Rising from the Ashes
In Burundi, one woman’s incredible testimony of overcoming grief and abuse is a witness to God’s goodness and power.
The devil loves nothing more than to strike at those who have been wounded and fallen to their knees. When Job had lost so much, the prince of accusers was not content. He went to God and begged to torment Job more.
Like Job in his suffering, Rebecca saw wave after wave of pain hit her heart and life. She lost her husband, which is grief enough for a whole life.
After that, a terrible flood tore through the part of Burundi where she lived, and it destroyed her house. Like many people in her area, Rebecca was forced to take refuge in a tent amid many others who had lost homes in the natural disaster.
She had lost the place where she and her husband had built so many memories.
During the chaotic time after losing her home, she was raped twice. The horror and trauma of this, amid everything else, led her to a very dark place of despair.
Grieving, horrifically assaulted, lost, Rebecca attempted to commit suicide.
When that attempt failed and she survived, she tried again and then once more. Three times, God intervened, and her life went on, but for what? In that dark place, Rebecca wasn’t sure, but she did feel as if she was being led forward through a life she didn’t want anymore but couldn’t leave.
One day, a volunteer from a World Challenge team approached her. They asked about her life, then offered her some food relief.
No better word could describe it than ‘relief’.
Rebecca went and felt the warmth of people who saw her and cared about her for the first time in too long. Surrounded by kind and generous people as well as other widows who understood so much of her pain, she finally found the courage to share her story for the first time.
Appalled at how her circumstances and the attack against her, the team was moved to compassion for Rebecca. They went with her to a clinic for testing to make sure that the rape had not infected her with HIV or any other diseases. The medical staff was able to tend to her and reassure her that she was still healthy. The team then invited her to come regularly for food distribution and to the church, where she could continue to meet with other widows and hear the scriptures and be encouraged.
“I am a new creation,” Rebecca says now.
She gives thanks to God for life and healing. She now helps other women in the community speak up and seek help when they are assaulted.
From the ashes of loss and gruesome abuse, God has raised up this dear women to be a powerful voice that advocates for others.
So much of Rebecca’s testimony would not be possible without the caring hands of the team in Burundi, the World Challenge trainers and workers around the world, and the generous partners like you who pray and give to this cause. We hope that you are encouraged by the witness to God’s healing power that Rebecca’s life points to, that God moves is desperate and dark circumstances to restore and rebuild, that you have taken part in his movement.