Behind the Veils of Yemen Read Free

overseas.” Kevin’s words had resonated with the cicadas we had been listening to on the back patio.
    “Are you sure?” I had sputtered, spilling my entire cup of hot tea on my pants.
    Kevin had been sure, but I had not. I had wrestled with insecurity, wondering why the Lord would want to use me . Hardly missionary material, I was impulsive and opinionated and had left a wake of mistakes in my turbulent teens and twenties. It had been difficult to grasp that God wanted to use someone like me. Why He did was beyond me. But I had learned that was the point. It was beyond me. He had chosen me not because of who I was, but because of who He is.
    I adjusted my loose denim dress to keep from flashing my calves to the white-robed men in the row next to me. I was determined to present myself as modest as their women, dressing as they defined modesty. I glanced back at the veiled woman’s coverings and sighed. It would not be easy. I liked clothes that flattered what I worked hard to keep in shape.
    I gritted my teeth. I’ll do it, Lord. I won’t profane Your name by flaunting my freedoms, even if it’s just showing my brown hair and my freckled arms.
    Madison stirred and I gently shifted her, worried about her legs in their cramped, curled position. Again my thoughts accused me. How could I take my children from their home and jet them to a third-world country half a globe away?
    I bit my lip, remembering my apprehension when we knew God was calling us to Yemen. I had envisioned an easier place, such as a village near a beach in the Caribbean. But God was leading us to a place plagued with poverty and sickness and strict adherence to Islamic law, a place where evangelism was forbidden. I had dug in my heels.
    “Kevin, I’m not sure we should raise our children in a place like Yemen. Look how many children die before they are six! It could be dangerous for them as well as us.”
    “Lord,” I had argued. “You could not want to take our children away from all the U.S. can provide!”
    I had refused to accept that not only did God love my children more than I did, He also had created them for His purposes, not for mine. I had wrestled until I could make no other choice but to obey or disobey God’s call to Yemen. And then I had submitted, reluctantly. I had unclenched my fists and my teeth and acknowledged that God was not only calling my husband to serve, He was also calling me.
    “Okay, Lord,” I had muttered. “I will go wherever You lead. Even to Yemen, the uttermost part of the earth.”
    After I had crossed that line of obedience, God answered my apprehensions. They became like bread crumbs I had tried to hold on to, until one day at a hospital in Virginia God let me glimpse the banquet table He wanted to give me instead.
    I felt around my lap for my missing tissue as tears threatened to well again in my tired eyes. I wiped what was left of my two-day-old mascara and tucked the tissue into my bulging seat pocket.
    “Thank You, Father, for those days in Virginia,” I prayed. “I could not have done this without them.”
    I clutched Madison and Jack closer to me. I closed my eyes and in my mind went back to that hospital, where Kevin’s dying body lay tossing in his ICU bed, his IV lines inadequate to save him.
    “I need to remember,” I whispered. “When I get anxious, Lord, help me remember.”

     
    We had flown into Richmond at the onset of a crisp fall night full of mist from a recent rainfall. The International Mission Board had invited us to the Candidate’s Conference, and we had left the children with special friends from church. I had been hesitant to leave Jack, who was still nursing, but he was fifteen months old and the conference would last only four days. We were excited as we anticipated completing the application process and being selected for appointment.
    “We will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord to display His splendor,” I had told Kevin when we received the