While I was in Dire Dawa, I had the privilege of teaching a graduate level seminar on pastoral leadership to around 50 of the key evangelical denominational leaders in the area. As part of that training, I asked many of them to stand and share some of their own stories.
Senite is a Djiboutian woman who serves as a missionary and evangelist. Her story is amazing like so many. After she was saved, she heard God’s call to plant a church in Somalia. She left her home and her country and crossed the border. She soon met a Muslim Somali man, led him to Christ, and fell in love. They got married on a Sunday and were put in prison the following Friday. Her crime was proselytizing. His was converting. They spent two and a half months in prison in Somalia before being released. They call it their “honeymoon!” They returned to Djibouti and she started an underground hair salon to reach Muslim women for Christ. Because she did her work in secret, she could share the gospel without fear of being caught by the authorities. However, the vision of a church among the Somali people would not let her go and she eventually gave up that business and moved her family to Eastern Ethiopia to plant churches among the largely Muslim Somali tribe.
Senite has the most beautiful smile. Her joy as she speaks is palpable. She laughs when she talks about being put in prison with her husband. She constantly interrupts herself to give praise to God for His faithfulness. She speaks of persecution and beatings and threats as if these thing are normal, which they are in her context. Her passion to share Christ is contagious and convicting. She is driven by her passion for the lost. It’s what keeps sending her out into the field despite the challenges and the risks she takes. She is clearly among the most respected of leaders in the group as they gave her a standing ovation when she finished. As will Jesus when she enters heaven one day.
I share Senite’s passion for the lost and for Jesus. But being in her presence, listening to her speak, and learning from her example only shows me how far I have to go. Someone recently shared with me how thankful and inspired they have been by my example. They told me there “must be an express lane in heaven for guys like you.” That’s humbling to be sure. But if there is an “express lane” I am confident it will be reserved for women like Senite not me. :-)