By Jean Floyd
We just ran into some dynamite in Africa. I love how God gives us these serendipitous encounters. We knew when we were in the States that we just needed to GO to Africa even if everything didn’t seem very planned out. We knew that God had lots of meetings for us even if we hadn’t been able to make the connections and plans ahead of time. In the first five days He has proven that.
“When we talk about church planting, what I really mean is I’m passionate about discipleship. I want to help people build their own relationships with Jesus.”
This piece of dynamite lives downstairs from where we are staying, and I met her when I was looking for a washing machine to do our laundry. We started talking.
Many people think that the call to missions is only for the elite and special people, not me. I can’t be a mission worker you might say. I’m too old, too young, too uneducated, too broken, too poor, too rich, too… You fill in your own reason. There are a million to choose from. We just met a lady who has been serving in South Sudan and Sudan for almost twenty years, and she is the most unlikely candidate for missions.
“When you share the gospel and you see the light come on in their eyes, it’s amazing. They’ve got it.”
Debbie Sardo came to Africa when she was fifty three years old. Fifty-three. And she had only been a believer for three years. Three. She didn’t grow up in church. She only found her way there after she found God — and that happened in the wreckage of an already hard life.
When Debbie came to the Lord, she says, her life was falling apart. Her son had been killed. Her husband was seriously ill and had just asked her for a divorce. It was her sister, a Christian for years, though the two weren’t close at the time — who invited her to church to hear an evangelist speak. Debbie said yes, surprising them both. As she listened, she heard what she describes as the voice of the Lord: Come home, Debbie. You’re not going to make it by yourself for much longer. She gave her life to Jesus that day.
A few months later, a mission worker couple came to speak at the same church. Debbie found herself in tears. She heard the same voice again: Sit up, get ready. You’re going to Africa.
So she went.
“I would go to Afghanistan or back into Sudan in a heartbeat if I could.”
Debbie is a widow. She grew up in a very abusive home. She lost her only child in a car accident. Her husband had diabetes and spent his last six months in hospital, having three limbs amputated and losing his sight before he died. Debbie has worked in many places over her life: flipped burgers, waited tables, worked in finance, real estate, a prison system teaching vocational training, and IT for eighteen years. None of the hard things and hard years were wasted. Now she has spent almost twenty years in a hard-to-reach, hard-to-live-in place as a single woman. Since being in Africa, she has been in a plane wreck, two car accidents, and was once hit by a car while walking. The enemy wasn’t happy about this piece of dynamite being here.
Debbie first took part in a short term mission projects in 2005 to Nigeria. She later went to South Sudan, then Kenya. She knew from that first trip that she would be back. From 2014 to 2018
she was based with SIM Kenya, discipling women in Western Kenya. Since 2019 she has been in other areas of, South Sudan, with some intervals from 2007 forced by a mass countrywide evacuation because of the war. She has also been traveling between S. Sudan and Kenya and spending time in remote villages in Western Kenya.
“Come home, Debbie. You’re not going to make it by yourself for much longer.”
Debbie is a church planter. She didn’t know she was, because she had been told that church planting was hands on building churches. She doesn’t go with a hammer in her hand, so she must not be. But Dynamite Debbie blasts windows into the dark places of the world and lets in the light. She works with leaders of the churches in South Sudan and Kenya teaching them the Bible and trying to get them to pass on their knowledge. It hasn’t been easy. She disciples leaders. This is one of the steps in church planting that is needed.
“When we talk about church planting, what I really mean is I’m passionate about discipleship,” she says. “I want to help people build their own relationships with Jesus.”
Church planting starts with relationships. From there, evangelism can happen but evangelism is not enough. Those people must be integrated into the family of God and taught the Word of God and how to have a relationship with their loving Creator. That is discipleship. As Debbie puts it, there is no one way to disciple, and discipleship is not a one-time deal. You may walk with these people their whole life. Part of discipling is that those people must be trained to train others, so that it starts all over again. The mentoring never stops. All of these things are church planting. It can include building a building, but really, many times a building is quite optional. Any mango tree will do. Church planting is a long, slow process, as diverse as the many facets of a jewel — and when done well, it keeps repeating itself.
Please pray
- For lasting fruit from discipleship. That the men and women Debbie has walked alongside would continue to grow in their relationship with God, stand firm in their faith, and faithfully disciple others.
- For physical healing, renewed strength, and clear direction as Debbie transitions back to the States and seeks how God would continue to use her.
- That people like G and many others in South Sudan and Kenya would encounter Jesus, find true hope and healing, and shine as lights in the midst of trauma and hardship.
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