I have always wanted a family...to marry and have children. Before I met my husband, though, I pursued higher education to the Master's level and was highly driven by my career and the vision and calling I sensed God had placed on my life. Even as I was so driven by my passion for my chosen career path, I simultaneously longed to have a family. I knew the Lord knew the desires of my heart, and though some seasons were harder than others, I trusted Him with my desire for a family.
I was raised on the mission field in West Africa, and I traveled extensively doing study abroad and language programs throughout my educational career. I knew the Lord had placed a specific call on my life to be working with Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land itself, and after achieving my Master's degree, I had applied to many positions and was waiting for Him to open the door.
The Lord, however, didn't open the door I expected. Instead, He led me down a different path and has continued to direct me in unexpected ways to this day. First, He took me to South Carolina for three and a half years to learn one of the most important lessons of my life. He revealed to me that I had my priorities flipped. I had placed my calling and destination above my relationship with Him. I had become more interested in what I was mandated to do for the Lord than I was in the Lord Himself. I needed to return to my First Love. The Lord had all the time in the world and wasn't rushed to get me to my place of "calling." He was much more interested in my heart posture with Him than He was in what I would do. He wanted deeper intimacy with me. I knew I wouldn't be in South Carolina forever, but I needed to be there for a time and learn how to be with my God and to let go of my own expectations of what I should do, where I should go, and when I should go.
The next unexpected step the Lord had me take was not back to Israel, but to Egypt. He showed me how connected that move was to what He was calling me to, but I never would have imagined it. On one of my support-raising trips, as I prepared to move to Egypt, I met with a lady whom I didn't know but was connected to through a friend at church. We met at a restaurant, and she brought along her three adorable children. Like me, she had a passion for doing reconciliation work with Israelis and Palestinians. In a voice tinged with regret, she told me about meeting her husband, who didn't want to move overseas but felt called to be a youth pastor in the United States. Instead of moving to Israel, as she had felt called to do when she was single, she had married him and had started a family while assisting him in his pastoral role at their church. Recently, they had begun taking youth on trips to Israel to work with Israeli and Palestinian youth, which was very invigorating for her.
Then she said something that triggered something in me that I didn't even know was there. She said, "I sometimes struggle with whether I made the right decision to marry my husband rather than move to the Middle East because not many people are willing to actually move there, and I was more than willing to do that!" When she said that, I realized that having a family was more important to me than what my "calling" or destination looked like. And that surprised me.
I instinctively responded with tears in my eyes and gestured towards her children, "But look at what you have now because of that decision you made. The ministry you have as a wife and mother is so incredibly valuable! It is infinitely worth it! And the Lord is now giving you opportunity to engage in the calling you've always felt so strongly. That calling is not now and never was gone or forgotten. And the Lord is not suffering for the lack of your living in the Middle East because you fell in love and started a family instead. He knows what He's doing." Her expression of potential regret over having a family instead of moving to the Middle East struck my heart as wrong. Her calling as a wife and mother was at least as important as her calling to the Middle East and it just made her calling to the Middle East look different than she expected. She and I were both in tears after I shared, and we both felt such a deep sense of gratitude to the Lord for knowing what He's doing and knowing the desires of our hearts.
During the time that I was living in Colorado preparing to move to Egypt, I met Nathan. He was part of the FAI team that was preparing to go to Kurdistan for the first time long term. Nathan started pursuing me a couple months before I left for Egypt. I knew that there was something there with Nathan that I had to pursue, but at the same time, I felt frustrated because it was incredibly inconvenient timing. I moved to Egypt the same week that we became "official," and he moved to Kurdistan a couple months after that. We were each going through the cultural and life adjustments of living in new countries while also trying to get to know each other over FaceTime and figuring out if our relationship was going to last. It was all rather overwhelming for me, and I almost broke up with him a couple of times. But the Lord kept me from doing it each time, asking me to trust Him in spite of all of my questions and feelings of stress. In the meantime, I was participating in a full time Egyptian Arabic language program, making Egyptian friends, and getting ready to begin work with an Egyptian training company as a curriculum developer for soft skills trainings in the workplace (emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, etc.).
