Confirm for Me the Work of My Hands (United Nations, 17 Mar 2025)
When God opens a pathway for you to go and do something, I have learned to go.
And when God confirms the path, you know that He is working in incredible ways, even if you can't see everything. Like Philip with the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8), one providential touch point, one key conversation on a road might be used by God to start an entire church on a different continent.
On 17 March, the day Saint Patrick who brought the Gospel to Ireland was born, Karla and I got to attend a panel presentation at the United Nations. The focus was on Afghani women and education opportunities for them, and came about due to 1) our recent trips to Pakistan where we actively are reaching out to a distressed Afghan refugee community that is facing in discriminant mass deportations back to the Taliban in Afghanistan and 2) our desire to increase in contacts to help them tangibly in their distress. A burning in my heart and soul for a people in so need of help, a burning that has only continued to increase in the month since our return from Pakistan.
It was in this context that I reached out to one of my fellow undergraduate prayer partners, a hand surgeon that has been doing remarkable things with the Afghanistan refugees here in America since the Taliban took over in August 2021. After passing on some reporting mechanisms for refugees being returned to hostile hands, Douglas Chin then proceeded to get Karla and myself passes to attend the presentation at his side.
Confirm for me the work of my hands. (Psalm 90: 17a)
How do I know that God desired us to be there? Great question. It was in the going that some details came to pass that I believe only God can do. He in essence confirms the work for our Hands. (Psalm 90: 16-17)
You see, when we made our travel plans, they were not going to be simple ones.
I realized that going to New York City opened up opportunities for me to spend needed time with my widowed mother in upstate New York. A visit initially planned in November on my return from Iraq, but a visit that got upended when I returned quickly to El Paso after Karla and Josiah were in a car accident that not only totaled the car but resulted in Karla being hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit to be observed for a bleed inside her brain. Now it seemed right to go up before the UN conference and spend time there. The path: a space available non-revenue flight to New York City followed by a train ride up to Poughkeepsie. (We are blessed with our son Daniel working for American Airlines with the opportunity to "hop" on flights around the US at a fraction of normal fare) The day before leaving, everything seemed "green" with many flights on the first flights out of El Paso having lots of space for standby flying. And then the afternoon before leaving, a massive sandstorm hit El Paso, the worse I have ever seen here, and in the top six in my life. The result: no flights in or out of El Paso that afternoon and evening, resulting in all the flights for the next 24 hours out of El Paso being completely full.
Distressed, I reached out to Daniel, and he advised me to still show up for the 5 AM flight as many times people in El Paso do not show up for that flight. His counsel allowed me to have at least some restful sleep that evening, as I began contingency planning (I call it "framing") for getting to Poughkeepsie, all more complicated than the original one. Showing up for the 5 AM flight, I had a beautiful devotional time in the waiting area while waiting to see what God would do. I was sixth on the standby list. As they began boarding, the first five standbys all got seats on the plane. So at that point I thought for sure I would need to pivot onto the next flight's standby list. However, with less than 15 minutes left, an overhead announcement declared that there was one final seat, and that seat was for me! As we took off, I continued to have my Quiet Time with God, this time mixed with tears of joy. He had confirmed not only that I would be going to the United Nations, but that He had work, important work, for me to do up in Poughkeepsie with my family and my church of my youth.
If confirming my presence was not amazingly enough, God confirmed Karla's trips too! Her path was different though. She remained in El Paso, working with our Church and Community, and continuing to get health evaluations to be cleared for the kidney donation. She then easily pivoted to Dallas on Friday morning the 14th, with a standby flight that opened up opportunities to spend time with our son Daniel and to attend a precious, wonderful wedding in the Dallas area. We have known Sasha Miller since shortly after our arrival to El Paso 15 years ago. She and her family have been wonderful close friends of all our kids, and she and her then fiancée had been at our mission presentation in February with a desire to go overseas to share the Good News.
