Africa Needs a Miracle

By Rick Neufeld

You’ve probably heard that before. This year we had a short term youth team from Canada come serve in Mozambique and it was made so clear to me that the truth is Africa needs you. You are the miracle that Africa needs.

While the team was here, they did not seem to perform miracles or signs and wonders. Instead, they simply travelled into the Zambezi river area, lived in tents, and worked with the local pastors. They built latrines and put roofs on orphan and widow houses—not fancy roofs made of metal or wood with shingles, but simple ones with pieces of plastic covered in woven grass. The roofs weren’t put on extravagant houses built for kings able to withstand floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes, but rather on mud huts with sticks and grass. In fact, one house even collapsed under the weight of our team and had to be rebuilt.

All we did was show up, work hand in hand with the local pastors doing only what they could continue when we left, and we shared the common love of Christ with one another. We did some extra special things too. We gave the Unique Christmas orphan packs away to needy children, ran children’s programs, preached at churches and played a lot. But none of this seemed like the miracle that Africa needs.

It all seemed so small. On our last night there, we went to visit the pastor, celebrate our time together, and prepare to leave. We asked Pastor Elias how he felt things had gone and I will never forget his reply, “What you did here was a miracle for us and our community.”

It was the miracle that he needed and that his children and his community needed as well. Everything we did could have been done without us and yet to him he had received a miracle straight from God. You see Africa does need a miracle–Africa needs you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small gift, a short daily prayer or just taking the time to share with others what God is doing in Africa, you are needed. It wasn’t what we did that was the miracle in Baue for Pastor Elias, but rather that we did something, and that we did it together.