Engineering in Africa

I'm a woman, and I'm an engineer. I get asked a lot about what it is like being a woman who works in an industry that is predominantly male. As a woman engineer, I don't try to be "one of the guys". I am still a woman, and that is inevitably a part of how I do my job and interact with people. As a woman in engineering graduating from Penn State, I was able to learn from and work with many other women in engineering. My senior design group, pictured below, was all women. I have no idea what being a woman engineer will be like in Africa. I am sure that it will present unique challenges, but hopefully it will also present unique opportunities.


I work as an engineer in a job with nearly every resource available to me. If it exists, it can be shipped overnight and installed immediately. There are people with expertise in every practical area of engineering employed to answer questions and solve problems. Things will be very different working in Sudan.

The only things that I know about being an engineer in Africa are the things I have learned from conversations and emails with Michael. It is exciting to be preparing for something that I have been praying about in some way for almost five years. Yet even after all the ways that God has made His will for my life clear, I still have moments of doubt as I follow Jesus to something unknown.

I know that God has called me to serve Him in Sudan, but there are times when I think that I don't have enough knowledge or experience, that I don't communicate well enough, or that I won't be able to handle the challenges. The truth is that I need God, and He is sufficient. I hear the lies so often coming from the world, but when the lies start to go through my mind, I know I haven't been putting on the whole armor of God through prayer.

I am always convicted and encouraged by the words of Oswald Chambers on prayer and the armor of God. It is a little long for a blog post, but I hope it is worth the read for you.

You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn’t meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint. Don’t become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because "we are more than conquerors through Him ...." Wrestling before God makes an impact in His kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness— "take up the whole armor of God...."

Always make a distinction between God’s perfect will and His permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our lives. God’s perfect will is unchangeable. It is with His permissive will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must wrestle before Him. It is our reaction to these things allowed by His permissive will that enables us to come to the point of seeing His perfect will for us. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . ." — to those who remain true to God’s perfect will— His calling in Christ Jesus. God’s permissive will is the testing He uses to reveal His true sons and daughters. We should not be spineless and automatically say, "Yes, it is the Lord’s will." We don’t have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength. ~ Oswald Chambers