Recently, I was thinking about my trip to Zambia to talk about recovery on my 10th sobriety birthday in 2014. It caused me to go through old photos of the trip. This is a collage of a very few key moments.
I went there originally to take materials and books on how to start a meeting there in Zambia at this one pastor’s church. Pastor Wozifera was one of very few pastors who wanted to minister to alcoholics. The stigma there for alcoholics is huge. At the time, his church was a dirt floor with wooden benches. People came. He has since built a wonderful big church there. His wife, Easter, also a pastor, greeted me when we arrived with the words, “Heidi, I have been waiting for you...”
What? Someone in Zambia was waiting for me?
Yes.
I had sent my recovery books ahead of our arrival and she had been using them to teach and wanted more. I was scheduled to talk to the pastor’s wives about alcoholism and tell my story. These women could not believe their ears. Me—talking out loud about my alcoholism story—
Most of these women had six children each, had some sort of domestic abuse going on in their family, AIDS, a shortage of food—all of which they weren’t accustomed to talking about out loud. I remember them all leaning back while I was talking, at first, and kind of resting (you would too, if this was your only break from six children!) Then, when they heard my words of confession, they started to lean forward and they wondered, “Why is this woman talking about her alcoholism out loud?” They asked many questions and all had relatives affected by addiction and alcohol.
I never intended to go to Zambia. All materials and books I had sent ahead of time for the meetings got lost in customs. Never to be found. Months later, out of the clear blue, I heard this distinct message from God,
“I didn’t want you to send books. I wanted to send YOU.”
How could I not go?
Not only was I in Zambia talking to women about alcoholism on the day I got sober exactly ten years prior, I was speaking on the hour I got sober. God was very specific about where I should be on that day. Not in a million years did I think that I would be talking to people in Zambia, Africa ten years later about staying sober—I was just trying to stop drinking for that day in 2004!
I realized that God had taken me halfway around the world to encourage this one Pastor and these women in their journeys—and that was enough.
My purpose now is to carry this message to other people who struggle with addiction as I have struggled in the past. And, to know there is a solution and there is hope.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13
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