Ariana Herlinger - The Christian Science Journal, January 2007
AFTER COLLEGE, my love of other cultures and my desire to make a difference in the world led me to join the Peace Corps. I was a bit of an idealist with an appetite for adventure. So I accepted a two-year assignment in Togo, West Africa, working for a girls’ education and empowerment program.
The day I and my Peace Corps friends arrived in Guérin-Kouka, Togo, with our girls for a program event, we could tell something was different. We immediately noticed the tension and nervous activity in the streets as we headed down to the hostel where we would stay.
Unbeknownst to us, a local man had been killed by a soldier the night before, and people wanted to retaliate. We passed by the soldier station where hundreds of people had gathered, demanding justice. The town was on the brink of erupting into chaos and violence.
I was scared. This situation was completely foreign to what I had experienced in Africa up until then. But I remembered stories in the Bible of ordinary people in situations that seemed hopeless: Daniel trapped in a den of lions; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into a hot fire; shepherd boy David facing Goliath, a seasoned warrior, in battle. All these people faced frightening circumstances. But each one turned to God with complete confidence that they would be protected—and they were. That day in Togo, as we tried to figure out what to do, these Bible stories comforted me.
We decided our first priority was to get ourselves and the Togolese girls we were working with to the regional capital. However, we soon learned that all the bush taxis (the only transport out of the area) had left as soon as the trouble started. We were the only non locals left.
At some point, I ventured out to look for a phone to contact the Peace Corps once in the capital city to inform them of our situation. They told us they would send a car to come get us, but because of the distance, it wouldn’t arrive for another 24 hours. We had no choice but to stay put, so I decided to start praying about peace.
When I pray, I always start from the premise that God is the only power and that He is good. The carnal mind always tries to trick us into accepting the concept of dualism—that there are multiple, competing powers, or that good and evil coexist side by side, and that sometimes evil succeeds. But in reality there is only one God and one creation. Each one of us is God’s complete expression, made in His image. Regardless of all the ways that people seem to be divided, we can’t be in conflict with each other because we originate from the same source. And we share the same heritage-that of harmony and love. These are constants that can never be disrupted.
As I began to feel more at peace, we noticed that the streets had become very calm and quiet. I continued to pray as we conducted our activities and sessions with the village girls. The angry crowd never returned to retaliate. Later, we were all able to walk through the nearly deserted streets without anyone bothering us. The night passed peacefully, and the next day we were able to be evacuated to the regional capital.
Growing up I was taught that there wasn’t any bad situation that God wasn’t able to help me out of. I had always believed it, but it took this experience in West Africa for me to actually prove it for myself.
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