No Experience is Wasted if Given to Him.

By Guest Writer Sarah Bultman

No Experience is wasted if given to Him.

Someone once said “We don’t learn from every experience, we only learn from properly evaluated experiences”. 

Was there a period in your life where you feel you failed? 
Have you experienced deep suffering that you still struggle to understand?

For me it was Zambia

From a Vision to a Call!

All my life I wanted to help missionaries. It started at 17 with a dream to create videos for missionaries. I wanted to help them share their work so they would be better supported. Then it shifted when I got on the field and I realized I wanted to do the work of a missionary myself. 
Joy in South Africa

What joy I had in South Africa going from hut to hut sharing the Gospel, bringing food to widows suffering from HIV, and starting a child sponsorship program for their children. My heart was so moved as I saw the poorest of the poor beginning Bible studies in their homes, and drug dealers flushing their drugs to making their house a house of prayer. This lasted for a while until Zambia. 

Short Term Ministry Experience In Zambia

I had gone on a two-month outreach to the land-locked country of Zambia and was nearly killed by an angry mob over confusion about us being Christians or Satanists. Thankfully we lived, and as we drove away from that place of extreme poverty and hopelessness  I knew I had to say  “Yes.”  I said, “Jesus, I don’t know if you will call me back here, but if You do, my answer is yes.”

Call to Zambia

A year later He did just that. So I packed my bags and got on a plane to join my friends who were doing Church planting and orphan care work in the villages of Zambia near the Victoria Falls. What a beautiful place and beautiful people I found nestled up against the Zambezi river, living in mud huts and fishing with broken wine bottles. 
I was living my dream of helping bring the Gospel to the remote parts of the earth. Though the spiritual ground was hard in that little village, and the witch doctors made things confusing for everyone, we were beginning to see fruit. 

Struggle Begins

But as time when on, I began to struggle. I didn’t know how to set limits, and my people-pleasing tendencies began to show their negative effects. 
Overbooked days turned into late nights, which turned rushed mornings without any time with the Lord. Each week the issues in the village got heavier and harder to navigate and process. Hunger, death, murder, hippo attacks, car accidents, my roommate being attacked and nearly raped, my best friend’s pastor killing himself, representatives of my home church visiting and bringing back negative reports of the empty orphan home and small church. All of this with barely enough time to cry out to the Lord to help me understand. Why all this suffering? Where are you? What do we do? I didn’t have anyone to process things with.  I didn’t know how to handle it all and I broke. I went home and couldn’t get myself to go back. 

New Ministry

Finally, my strengths and my experience have come together into a work that I absolutely love! Serving Jesus in this way feels like soaring. I get to help missionaries work through their practical and spiritual problems and watch them become more effective in their work. Whenever someone comes to the Lord or is helped I rejoice knowing the small part I was able to play in this grand adventure.

My mentor was right. Without properly evaluating my experience in Zambia, I could have lived perpetually in shame. I could have blamed my circumstances and not learned what I needed to grow. But instead through the help of the Holy Spirit and friends I have seen that those hard days were my training ground. The very soil from which the richest of fruit would come.

Have you failed at something or been deeply hurt? 
If so, you have some powerful ground from which good fruit can grow. 

If it hasn’t born much fruit yet, maybe now is the time to go back with the Lord and a friend, and process it in light of Scripture. Watch as He brings clarity and wisdom and a deeper understanding of His love.

And you may find, like me, that the area of your greatest difficultly has become the area of your greatest impact.  

No Experience is Wasted if Given to Him.

Sarah’s Bio

Sarah Bultman has the privilege of raising up the next generation of Christian world-changers through her work with the Birch Rise Coaching and YWAM. Her passion is to see Kingdom-minded people raised up and thriving so that the Gospel will saturate every part of society and reach the ends of the earth. After attending Alaska Bible Institute she served in South Africa and Zambia part-time for 12 years. Sarah has created promotional videos for mission organizations and helped launch two child sponsorship programs. In Zambia, Sarah was a part of starting an orphan home and a school for special needs children. While in the states she worked for the Brinkman Adventures, an audio drama that inspires children by dramatizing real missionary stories. She is the author of the Brinkman Adventures curriculum and was the co-host of the Brinkman Podcast. She currently works as a life and business coach helping young missionaries launch and fulfill the dream God placed on their hearts. 

You can find Sarah on the web at birchrise.com and email her at sarah@birchrise.com

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