me to cross it, and I did.”

The prayer leader’s eyes studied mine. “What does that mean about Madison?”

I sighed. “There are things I don’t understand and maybe never will. That’s hard. Especially with my little girl.”

I took a sip of bottled water. “But the bottom line is that I trust God. He is faithful to me. And sometimes, that’s all I need to know.” I set my water bottle on the coffee table and straightened my shoulders in my chair.

The prayer leader smiled as she reached out to take my hand. She held it firmly in one hand and gently caressed it with her other. “I can see the difference in your face,” she said softly. The three other women in our group reached out to touch my shoulders.

“Let’s pray right now for Madison,” the prayer leader whispered. We bowed our heads together.

Three days later we received Madison’s test results and were on a flight back to Yemen. Madison had undergone an extensive EEG followed by an MRI. She did not have lesions in her central nervous system. She had an irregularity in the left temporal lobe of her brain, which caused focal seizures in her mouth area. She was diagnosed with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy of Childhood and was placed on anti-seizure medication. She was expected to outgrow the condition by her teenage years.

We flew with joy back to Yemen. Madison’s prognosis was excellent, and so was mine. I had learned to trust God completely, not circumstantially.

I knew God would test me in that trust again. I hoped that when He did, I would take His hand and follow Him farther across that line in the sand.

Spring returned to Sana’a. Cream-colored pinwheels leaked perfume from the vine along our wall. Neighborhood children pestered our gate to pluck them for their mothers, who wanted the jasmine blossoms to scent their hair. Mornings were clear and fresh. I wanted to skip down the sidewalks in my balto like a child in a field of wildflowers. We were on the brink of summer—and on the brink of finishing language study.

I was both eager and hesitant to be finished. I wanted to complete exams and evaluations and move from the rank of language student to the status of work contributor. But I was hesitant to leave Fatima. I knew our friendship would not end, but our daily time in language study would. I was not sure I was ready to leave it. Fatima seemed to be on the brink of new life herself, of beginning her own relationship with Jesus Christ.

In the beginning Fatima had not let me mention the name of Jesus. She had joined her friends to deride my Christianity, treating my beliefs as inferior to hers. But that had changed after Qasar’s birth. She became interested in what I believed and asked questions every time we were together. She asked me to pray for her needs and brought me names of sick friends. She believed in my prayer and continually asked me to pray for Qasar, who remained developmentally behind, unable to raise his head or sit unsupported.

One morning Fatima took my
ingil
[New Testament] from my lap and caressed it softly. “Helwa [Lovely],” Fatima whispered. “This Book is hallee [sweet]. I want to know the stories in here.”

Her words made my heart pound in my chest. I could feel it in my throat. “I want to tell them to you, Fatima,” I answered.

We began to study ten core Bible stories, from the fall of man and his separation from God to Christ’s death and resurrection as God’s way to redemption and relationship with Him. I asked Fatima to help me learn the Bible stories in Arabic. She helped me write and practice each one. She was no longer afraid of them.

One day Fatima listened as I practiced the story of Abraham offering his son Isaac as a sacrifice. She stopped me mid-story. “It was not Isaac he offered. It was Ishmael!” She narrowed her brown eyes at me. “Why did you change his name in your Book?”

I met her gaze evenly. “We did not change it, Fatima. Our Book says Isaac, the son of Abraham.”

I showed her Isaac’s name in Genesis. Then I continued the story, leaving no room for a sidetracking debate. I wanted Fatima to grasp the full meaning of the story, to recognize the faith and obedience that God had required of Abraham and the subsequent sacrifice God had provided in Isaac’s place. I wanted to prepare her ultimately to understand the Lamb that God had provided in our place to fulfill what He required of us. I finished the story without another interruption.

I closed my Bible and looked at Fatima as she sat next to me on her mufraj. The noonday sun streamed through her new burgundy curtains to streak the wall behind her with rose.

“Fatima,” I took a deep breath. “Jesus is the Lamb of God. He is the sacrifice God provided as a substitute for us so that we could walk with God. His blood made us clean before God.”

