A young girl in Uganda cracks nuts with her mother

By Laura Dassama, Penn State University

As a child growing up in Monrovia, Liberia, I spent many afternoons cracking palm nuts to extract the kernel, which we would eat as a local snack. The process involved collecting the palm nuts after the flesh had been removed, washing them, laying them out in the sun to dry, and then smashing them with stones to get at the kernel. There was no way to know whether the kernel would be a good one or a bad one. But I spent many afternoons relentlessly cracking away, hoping that even one good kernel would be found.

That childhood routine taught me a lot about patience—and a lot about being a follower of Christ. Doing the work of Christ requires the same level of patience and hope that it took to keep cracking those palm nuts, over and over again.

Just last month, Nasreen, her husband Rasi, and their children lived in a mud house near the river in Mohib Banda, a village in the town of Pabbi, Pakistan. Razi worked as a laborer, and the family owned two cows.

Then, monsoon rains of epic proportions started to fall, and the river began flooding. At 6 a.m. one morning as the water rose toward the roof of their home, Nasreen and her family decided to make a dash for the tallest building in their neighborhood: the local mosque and school.

For three days, they crammed together on the rooftop of the school with more than 100 people from houses close to the river, exposed to the elements and waiting to be rescued — or at least for something to eat.