Truthfully, I wrote this whole piece before knowing one of the greatest films of all time was celebrating 25 years of cinematic greatness. 25 years! A Timeless story and arguably the most unifying piece of cinema, touching the hearts and minds of all. No matter your age, ethnicity or belief.
So, with that being said. I’m taking this as my much-needed confirmation to tell this story Enjoy!
Writting the subtitle even now feels blasphemous and almost sacrilegious. I cringe at the thought of comparing myself, or an experience I had, to one of the most well-known prophets and documented events in history. Whether you are an atheist, Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, you will have some knowledge of who Moses is.
Hollywood retells the story of the great Exodus [Exodos in Greek for the road out, way out], a narrative with four characters.
The Hebrews: an oppressed people.
Moses: an orphan Hebrew raised Egyptian.
Pharoah: ruler of Egypt and oppressor.
And a God who answers the cry of his people.
We follow the life of Moses, an Egyptian prince with the blood of his surrogate father’s enemy. The baby in a basket, surviving the storms of the sea. The same baby, who would one day lead God’s people on a path no one could have chosen.
The journey of Moses has always fascinated me and I don’t know if it is because I grew up watching the stellar Dreamworks production and the voices of Val Kilmer and Ralph Phines were truly moving… Or if it was the musical composition that Hans Zimmer perfectly executed that felt as though he and God had a secret language that he expressed through composition. Either way, my affection for the film was birthed.
From childhood and now into adulthood studying the life of Moses has been a beautiful reminder of how God does not need perfection to use you. He just needs your obedience.
Christian rhetoric’s heard a lot are:
“God does not call the equipped, he equips those he calls.”
“God just needs your yes”
“A NO to God is a YES to the devil.”
Most facets of roaring preachers, standing congregants, and clapping families tend to focus on that part. Saying yes. Following God and seeing what he can do with you.
“With God, he can part a red sea!” [insert applause of a congregation.]
This is true and yet what happens after the yes? What happens after the miracle?
I hate to break it to you but after the credits rolled on the 1998 film, the chapters of Exdous continued. Moses though charming and charismatic in the adaption had a very real and daunting task. He was entrusted with a position of leading the very people he delivered. It’s one thing to deliver, it is another thing to lead. Imagine it. He has to coach them, encourage them, and deal with their wavering moods, ideas, and regressions in faith in the wilderness. (A dry place with limited resources and luxury to say the least.) for forty years. He has to go before God in secret with his stutter and clear disdain for attention and communicate God’s words to the Israelites. Who subsequently, would rather dance around a Golden calf made of the same metal they took from the place that enslaved them. And the cherry on the cake is, it was his main spokesperson's (Aaron) idea! The man God allowed to speak on behalf of Moses as Moses does for God. The solution to help Moses on this journey, I mean it’s just not looking good. [Exodus 32.]
We should’ve had a Prince of Egypt 2: The Tale of Aaron. Dreamworks let me know!
My point is, that being called feels more like the second half of Exodus than the first. It is lot of waiting. Fighting. Praying. Looking crazy. Feeling like others are crazy because they have not seen what God has shown you. You still feel unequipped and unprepared and so you are that much more reliant on the one who called you.
Here’s how I learned this:
Five years ago I was elected as the Face of Kenya UK ambassador. A position that involved using my gift of speaking to talk to crowds of people, in different countries about the plights of young people. The goal of this organisation was to empower and connect the diaspora youth of the UK with their home country and encourage more international support. It was a miraculous moment for me and a journey I will always be grateful for.
One of the requirements of the ambassadorship was that you needed to raise money for a charity, I chose to pour my fundraising into a body that focused on community outreach in Kenya. Women Peace Network. I loved that I could see the impact they were having on more rural areas of Kenya, taking care of the elderly, and providing wheelchairs for those who could no longer walk. Organising food packages, and blankets, equipping the local community, and dealing with their everyday pressing matters.
Medical care unsurprisingly is a huge area of development still. Especially in countries like Kenya. The over-the-counter medication or GP appointments we complain about for free do not compare to the scarcity of resources in African countries. The medical care that is available costs your house and in most rural parts of Kenya where there is no local hospital, the most vulnerable sit, ageing, changing, and more susceptible to silent deaths. Small ailments that are preventable and curable by monitoring their health or medication.
