The following reflection was written by Missy Ward, who spent the summer serving in Fremont, Calif., through CBF’s Student.Go program. Missy worked alongside CBF field personnel Lita and Rick Sample, ministering to Afghan refugees.

I served for seven weeks in Fremont, CA working with newly arrived refugee families from Afghanistan during the summer of 2008. My primary responsibility during my time of  service in Fremont was to build relationships Afghan women through ESL tutoring. In addition to tutoring these women in ESL, I also took them to Dr. Appointments, assisted them with grocery shopping as well as welfare appointments. Additionally, I spent many hours just sitting with the women and their families, drinking tea or eating as well as watching many Hindi TV programs.

The first thing that really stood out to me was the opportunity that I had to work with MB ( I have abbreviated her name). MB was not a student who I was originally assigned to work with.  I first saw MB while I was with another student in the waiting room of a doctor’s office.  God just really laid her on my heart from this first encounter. A few days later, God opened the door for me to meet and later to tutor MB in English. MB is someone who has had a very hard life. She just recently moved to the US two years ago, and currently lives with her husband and his family in a small townhouse. She is isolated. She is not literate in any language, as she is from a village and women were not allowed to be educated during the Taliban. Additionally, she does not speak Dari or Farsi( the official languages of Afghanistan) and only speaks Pashtu ( which is an Ethnic language spoken by less then half of the population of Afghanistan). When I first started to teach MB, she was very closed to being acquainted. However, throughout the month and a half that I was able to be with her, she really opened up. She began to smile, laugh and have confidence in herself during while practicing English. 

Another huge blessing this summer was to be able to be able to form a small group of young, unmarried Afghan women. It was so great to be able to get to hang out with these women and form relationships with them. I was so amazed at how welcoming, caring and fun they were to be with. Some activities which we did included going to Starbucks, watching Mr. Bean’s Holiday ( which is a GREAT movie for internationals since Mr. Bean is hilarious and does not  really speak English), watch an Indian movie, go out to eat, and just sit and hang out. God opened up a lot of doors to connect and share his love with these young women.

The third amazing thing about this summer was the relationships that I was able to build with the two students who were pregnant. I was able to take these women and sometimes their husbands and children to the various doctor’s appointments that were leading to the birth of their children. Both students gave birth to their babies within two days of one another. On Tuesday, my first student went into labor at 4:30 in the morning. We were at the hospital by 5:00. At 7:30, the husband of my second pregnant student called me ( he was in Indiana at the time working) and told me that he thought that his wife was also going into labor as she was experiencing pains. I went to pick her up and she was at the hospital by 8:00. Both of my students ended up being on the same floor in the pregnancy ward at the same time. My second student ended up not giving birth to her baby that day. She ended up having her son two days later. However, it made for a very crazy day. It was one of the most tiring, amazing and beautiful days I have had the chance to experience. It was amazing to be able to share in the experience of the birth of the sons of my students.

God taught me so many lessons throughout the summer. My comfort zones were stretched in many ways. The first major way which my comfort zone was stretched was working with people from a culture and country which I knew virtually nothing about. God provided me with amazing field supervisors who gave me advice and pointers throughout the summer, four really helpful books to read as well as a lot of grace whenever I made mistakes. The second way which God stretched me out of my comfort zone was working alone. Although I did have field supervisors who were always supportive and there to help, I was the only Student.Go summer missionary in the area. Thus, I had a lot of alone time throughout the summer. God used this time to spend even more time processing my daily experiences as well as reading scripture and other books which allowed me grow deeper in my walk with God.