Divine Melody Nsubuga is officially graduating high school. If you know our family, you know Divine is part of the Brewer Bunch, but you may not know how she fits into the pile. She is our Divine blessing. She is our bonus daughter. She has lived with us for 3 years and her entire family have been family to us for over 15 years.
Her mom Irene, and I were talking recently and reflecting on all that the Lord has done. We both paused in awe of the Lord. Not one of us could have orchestrated or predicted what the Lord had planned.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11
When we met Divine’s family 15 years ago – we had just adopted our daughter Mirembe Esther, who is from Uganda. When we adopted, I had become an African mama and I loved that deeply, but there was a lot I didn’t know. I had been privately praying for a connection, a friend, from the country I now loved and knew very little about. We had a lot of connections to Americans that had been to Uganda and had met some amazing people while there, but I needed more. I didn’t even know to pray the prayer that the Lord heard from my heart, and answered, but He knew I needed a friend, a sister, a fellow mama, a family.
As ONLY God can do, He answered that very private cry of my heart and connected us with Tucker and Irene and their beautiful children, TJ, Destiny and Divine. A lady from our Bible study in our very small country church had heard of this Ugandan family that was staying in a community near by. I jumped on the chance to meet them. They were only in the USA for a few weeks and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity.
As it turned out God not only connected us, he brought the entire family to our house for dinner. All I can say is God is faster and more efficient than any internet service. From that dinner meeting 15 years ago, to this very day, we have been close. Over the years, they and their friends have stayed with us, in our home, and we and many of our friends have stayed with them in Uganda, many times. We have done life together, side by side from across the world.
It’s a long story and a long friendship that will last for eternity, and most of it is encouraging and all of it is the amazing hand of God. There are parts of the story that are heartbreaking, and hard to understand, such as, Tucker and Irene won’t be able to attend Divine’s graduation, but they will be in Uganda loving and cheering and supporting and praying as they have every step of her life.
You see, in Uganda, it is very culturally normal to send a child to a place that might give them more opportunities. And in the Kingdom of God, it is culturally normal to obey the call of God, and trust Him with your children, even if it means sending them to another part of the world.
I think of Divine and the opportunity we have had to bring her into our home for the last three years, and I know God sent us a Divine blessing. I don’t think of it, like we are giving Divine an opportunity, I think of it like the Lord is giving us all, our families and our friends and our church family an opportunity to open our hearts and homes and hands to what He has for us. God is not afraid to mix things up and move people around, and when we have a greater fear of the Lord than the fear of everything else, and all that can go wrong, we get to see Him move in our lives and multiply the blessings to everyone around us.
We thank God for what He has done. What He is doing and what He will do. Divine is going home to Uganda for a few weeks after graduation. She will see her family, her church family and her friends, and then she will return and go to college.
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. – Jesus
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. – African Proverb
We are going far.