Fatima looked away as she considered my words. A tear glistened on her eyelashes. After a long pause, she whispered, “You have your way, Audra, and it is hallee [sweet]. Your Book is good.” She looked wistfully into my eyes and took my hand. “We are more than friends, Audra. We are sisters. But you have your way, and I have my way. We will walk in our ways together.”

My heart ached as I looked intently at her. I longed for Fatima to experience for herself what she kept trying to experience through me. She wanted my prayers, my strength and my hope, but she wanted to get them her way. When her way was not enough, she relied on me to provide what she was looking for. She saw the relationship I had with God and wanted it, but she would not accept that Jesus Christ was the only way to have it. She pondered it but then backed away.

“We will walk in our ways together,” she repeated softly.

I swallowed. “Fatima, how can we walk together if we are walking in different directions? Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). You know this verse, Fatima. I have told it to you before. If Jesus Himself said He is the only Way to God, then there can be no other way, Fatima. Jesus did not lie.”

Fatima let my hand fall from hers. She gathered our mismatched teacups and placed them on her tray. “We will walk together always,” she said firmly.

Tears misted my eyes. “Not always, Fatima. There will be a day we cannot walk together.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot.” Tears clouded her eyes as she looked at the tears in mine. “You are leaving Sana’a,” she whispered.

I dabbed my tears with a tissue before they spilled down my cheeks. Fatima would not let me interfere with what she wanted to believe, even if she knew it was not enough.

She stood, holding the tray to take to the kitchen. I stood and took my balto from the coatrack as Qasar began to whimper in the bedroom.

Pain cut through my heart. “Yes, Fatima. I am leaving Sana’a.”

At home, I reached to hang my balto and hejab on the coatrack and watched them spill off the hook and wilt into a puddle of darkness. I knelt slowly to retrieve them, feeling like my heart had spilled with them. Tears welled in my eyes. I could not stop them as they poured down my cheeks.

I leaned against the wall. “Lord, I have failed,” I sobbed. “All these months I’ve poured myself into Fatima! I’ve gotten nowhere. She will not accept You as Savior and Lord.” I walked into the bedroom and sat in my rocking chair. I dropped my head into my hands and wept inconsolably.

When my tears were spent, I dried my eyes and looked gloomily out of the window. “Lord, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry I did not do more or say more or use more opportunities. I have failed You.”

I thought of Fatima reciting her prayers and performing good deeds, searching for hope that would remain unfulfilled apart from Christ. I leaned back against my chair and closed my eyes. I felt bone weary.

A verse from Isaiah streamed into my thoughts. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). I opened my eyes.

“Lord, You are the Light.” I sat forward in my chair. “You are the Light of the world—Jesus, alive and shining in the darkness. There is always hope in You! Which means there is still hope for Fatima!” Fatima had not yet accepted Jesus, but seeds had been planted. I prayed they would take root and that God would put others in her life to water them.

A few days later Kevin and I joined our colleagues for dinner at our supervisor’s home. Everyone clapped as we were awarded plaques for completing eighteen months of language study. “Well done!” cheered Johnny, and Shirley echoed, “Congratulations! You made it!”

Kevin pretended to mop sweat from his face. “I’m just glad we finished!” Everyone laughed.

“So what now?” Johnny asked. “Have you made a decision to work in Taiz or the Tihama?”

Kevin and I looked at each other. “We’re still praying about it,” I answered cautiously.

Kevin nodded. “The Tihama seems to be where God is leading us, but we need affirmation.”

I looked at our colleagues. The Tihama was the western coastal region of Yemen, a region of four million people. It had not had a strong evangelical presence in thirty years. But it was also the region that included Khokha.

“We were in Khokha when Madison had her seizure,” I explained quietly. “The children said they never wanted to go there again. They associate bad memories with that area.”

Shirley cleared her throat. “We will pray that God makes His direction clear and affirms it in an unmistakable way.”

Days later sunlight splashed through the stained-glass
kamariahs
in my bedroom, bathing my floor with blue, yellow and red. I sipped my early morning tea as I read Psalm 139. Suddenly the words “on the far side of the sea” (verse 9) jumped off the page at me. I stared at the page in my Bible. It was as if no other words were there.

