Please keep us in prayer Sunday and Monday as we travel to the United States for our home assignment. Our travel time totals nearly 24 hours including a four hour layover in the Paris airport. Pray that there will be no delays or missed flights. Pray that all our luggage will arrive, and nothing will be stolen or lost along the way.
On Saturday evening after the medical clinic, one of my colleagues invited me to go with him to greet the head imam (mosque leader) and give him Scripture. This missionary had felt a burden to greet the imam but had been unable to find him. We headed toward the mosque after the call to prayer. When we arrived, we entered the courtyard outside the mosque but found that the imam was not there. There are two mosques in the village, and the imam rotated between the two mosques. We asked one of the men in the courtyard if he could guide us to the imam’s home. He agreed and off we went, walking in the dark by the light of a flashlight.
Finally, after about a ten minute walk, we arrived at the imam’s home. At first he welcomed us warmly. We greeted him, and he brought chairs for us to sit on. We chatted for a few minutes. Then, we offered him a gift, the books of Genesis and Matthew in Pular Arabic script. When he saw what we were offering, his attitude turned cold. “I can’t read this,” he said. At first we were unsure if he was unable to read it (illiterate) or unwilling. After some more questions, it became apparent that he was unwilling. He refused to even accept it. We tried in vain to convince him he ought to accept it and read it, that it showed the path to eternal life in heaven. Before long, he rudely ushered us out of his home. Even though he didn’t want to, he guided us back to the main road himself because he didn’t want his grandson to guide us alone, fearing that we would speak to him about the Gospel.
As we arrived back at the clinic where we would be sleeping that night, we stopped and prayed for the stubborn imam. We also prayed that he would not succeed in leading his community astray or turning them against our message. You, too, can pray with us for the stubborn imam and his village.
One thing I love about working in the village is traipsing to the outhouse by the light of the moon in the middle of the night. (No, not really.) The first night we were in Loomal for the medical clinic, I went to the outhouse and accidentally walked through a swarm of cula (chew-la), also known as African driver ants. These ants travel in great swarms, up to 20 million strong. They like to swarm over something or someone and all begin biting simultaneously. They have been known to reduce a bird to bones in a few hours. Unfortunately, the cula did not start biting me until I was back in our room. They had gotten all the way up to my head, and were spread all over the floor. David helped pick them off me and I spent the next several hours feeling the lasting sting of their bites.
The second night in Loomal, I was determined to not have to go out in the middle of the night and thus reduce my chances of cula problems. You can imagine my surprise when I was jolted awake by David saying that cula were on him. That meant they were in the bed. David grabbed his flashlight and found that thousands of cula had entered the room at a ground level hole on the wall. They were swarming over our clothing on a chair in the corner. We were able to spray some bug spray around the legs of the bed to keep them from climbing up, and by morning, they were almost all gone. Our colleagues, who had their bedrolls on the ground did get bit a few times, but were able to shake the ants off and get away. The wife spent the remainder of the night in a folding chair and the husband slept on a long, wooden bench.
This past weekend we helped out at a medical clinic outreach in a village deep in the Guinean countryside. During the course of the clinic, we saw 92 patients. Diagnoses ranged from the minor (heartburn) to the serious (heart murmur) to the critical (kidney failure). We saw people of all ages from infants to a man 90 years old. Billlie helped out mainly by registering the patients as they arrived. David helped by showing the Jesus Film to people as they waited and by selling Scripture and health literature at the registration table. Every person who came through the clinic was prayed for and received an audio cassette of Scripture before they left. In the next few blogs, we will be sharing some of our experiences from the clinic.
This past week, a colleague and I went on an outreach to a village market. We loaded up our backpacks with Scriptures and other literature and drove approximately two hours into the Guinean countryside. There we came to a village where they were having a weekly market.
We prayed, got out of the car, and headed toward the market. As we approached we saw some women dressed in the telltale head-to-toe covering of the most fundamental sect of Islam. Fortunately, most women were not dressed this way.
We began calling out in Pular, “God’s Books, God’s Books! Buy God’s Books!” A crowd quickly gathered around us, and the people began looking to see what we had for sale. We were carrying translations of Genesis and Matthew. We also had Scripture calendars and some health books.
Almost immediately, people began buying Scriptures. My colleague and I split up to cover more ground. In places, a crowd gathered around me, a few people would buy some literature, and the crowd would gradually disperse. Then, I moved on to another spot, and the same thing happened again. It seems that people attract more people. The people also seemed vaguely amused to see white people, dressed in African clothes, selling Holy Books and speaking Pular. Some even asked if I was Arab.