With this, I raised funds that allowed over 200 elderly people to receive a consultation from volunteer doctors, who checked their blood pressure, spoke to their pains, and made a makeshift pharmacy out of a church. As I stood in the middle of the country my mother and grandmother grew up in and as these men and women blessed me and walked away with vitamins, bandages, and grateful hearts for being seen little nineteen-year-old me teared up.
God?
Did I do this?
Did you use me to do this?
Of course, there were community workers, the charity, and the help of my family that allowed this to be executed in such a manner but the thought, the idea, and the will to raise funds?
I did this?
As I walked into the church (now pharmacy) to greet the doctors who volunteered, I was met with critical untrusting eyes. My accent and non-swahili speaking self were like an alarm that rang in their heads. I might as well have been a white person with a United Nations shirt on ( No offence.)
“We’ve heard so much about you, talking to your mum we were so excited to meet you!” This would have landed as a compliment if it wasn’t met with a cold up-and-down look in my direction. I smiled politely and thanked them for their work.
“You guys have done amazing.” I winced as my British accent seemed to sit more firmly in the air as if I had just had lunch with the Queen. One of the doctors poking her head from her disdain of my presence began to interview me.
“Did you grow up in London?”
“What do you know about Kenya?”
“Is it your first time?”
“Who’s our president?”
Each answer I gave displeased her more. Yes. It’s my home. No, I’ve been coming here since the age of six. Presidnet Uhuru (at the time.) Somehow even I knew that no amount of knowledge of Kenya was going to make her feel better. My otherness was loud. It smelt of money, privilege, and charity.
Later, I asked the Lord in prayer what this interaction was about as the thoughts of insecurity crept in:
Why did I have to be the face of this?
Maybe it would have worked better with a ‘True Kenyan’.
Should I have known more or done something different?
Guilt, embarrassment and the overwhelming feeling to hide came upon me. A familiar shadow. An old friend. But God in that moment, illuminated the story of Moses. A Hebrew boy in an Egyptian palace.
“Tallulah, I called Moses because he could identify with the pain and suffering of the Israelites Yet maintain his proximity to the Egyptians. Enough proximity that he could walk into the Pharaoh’s palace and ask for freedom. His upbringing gave him access to deliverance.”
His word and the truth of Moses’ upbringing settled my heart. Because I realised my otherness was a gift. That my distance from the land I call home better equips me to serve it as the lord calls.
My diasporan privilege is a weapon.
My diasporan privellege is a tool.
My diasporan privellege is a lense.
And at any moment I can zoom out and see the larger picture and fill in the gaps of an already hardworking land.
TRUTHS I LEARNED AT NINETEEN
Being “called” does not equal being liked.
You cannot control people’s perception of you.
You could be the solution to a problem and still be hated for it.
You could be the answered prayer whilst existing in unanswered prayers.
People who are bridges are often conflicted as they experience both sides of the divide.
God uses foolish things.
I am foolish for God.
I wish I could say that this revelation fixed everything immediately but it didn’t. To present I have had to learn how to sit in the tension of my otherness and remind myself that deliverance is at stake. Not just for my life but the life of others. There are plenty of times I have wept to God asking and pleading for him not to send me because I don’t want to be seen as the one doing it. (We will discuss false humility another time).
But God, being gracious and ultimately sovereign, has always comforted my tears addressed my fears and taught me not just how to function in my otherness but flourish in it.
I mean the proof is in the pudding you’re reading my blog right? (Hehehe!)
I say all this to say:
You should rewatch the Prince of Egypt. Or watch it if you haven’t.
If you resonate with this: You are a complex individual and your gift to see both sides or understand multiple perspectives is exactly that. A gift.
Give yourself permission to be different!
God truly can use anyone and yet he chose you and is still choosing you.
I pray you experience the God of the Red Sea who will split open and make ways for you that seem impossible. [And the church said]
Amen
Have a lovely Tallulah Tuesday and share with a friend x