Kevin came into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. “Audra,” he said. “I’ve been praying about where we should work. I feel like God might be calling us to the Tihama. What do you think of living in Hudaydah?”

The province capital and the largest city in the Tihama, Hudaydah was only a two-hour drive up the Red Sea coast from Khokha. I looked back down at the words of Psalm 139. “I think that’s the far side of the sea God is telling me about.” I swallowed. “But what about the kids?”

Kevin raised his green eyes to stare out of the window. “I don’t know. I don’t want to take them kicking and screaming.”

“No, we can’t do that,” I agreed. “But what do we do?”

Kevin looked intently at me. “We’ll have to do a lot of praying.”

I put my Bible on the windowsill and nodded. “If that’s where God wants us to go, then He will work this out with the kids.”

Three weeks later we arrived at our hotel in Khokha to explore and pray about the Tihama assignment. We tentatively exited the van. All five of us stared at the row of prefabricated buildings peeling under metal roofs.

“Is this our hotel, Daddy?” Madison asked. She reached for my hand.

“Not sure I’d call it a hotel,” I muttered to Kevin. To Madison I said, “Look! There’s a swing over by that sand path. I bet that path leads to the beach!”

A slight smile eased Jaden’s grimace. Perspiration beaded on his nose. “I want to go swimming,” he said. “It’s hot.”

“It is hot,” Kevin agreed. “This is the hottest time of year. It can reach 120 in the summer.” Kevin wiped his face on his shirt. “Visitors avoid the Tihama in the summer. That’s why the hotel where we stayed before was closed.”

I looked at Madison. She was watching Jack put sun-bleached shells into his pockets. “Can we go swimming, Mommy?” she asked.

“Sure, honey. Let’s get checked into our room, and we’ll unpack our swimsuits.”

Kevin and I looked at the flaking, metal buildings and then back at each other. One long building with screened sides appeared to be the dining room, but nothing was marked with a welcoming sign, and no one seemed to be around.

The midafternoon sun felt brutal. The white buildings seemed to peel in the heat as we watched. Not a single tree shaded them. I looked closer at the wooden swing, which creaked as a thin gust of breeze tried to stir it. It was rusted, and its wooden seat was cracked in the middle.

Air conditioners perched in the small windows of the rooms, but they were rusted brown with corrosion. “I hope those work,” I said to Kevin.

“Me, too.” Kevin wiped his face again. “Definitely hotter in July than it was in December. I’ll see if I can find someone to check us in.”

He went inside the long metal building and returned after several minutes. “We’re checked into room number three.” He grinned. “I had to give them money to buy gas for the generator. They are out of petrol.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, at least we’ll have air-conditioning.”

Kevin studied the row of crusted air conditioners. “Maybe.”

A half hour later we were in our swimming clothes and on the dark gray sand of the beach, which was sprinkled with globs of black tar. “Race you to the water! Watch out for tar!” I dropped Jack’s hand and started running. Laughing, we raced into the sea together. But our laughter stopped the minute we entered the water.

“This water’s hot!” Jaden yelled.

“Yeah, hot!” Jack echoed, backing out onto the sand.

It was hot. The small beach was part of an enclosed bay with water less than five feet deep. The sun had heated the shallows to the temperature of a spa. It was less than refreshing in the heat.

“Yucky.” Madison showed me her handful of muddy silt. “Is this sand, Mommy?”

“Well, it’s a kind of sand,” I ventured. “Maybe it’ll be fun to dig on the shore.”

Madison looked at Jack who was running back and forth on the gray sand. He seemed to be the only one delighted with the beach. He was scooping shells into his plastic pail, running from sand mound to sand mound in search of his treasures.

Suddenly Jack stopped. He screamed and threw his bucket to the ground, slinging shells in all directions. His blue eyes were terrified as he raced toward me. “Mommy! Mommy! Help!”

Kevin and I rushed from the water. I reached Jack first and jerked him up in my arms. “What is it, honey? What’s the matter?” I searched his small body.