Why sometimes Plan B makes a better Plan A

In the 1980s, a terrible famine hit Ethiopia. The pictures from those awful times were devastating to see. I still distinctly remember as a child seeing the first commercial highlighting the devastation and the indelible impression it left on me. That night as images of emaciated, desperate little Ethiopian children burned in my mind, I laid in my bed and wept and prayed. I was only a child, but I was resolutely determined to help the Africans in their plight. I knew someday I would be there helping those children. I simply needed to find a way to get there. I decided the best way to do that was to become a nurse in order to create a way into Africa and help the people practically. I figured any African country would be happy to welcome a qualified, compassionate nurse like myself across their borders, and I was pretty sure someday I would go down in history books as a modern day Florence Nightingale.

 My greatest challenge in school by far was math. I'm not talking about occasionally needing a little extra homework to catch up; math was another language that I simply never understood. It utterly baffled me. Some days I wondered if the math part of my brain was on a permanent vacation; never to be found again. It discouraged me that I could be so gifted and strong in some areas of my life, and be such a complete failure in another area. Simply put; math made me feel like a dummy. How was I supposed to become God's gift to Africa if I couldn't even balance equations? It was downright frustrating.    

I carried the passion for nursing into my high school years. By then, it was obvious that I would either need a brain transplant or a miracle to pull off the grades in math needed to get into the nursing program at the university of my choice. Interestingly enough though, I was thriving in the arts. I had been singing since I was four years old, and had enjoyed plenty of musical experiences and training over the years. In fact, it was music that usually helped balance out my GPA when math was dragging it down. Little did I know that the picture of this hidden strength pulling me up, when my weakness was pulling me down, would become one of my life anthems.

I eventually was accepted into the BSC Nursing program at the university; but really only squeaked in because my math marks had pulled my average down. Once again, strong in every other subject but so weak in math. I met with the director of the nursing program with great trepidation. Her advice was that nursing would be an incredibly challenging program for me due to my weakness in math, and that my best choice would be to take that awful Math 30 class over again (for the THIRD time!) until I had really grasped it before coming into the nursing program. It was in the middle of that interview that I had a major epiphany: I wanted to be a nurse because I wanted to get to Africa. What I was good at, and what I was the most passionate about though, was music. All my powerful connections with people happened when I was sharing my gift of music, NOT MATH!!! It was such a light bulb moment! I was going after my dream of serving in Africa completely the WRONG WAY! I withdrew my application right then and there in the interview, crossed the street to another college and applied for the music program! You can imagine my mother's surprise when I came home to announce that I was now a registered college student in the music program; NOT in nursing!

It was years later(eight to be exact), that my dream of caring for the orphans of Africa was finally realized. I had the honor of moving to Kampala, Uganda, East Africa with my husband and two young children. It wasn't as a nurse either; it was as a music teacher. I had the privilege of teaching a group of 18 orphans in singing and dancing and taking them on a six month tour across England, USA, and a part of Canada as the Watoto Children's Choir. These children proudly raised support for their peers back at home and awareness about the great plight that AIDS had created in their nation. Hope was their song and they sang it proudly. They were a people that were overcoming with their sound and rebuilding their nation with every note that they enthusiastically belted out.

To this day I am amazed that I got to be a part of that life changing time. My greatest weakness; math, became a thing of the past as I used my strength; music, to serve the people of Uganda. I couldn't have done what I did without it. I learned so much from that time. Especially that sometimes our plans are not always the best, and that God can use our weaknesses to keep us humble and compassionate, and our hidden strengths to make beautiful music.



Sometimes Plan B really does make a better Plan A.

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