Whereas the path to Dallas opened up easily for Karla, the path to NYC did not appear promising at all: all American airlines flights had turned "red" with lots of people on the standby lists, I think in part because of people wanting to attend the Saint Patrick's Day parade in NYC. Daniel then had a wonderful idea: maybe SouthWest would work! Checking late Saturday evening, the first SW flight was orange, and we pivoted Karla onto this list, with eight seats open and her being the sixth on the list. However, when Karla arrived at the airport and checked-in, she found out she had slipped to eleventh spot on the standby list, probably in part to others also finding the same promising flight we had. When it came time to board, all ten standby's in front of her got to board, but she had no seat and had to wait. Then, with less than fifteen minutes left, one final seat was found, and Karla, like me, was the last person to get on her flight.
What was particularly beautiful about this SouthWest flight is that it got Karla into LaGuardia before my arrival to NYC by train Sunday afternoon. This way we could find our way together (or get lost together) to our hotel downtown near Chinatown. Karla only had to navigate the NYC subways by herself, for the first time, to Penn Station to find me. Not an easy feat, given how daunting the NYC subway can be. However, the Starbucks there seemed like the best rally point. And forty minutes after I had gotten there, I heard steps and looked up, spotting Karla coming to the Penn Station Starbucks. My heart leapt. God had brought us together! What I didn't know at that time was that when Karla had gotten off the subway and asked a police officer as to where she could find a Starbucks, he had told her that there were about twenty nearby. Interestingly though, this Starbucks where I was at was the first one she came to. Something only God can do!
With regard to the actual UN Panel Discussion, Karla and I are still processing the event. The Presenters ended up taking longer than planned Their stories are insightful and heartbreaking, and you can listen to it at Education for Economic Empowerment – Afghan Women's Pathway to Resilience (CSW69 Side Event) | UN Web TV (you can see Karla and I as "seconds" in the last five minutes of the broadcast) This resulted in the Panel Discussion being limited to Panel Presentations. BUT God opened up doors for us to make contacts! Both Karla and I headed to different presenters to engage them with some of the issues we were seeing with the Afghani's in Pakistan. And where as we went to several of the presenters, one of them actually sought and came to me. I find myself grateful for the contacts we had, and am praying that these contacts will grow to become connections that can be used to advance the situation for the displaced, marginalized and forgotten Afghani's.
But God wasn't finished with helping us find contacts, as well as helping us to better understand the situation of the Afghani's. After the panel was over, we got to attend an Afghanistan art exhibit for four hours, interacting with group discussions, film previews, speakers and visitors. Together all of these events helped us gain additional insights into the plight of the Afghani people group and the women in particular, as well as have wonderful talks with people who care. To this, we were able to give our own insights and experiences with Afghani's who are displaced into Pakistan. A group that likewise has been educated, had jobs, and fled sometimes with loss of family members or after personal physical abuses at the hand of the Taliban victors. A group that has children wanting to learn, but unable to participate in any formal programs since Pakistan is not granting them Asylum status. However, unlike the Afghani women in Afghanistan who face unstable electric power grids and limited to no access to Internet and abusive husband, these Pakistani Afghani refugees do not face these barriers.
My hope, my prayers, are that some of the efforts being focused on the Afghani Women in Afghanistan can be also applied to the Afghani Women in Pakistan. I believe it can. Whereas many of the ongoing efforts are hampered, akin to "trying to catch two birds in the bush", the displaced in Pakistan do not face these obstacles. They literally right now are the proverbial bird in the hand. How long this will remain though is uncertain, as their greatest obstacle is that Pakistan could imprison them and deport them any day since many have nothing beyond UNHCR status. No visas. No jobs. Fractured families from deportations. And Pakistan is threatening to deport all Afghani's in Pakistan, no matter what status they have, come the beginning of June. They need our prayers. Please join us.
Yes confirm the work of my hands. (Psalm 90: 17b)