In His own unique way, when I was ready, the Lord made it clear to my heart that Nathan was a man with whom I could spend the rest of my life. It was nothing like I ever expected it to be and Nathan was different from my ideas of who I thought I would be with, but it was clear that the Lord was blessing our relationship and that we were right for each other. As we discussed marriage, we laid everything out before the Lord. We didn't assume anything. We were each willing to move to the other's country or to a different one altogether, and we even laid our organizations before the Lord. We knew we were doing a new thing in considering marriage with one another, and we wanted the Lord to direct us as a couple, not as individuals. It became clear to us that the Lord was asking me to transition out of Egypt and to join Nathan in Kurdistan with FAI. It wasn't easy for me, but I knew it was the Lord, and I had peace. In all, I spent 10 wonderful months living in Egypt, and I know the relationships I built and the experiences I had there were not in vain. The Lord was showing me that His vision was much bigger than mine, His perspective much broader. I could only see what was right in front of me, if that sometimes, and He could see way beyond. Each step He had me take, each language and culture experienced was not for naught. It was all connected in a much larger picture than I could have ever imagined.
I was starting to realize the limitations it put on God and on me when I insisted upon one viewpoint of one piece of the big picture. When I originally felt the strong, clear calling of the Lord for something specific, if I had insisted that was my calling and it had to look a certain way, then I would have missed out or become disheartened and confused when the Lord started expanding that calling. I may have also missed out on marrying Nathan, who complements me and sharpens me so well. It was stretching, stressful, and difficult for me to submit to God as He expanded my horizons. Sometimes I thought I wasn't hearing God correctly and therefore felt guilty as His child. I was so driven by my myopic vision instead of the dynamics of relationship with an infinite and holy God. I am so thankful that the Lord, in His grace and mercy, forced me to stay in the States for a time in mundane jobs, connected me with a community that was learning intimacy with Him, and helped me realign my priorities in accordance with His. There is no greater call or ministry in life than the one we have towards our Creator and Father. When that is truly number one in our lives, way above all else, then He can direct the rest more effectively because we will trust in Him alone and not in our idea of Him or of what we can do for Him.
Nathan and I got married in the States, and five months later, we moved back to the Middle East. The FAI Syria project in partnership with Operation Good Neighbor in Israel was just picking up steam, so Dalton asked us to take over the leadership of FAI in Kurdistan. We lived in Erbil for the first year. For me, as a new wife living in a new country, I faced many adjustments. As I learned about the culture and the various ethnic groups and divisions in Kurdistan society, I started trying to get my conflict transformation training materials translated into Kurdish. I knew that my primary role, however, was to support Nathan as country director and team leader. I took some Kurdish language lessons when my language helper was available, but those first 14 months or so were mostly about re-establishing FAI in Kurdistan, doing needs discovery in the wake of the defeat of ISIS, and experiencing the economic punishment brought on by the Kurdish independence referendum. I began to realize that my passion for conflict transformation and reconciliation would have to take a back seat for a while as we established team, built trust among the Kurds, and focused on their most imminent needs. That role change was not easy for me, but there were so many new things going on in my life along with the various pressures that come with leadership that it didn't feel like a huge setback. I was learning many things in that new context, and I was still learning who I was as a wife.
After a year of marriage and six months on the field, we decided we were ready to start a family. We got pregnant right away and were thrilled! I had always wanted children, and halfway through my twenties, I had had a vivid dream in which I was holding my baby girl and had the most intense love for my baby that I had never experienced before. From that moment on, I longed to start a family.
I would never have dreamed of the experience we had with our first pregnancy. I was about halfway through an uneventful pregnancy, and we had just found out we were having a girl. Three days later, at 19 weeks/5 months pregnant, I went into pre-term labor and gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, who stayed alive about thirty minutes outside the womb before passing away into the arms of the Father. We named her Hope and had a strong sense from the Lord that as we buried her in Kurdish soil, she would be like a seed of the one true Hope to come for the Kurdish people.
