Paying Forward Love

The pictures above are of two very special women.  They are unrelated, but each has had a profound impact on me. The top is Luisa and her husband, and Roselyn is the lady on the left in the second picture.

Roselyn gave a very powerful testimony today at Christ Church Naples, a church we just began attending. She is Nigerian, but has also lived in Libya - two places with a lot of conflict. She gave a very detailed story of her life, but in summary, she has feared for her life, fled her home with nothing but the clothes she was wearing and a bible her father gave her, hopped on a fishing boat at one point - not knowing where it was going (as in which country, hundreds of miles away from home), been abused, and has been without food.

She made it to Italy six years ago. She cleans homes for the American families here, but once she got to a point of stability, her apartment burned down. The pastor reflected that when he went to visit the home to see how bad it was (and it was completely gone), she smiled, said she’ll be okay and that she’ll trust in the Lord as she always has. She repeated that phrase while describing her journey. She believes that she was able to escape harm, made her way here, and has always ended up getting her needs met because she has maintained a full trust in the Lord. 

I spoke with her after the service today  and asked her about her children who are still in Nigeria (with her parents). She said the last time she saw them was six years ago. Then I asked if she speaks with them regularly. She responded “sometimes”, and that she’s saving up money to buy phones that have WhatsApp so she can communicate more with them. She also said she is hopeful that she’ll have enough saved up to visit them within the next year.

The second she said that, God lay it upon my heart to make this happen for her and her husband.  After a quick discussion later, Andrew and I realized we can provide this. I truly believe that one of the purposes God has for us in this new small church, and the reason we were meant to be there today, was to hear her story so we can help fulfill her desire to reunite with family.

The reason I’m sharing this is because I think we could make this big impact a REALLY big impact of love. I thought maybe we could  see if anyone else would like to contribute so that in addition to the trip, she could get phones and have some financial security for a little while.

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And now on to Luisa. She is our babysitter and she also cleans our house a few times a month. I’ve gotten to know her well since we moved here, and she is certainly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. She doesn’t have much, yet she’s incredibly generous.  She cleans while sick because she needs the money, but then she brings us gifts. She won’t accept tips, and charges us less money than her other clients because she “knows we have good hearts” (and she refuses to take the typical payment even though I offer it every time).

She’s had some significant hardship, to include losing her 9-year old niece about 2 months ago, yet her faith is firm as can be. She says she has everything she needs, and while her basic needs are met, her car is a piece of junk. It has broken down at our house. It’s not very reliable, and she shares it with her husband and daughter.

Luisa will stop working for us in a few weeks because she was offered a daily job. As a parting gift, we’d like to help her with her car situation. 

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Both are seemingly ordinary ladies, but they have extraordinary hearts.  It would be really awesome to show them love in a very big way!