Thursday, March 14
For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’ –Matthew 17:20b-21
On March 2, Edwards Church and Community of St. Luke co-hosted the annual Framingham World Day of Prayer. Gabriel Bol Deng was our guest speaker.
Gabriel was born in the village of Ariang in South Sudan in 1987. He lived with his parents and nine brothers and sisters. One day, when he was ten, he was away from the village caring for their livestock. The village was attacked by armed militiamen. Gabriel tried to return home to find his family, but was forced to flee without them. For four months he wandered in wilderness–forest, desert, and the Nile River–before he finally made his way to the Dimma Refugee Camp in Ethiopia.
The journey was grueling and dangerous. At times, ten-year-old Gabriel was tempted to give up. One night, his parents appeared to him in a dream. They reminded him of something they used to say in person: “If you have hope, you can move mountains, even Mount Kilamanjaro.”
In the past, when he had heard those words, he had been perplexed. How can a human being move Mount Kilamanjaro? But when he heard them in his dream, Gabriel understood. His parents were not talking about the mountain in Tanzania; they were talking about the obstacles he would face in his life.
Gabriel’s memory of his parents’ mantra gave him the strength to get up and keep going. It helped him survive a paralyzing snake bite. It helped him as he learned to write, using cardboard and charcoal at the makeshift outdoor school under a tree at the refugee camp. It kept him going when he had to flee again and travel by foot to another refugee camp in Kenya. It inspired him when he came to the US in 2001.
“If you have hope, you can move mountains.” What might these words mean for you? What are the obstacles that get in your way? With hope, and with help from others, might you be able to move them?
Bless us with hope, O God, that we might move mountains. Amen.