[DOWNLOAD] "Threads of Destiny" by Kim Zastrow # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Threads of Destiny
- Author : Kim Zastrow
- Release Date : January 04, 2014
- Genre: Biographies & Memoirs,Books,Health, Mind & Body,Spirituality,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 38810 KB
Description
Twenty-six little “light bulbs with feet” danced and sang before me during that evening church service in the spring of 1988. Introduced as “The African Children’s Choir,” they had come all the way from Uganda in East Africa to share their story with us through music and song. As their leader got up to share the details of their traumatic past, I was mesmerized by the radiant joy that emanated from them and wondered how they could possibly be so happy. Many of their parents were members of the Makerere Full Gospel Church in Kampala that were imprisoned for their Christian faith and sentenced to be burned alive. They were actually taken out in the courtyard with petrol cans all around, but because the Vice President was in a head on car collision on the way to sign the death order, they were all miraculously released. By the time Idi Amin’s reign of terror ended in Uganda he had left over 150,000 homeless orphans, whom these children now represented.
These precious children were sustained by Friends in the West, an umbrella ministry founded to support the choir. One by one the children shared their faith in Jesus and the inner healing that had taken place in their young lives. As donations were taken for them, I could feel the Holy Spirit moving and found myself crying tears of joy over their incredible stories. It was obvious that they had truly met The Healer.
I, too, had experienced deep wounds in my own past life, and although healing had begun at the time I became a Christian, I knew I still had much farther to go. I had been praying about using my nursing skills in missions work, and always asked God to send me anywhere except Africa! Yet after that concert, I found myself filling out an application for the position of medical professional, as the African Children’s Choir needed someone to fill this role on their next tour. One year later I began traveling with the choir’s Ugandan children as their full-time nurse and head of the on-the-road school program. During that following year we experienced a wonderful tour of North America, and raised needed funds to support the children’s education in Uganda. The children’s powerful hope inspired me to make a difference in my world, and theirs.
After the tour the children returned to Uganda, and the rest of us on the team returned to our homes for a needed rest, and to raise support for our next assignments. Shortly after, in 1993, the Civil War escalated in Somalia, and refugees began pouring over the borders into Kenya. At this time I was working with a choir from Kenya, who, aware of the suffering, wanted to do something to help. Soon, the president of Friends in the West, Ray Barnett, phoned and told me that we would be taking the kids back out on a special three-month tour of Northern Ireland to raise funds for the crisis in Somalia.
Ray was born in Ireland and knew the people there would respond well to the children. And he had always taught them not only to use their gifts to help raise support for the needs in their own continent of Africa, but also to reach out and help others around the globe in need as they had the opportunity.
We could not have anticipated the results of that decision. In a brief three-month tour the children raised over $100,000 for their brothers and sisters in Somalia! After we brought them back home to Kenya I was instructed to pack again, as I would be part of a four-member adult team commissioned to take the donations into Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, for direct relief work.
I had no idea what kind of situation I would find. Not since the Vietnam War – not even in Cambodia, with over a million deaths by starvation – had the world witnessed such atrocities as occurred in this civil war from 1991-93. Capturing the world’s attention, the war was described at the time by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as “the world’s greatest human tragedy today.” By August of 1992, approximately one-third of all Somali children under five had died from starvation and diseases related to malnutrition. The lives of more than half of the estimated eight million people of Somalia were at risk, including one million children. Up to 1.5 million persons had been displaced inside Somalia or in neighboring countries. All institutions of government and over half the country’s infrastructure had disintegrated. Shooting and looting, armed mobs roamed the capital city of Mogadishu. Warring clans fought for power and control until even teenagers took part in the chaos, wielding AK47s.
Part of our mission was to target four closed schools, operating as feeding centers and shelter for displaced people, with approximately 4,000 children needing assistance. My faith grew by the hour as I witnessed God’s sovereign hand of protection on us at every turn. As a missionary and relief worker, I saw many heroes of different nationalities and races. I was surrounded by miracles and the heroism of men and women of tremendous courage and fortitude. Some of them were U.S. military personnel, and two of whom were the only people ever to receive the Medal of Honor while serving their country on a sniper mission in Mogadishu on October 3, 1993, which was well covered by the media. Other heroes are Christians who lived to tell their stories in a country hostile to their faith. These have never been reported or understood by the American press. And these, I believe, are the greatest heroes of all.
Here, I will tell the personal stories and testimonies of several martyrs of the underground church whose faith and courage have greatly impacted my life and the lives of all who knew them. I will also tell the story of a brave Swedish nurse who took my place working in the city just months after my departure, and how we learned later that God in His timing had protected us both by this, and returned us safely to our own people. Although the events described in the following account are true, the names of the people described, both living and dead, have been changed for their continued safety, in a country that remains in unrest. The only exceptions are the names of relief organizations and UN and U.S. officials.
As a farm girl from Iowa, I found myself comparing the malicious drama of war in Somalia to the stealth demons I had experienced within my own soul years before. I had led a life of quiet desperation in my search for significance and I found it the day Jesus became my Lord and Savior. How could I have known that years later healing and strength of indescribable depths would take place through the diabolical situation I faced as a single woman on a mission in East Africa? How could I have known that I would emerge with a fortified faith born of adversity, strengthened in conflict, and proven in helplessness?
It was all part of a bigger plan. Like a beautiful tapestry made up of threads woven into a future destiny, sewn one thread at a time, each strand of truth overcame lies of self-degredation and fear that shaped my thoughts and identity. The truth of who I am and who God is was gradually uncovered and revealed to me. Come with me on this journey. . . there is a beautiful tapestry for each of us to discover.
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