Africa, Medical Missionary, Rebecca Hunter, SOZO, SOZO Dream Foundation, Transformation Stories, Uganda

Rebecca – Finding Family

13 Jan

One of the primary building blocks for humanity from God is His creation of the family.

God is good by definition. His goodness was expressed for the good of mankind when he created male and female to come together in a lifetime covenant. Their oneness was the best environment in which children could be born and safely trained to become responsible adults.

God’s intent was for both husbands and wives, father and mother, to be the best version of themselves they could be. Their limitations could be minimized by the redemption of their lives from sin. Given the presence of God within them, they could be and do what they could not otherwise be or do without Him.

Sin and the forces of darkness have taken God’s design for family personally. They attacked His design within the very first family as one brother murdered another. Soon after this beginning, children began suffering from the lack of not only basic physical needs but emotional and spiritual needs as well. Wounds from parents have long-lasting effects that handicap many children in their development.

Every person needs a healthy and whole family. But not every person has that need met. Rebecca was one of those children. She was so young that she was not aware of the trauma she suffered in losing her father and mother when it happened. But as she was subsequently passed around to several locations with aunties who gave her a place to stay but not a home in which she was loved, she felt abandoned with no sense of belonging.

The consequences of that abusive and traumatizing childhood were immediately evident to my wife and me when we met Rebecca. Prompted by God, we approached Rebecca in 2016 to tell her we would like to legally adopt her … even though she was an adult. She consented. On August 18, 2016, Rebecca signed the documents of adoption and was granted that adoption by the United States of America.

I know of no deeper pain than that caused by the rejection or abandonment of a father or mother or both. It results in an orphan spirit … evidenced by fear, shame, independence, and often survival skills that prohibit trust in anyone other than self. Living a life of loneliness and abandonment wasn’t cured overnight when Rebecca signed her adoption documents, but it did set it in motion.

 
God has demonic enemies who take advantage of dysfunctional families and situations like Rebeccas. Demons are thieves and come to steal, kill, and destroy God’s identity for humans and give them the false identity of orphan. However, because humans are created in the image of God the evil of demons can only inflict wounds but have an unauthorized claim to a human’s life. They have no rights. I call them squatters.
Rebecca living with her brother Dawson
and his young family – January 2018

The good news is that LOVE WINS! The love of God can take back what the enemy has stolen. God can own, reclaim, and redeem what was lost. No weapon used by humans or evil spirits is strong enough to overcome the power of God’s love.

 
Previously to having a family, Rebecca was existing in the land of the living but was a long way from being fully alive.
 
It was after Jesus adopted her into God’s eternal family that she began to become fully alive. An additional step toward this fullness began when God provided Rebecca with a literal family … a group of people to love her, hope with her, rejoice with her, and suffer with her
 
People are trained by how they are treated. Those without family believe they have no value. They believe they exist but that no one wants them. Once God immersed Rebecca in a family who loved her, cared about her, and treasured and valued her then her life experienced a radical transformation.
 
Previously Rebecca was treated as disposable. God and family gave her generational and eternal value. Death is never a bad thing … if resurrection follows! Jesus said it best … “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12;24)

 

Rebecca and Olivia

Over the past six years, God has replaced the multiple empty spots in Rebecca’s life with truth, revelation, freedom, purpose, and vision. God used family to convince her of His eternal and unconditional love for her. He used her adopted family members to convince her that she mattered, that she belonged, that she was treasured, and even natural birth couldn’t make her more family to us than she is.

Finding family developed its own expression in Rebecca’s life. A couple of years ago, when her niece looked destined for the life of a village house girl, and all the trauma and abuse which could result, Rebecca courageously intervened and become family for Olivia. Rebecca has become a mother to her. She cares for Olivia, making sure she knows she is loved and that all her teenage needs will be taken care of. But most important of all, Rebecca takes seriously the training Olivia needs in the ways of God.