The next day, at the request of our Kurdish friends, we buried our little Hope Hadassah next to our Kurdish friends' parents' graves in a Muslim cemetery, a true honor that none of us took lightly. To this day, our Kurdish friends tell the story of little Hope when we meet with local leaders and officials about new or ongoing projects. There was something about the whole experience that bonded us to our Kurdish friends in a way nothing else could have. The Lord took care of us in amazing ways through our FAI family and our supporters during that poignant season of grief and met us in the secret place as well, as we poured out our hearts to Him. I got pregnant again three months after losing Hope, and we learned that I had a certain condition that would likely affect every pregnancy but was fairly easily treatable with a stitch placed early in pregnancy to help prevent pre-term labor. Thankfully, it was a fairly common and uncomplicated procedure, and after much prayer, we decided to have it done in Kurdistan.
We went back to the States when I was twenty-five weeks along, and we had a beautiful, healthy baby girl at thirty-nine weeks. We named her Seraphina Grace and returned to Kurdistan when she was three months old. Navigating the cultural differences in raising children on the field is very real. We continue to learn when it's important for us to draw a line and be different and when we can and should be more flexible for the sake of better understanding and relationship with our Kurdish friends. As new parents—and especially as a new mother—on the field, we also learned and continue to learn how to properly prioritize our time. I struggled a lot with guilting myself for not spending enough time learning language or supporting Nathan as a leader. Nathan was amazing and responded to my guilt trips the same way every time: "Nicole, your most important ministry and work right now is being a mother to our daughter. If all of your time is spent doing that, I would be happy." I knew he was right. I absolutely loved being a mother, and our little princess Seraphina was the most amazing baby ever. Yet, it was still a struggle. I still feel bad for not knowing the Kurdish language like I feel I should by now. I also still have a passion and calling for conflict transformation and reconciliation. What about that?
Over the last two years since Seraphina was born, the Lord has been bringing me to a place of deeper understanding of what it means to be a wife and mother and to have a family on the field. He has been showing me that being a wife and mother actually enhances my witness and brings wisdom I wouldn't have had to my knowledge and passion for conflict transformation and reconciliation. To everything there is a season. In the West and in modernized societies, we are programmed to do things quickly and efficiently and to have instant gratification. The Lord has a different perspective on time, and He does things in seasons. He does things well and with wisdom. Sometimes it feels like all we’re doing is waiting for the Lord to open the door and make something happen, but He is teaching and instructing our hearts in ways that we didn't know we needed in order for us to be truly ready for that door to open. Our hearts are deceptive, especially to ourselves, and how desperately we need the Lord to give us grace and keep us from doing things prematurely so that we learn invaluable lessons that deepen our intimacy with Him. He is after our whole hearts. Sometimes that does mean that a season will suddenly shift and we have to act quickly. It's about learning to be in step with His Spirit.
I know the time will come when I will be doing more direct reconciliation work and conflict transformation trainings than I am now. But that's not actually the point of my life. The purpose of my life is for intimate, glorifying relationship with my King Jesus, my Father God. And whatever best serves that purpose in each season of my life is what I want to be doing. That is what truly fulfills me and satisfies my soul—if I would just relax a little, let go of preconceived ideas and expectations lodged in my flesh, and let it. When I was single, I was able to concentrate a lot harder, learn language much quicker, develop relationships with locals, and advance what I saw as my career and calling in conflict transformation much more efficiently. When I got married, before having babies, I was able to fully partner with my husband in leadership and in the ministry that we were doing, but the adjustment of becoming one with my husband and pioneering a work meant that language learning was slower and my passion for conflict transformation took a back seat. When I started having babies (we're about to have another baby, a son!), language learning got even slower, and I recognized that my children are my priority ministry and work now. Though I will still have time for ministry with locals and it will even be part of my ministry with my children, it won't be the same as before. For me, it is and continues to be entirely worth it. Having a family is sacred and precious and enriches my life in ways I don't even know yet. It is also incredibly humbling and gives me a deeper look into the heart of my heavenly Father. Family is very important in Kurdish culture as well, and it adds something significant and meaningful to our local relationships and our witness.
In no way do I say that to diminish the effectiveness of a single person on the field. There is so much that a single person can do more efficiently than a family on the field. I suppose you could say there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The Lord knows the desires of our hearts, and He knows our hearts. We can trust Him completely with our lives as His submitted children, that He will guide them into His good and perfect will. We just need to remember that it will often look different from what we expected, but it will be so much richer.
Nicole Hope serves the Kurdish people of northern Iraq, where she and her husband give operational leadership to FAI RELIEF.
