Today is day 9, and I really was contemplating whether to write this post. I know I mentioned yesterday that I was tired. But today my tiredness was tired.

Today’s post is about God setting the solitary in families, and I already shared yesterday how God brought me from one part of Germany to another. At the beginning, I was very worried. I was actually angry because, of all the places you could send me, you sent me to a remote area where nothing is happening. It was a very, very small village with fewer than a thousand residents. After I got my permit, there were a few registrations I needed to make. This included the bank and some other key places. I had also gone to register for the language school, but they said they would contact me back again because there was already a long queue of people waiting to start their language classes as well. 

I had time on my hands, but I was also boxed in. The place was so remote that buses came in every hour; it wasn’t fully operational on weekends. So if you didn’t have a car like me, you were at the mercy of people. Imagine living in such a place after growing up in Lagos and having also lived in the second largest city in Ukraine. And to top it off, you rarely find other migrants, and then you can’t speak the language. 😭😂. It was that bad

One day I was going to the pharmacy. That trip to the pharmacy became the trip that forever changed my outcome in this country, and I knew that it was God-ordained. Literally God directing my steps. The village I lived in was so small that it did not have a pharmacy; you had to go to the next larger village, where I currently live, to buy anything you wanted. Because of the bus timing, I normally would have waited for the people I lived with to drive me, but I felt compelled to get the medications myself. It was an excuse to step out of the house. 

I went to the pharmacy and was in and out in less than five minutes, but then I had to wait an hour for my bus back home, and the bus station was near an Evangelical church. The people I lived with would always point at the church whenever we passed through the city for grocery shopping or other errands, knowing that I was looking for a place to fellowship. I didn’t know what to do, so as I was waiting, I was like, “Okay, now that I have to wait one hour, I might as well go to the church to see if I could speak to somebody.”

You could imagine my disappointment when the church was closed, and I just saw a post, I think it was a flyer, of Alpha. I don’t know if you know anything about Alpha. Alpha is like a Bible beginners’ class by Nicky Gumbel. I didn’t even know what it was, but I could recognize these words in German: “Eat, drink, and speak. “I’m like, if they are posting anything in church that has to do with eating, drinking, and speaking, I would show up. In my mind, I just needed the company. I needed people, and if I could find them at church, that was a safe place I knew I could trust, and that was my intention.

So I remember just scanning the QR code and sending an email saying that I want to come for this event, but it’s going to be in the evening; it’s also on a Saturday, but I didn’t have a car, and I was not going to find a bus to get me there and also to go back home. I got a reply a few days later saying, “Yes, we are happy to welcome you; don’t worry, we will arrange for somebody to come pick you up and then drive you back home.” I always laugh when I remember this part, and it has become a running joke because for some reason they assume that I was a man, and so they sent two men to pick me up. I can still remember their startled faces when I opened the door, and they were like, “We’re so sorry; we thought you were male😂😂😂.”

I still don’t know how they came to that conclusion based on my name, and they continued to apologize. I’m like, “Don’t worry; it’s not a big problem, but that was the beginning of what God prepared for me. I remember just being there listening to them, not fully understanding what they were saying. While I couldn’t understand what they were saying, the love of God was so palpable. The evening was like an intro to Alpha itself, to explain to people and see if they would be interested in joining the 10-week course. I signed up to join, without understanding an iota of what was being said most times. They tried to find me someone who could speak some English to translate. They would arrange for someone to pick me up and drop me off once we were done. It didn’t even matter; the joy I felt whenever I was with them couldn’t dampen my inability to understand them. They were so warm and so full of love for me. I’m not Evangelical, but God said stay there, and I’m not even going to lie, they’ve been the absolute best.

I have stories for days and days of how they have taken care of me. One big story I can share is when I was eventually moving to my own apartment. After ten months of living with people, God provided an apartment with ease. In Ukraine, our apartments come furnished, so you just have to move in with your clothing and personal items, but I realized that in some parts of Europe and in Germany, most apartments don’t come furnished. My apartment only came with the fridge, the kitchen area, and then the washing machine.

The apartment came in as a miracle; how was I going to furnish it? I was no longer working, and I had gone through my savings. I was like, how am I going to fund this? And one of my dearest friends, who, surprisingly, has her birthday tomorrow, said, “Don’t worry; just write a list of all the things you need.” She sent a message to the church saying, “We have this person who joined us at Alpha and needs her apartment furnished. She shared a bit of my story, and before I knew it, my entire apartment was furnished. Every single thing I wrote down was provided.

I bought nothing with my money when I moved into the apartment, literally, and that’s just one of the many, many examples of how they took me as one of theirs. God knew that He was sending me to people who would not look like me. I’m the only black person in my church. For almost a year, I didn’t really understand what they were saying because it was in German, but I went anyway. I can’t thank God enough, literally, for how he set me in this community, and it began with a trip to the pharmacy. I’ve missed home, don’t get me wrong. I’ve missed my family; I’ve missed even people that look like me. I’ve missed speaking English sometimes, but I can’t even deny that God knew what He was doing.

I am eternally grateful to this community for taking me in as one of their own, regardless of my skin color or the language barrier, and for considering it their joint duty to care for me. I just have to say that I need this thing, and it will be done, if it is within their power. I’m thankful every day; I will never forget the generosity. I will never forget their care, and I’m using today’s post to say thank you to God for sending me to them.

For anyone who is in a new land—you might even be in your country, but you left the comfort of your home. I pray that God sets you in your own family and that your eyes see them, because sometimes they might not even look like you, or they might not be who you were expecting them to be.

I’ll leave you with this precious verse from Psalm 68:6, a psalm that has become my lived experience

God sets the lonely in families; He leads out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land

See you tomorrow.