As the day wore on, we sold more and more literature. Eventually, it was time for us to head back home. We had a quick meal of rice and peanut sauce at a lunch counter and headed back to the truck.
Some people ask why we sell Scripture in markets here instead of giving it away. Quite simply, by asking a price for the books, we show that we are selling something valuable. We know God’s Word is more valuable than anything else in the market. Of course, we sell it for less than we paid for it. We are not trying to make a profit, only to keep the books from ending up crumpled on the ground. If people pay for something, however little, they are more likely to value it and read it.
One morning last week David woke me up waving a donut recipe in my face yelling “donuts, donuts, donuts…” It was inevitable. I knew his five- day- donut- hankerin’ would get the best of him.
Of course, I have never made homemade donuts a day in my life (who does?); but I can read a recipe. Since it was really cold in the house (high 60s), the donuts had to rise in the oven for three hours. And then again for another hour after we rolled and cut them. Since necessity is the mother of invention, we used a round, plastic container, and a soda bottle top to cut out each donut. David made the glaze and topped each masterpiece as it came out of the pot.
Since it was 5 o’clock in the evening before they were all finished, we ate them for dinner. We ate, and we ate, and we ate. We ate so many donuts we thought we would barf. They were incredible! David said they tasted exactly like store bought donuts. Definitely Hot, Steamy Goodness!
Earlier this week our colleague found a three foot long, spitting cobra in his yard. In the cool of the morning the husband went out to turn on their generator. When he opened the door to the generator house, he was greeted by the snake who was in the hooded position. Our colleague quickly backed out of the shed and closed the door; knowing that if the snake spit into his eyes he could be blinded, and if it struck him, the venom would be deadly.
Thankfully, the missionary was able to kill the snake before anyone was injured; although not before we arrived to take some action photos.
Two days ago, while waiting outside a store, I struck up a conversation with the young man sitting on the bench next to me. After some small talk, I asked him if he prayed. That is a common question here to find out if someone takes their Islamic religion seriously. It is also a good way to start a spiritual conversation.
The young man, “Sal,” responded in the affirmative. He said that he does pray, and that he had studied the Qur’an. I asked him if he could understand what he was saying when he prayed, since Muslims are required to pray in Arabic, and he said no. He had simply memorized the words to the prayers and repeated them from memory.
He asked me if I pray. Knowing he was wondering if I was a Muslim, I answered “yes, I do pray” but was quick to emphasize that I am a follower of Jesus, the Messiah. To this he replied, “Does he live in your neighborhood?”
I answered, “No, I mean Jesus the Messiah who is written about in the Gospel.” Our discussion continued on, and two days later I was able to bring him a copy of the Gospel to see for himself.
Pray for Sal, and the others that I met there that day, that they will come to know Jesus, the Messiah for themselves.
Saturday was full of drama around our house. David woke up and unlocked the doors to find our guard, Mr. B so sick he couldn’t walk. David took him to a colleague who used to be a nurse. She recommended he be taken to a local clinic for further examination. After trips to two clinics, David was able to find a doctor who knew what he was talking about. He then returned home to have lunch.
After lunch, David went to several pharmacies to fill Mr. B’s prescriptions. When he returned, I went out to open the gate for him and heard our two year old neighbor screaming. His grandma said he put his hand in a pot of boiling sauce. She wanted to know if I could help them. I had no clue about treating burns, so I ran inside and called our colleague. She came over right away and showed me how to treat a burn.
Now the toddler comes to our house every day at 4 o’clock for treatment. I am getting better at cleaning and dressing his wounds, but my hands still shake when I have to pull dead skin off his little hand. He should be totally healed within a week or two, and Mr. B will be well in a few weeks if he takes all his medicine, too.
I’m grateful for opportunities like these to reach out to those around us. It’s fulfilling to share the love of Christ in a tangible way. It also gives me hope that they’ll be more open to the Gospel when my language skills are sufficient to share it with them.
December 26 was David’s 30th birthday. We planned to get together with our colleagues at 8 p.m. for cake, cookies, prayer, and worship. At 7:30, after the buffet was set and the cookies were just coming out of the oven, a co-worker called to cancel. They had already baked a birthday cake for David when they remembered it was the first night of a country-wide 8 p.m. curfew. The wife quickly brought the cake to us, returning to her own home minutes before eight o’clock.
Just a few minutes after 8, gunfire could be heard all around our home. David quickly ran in from the office, bringing the computer with him. We turned on our two way radios so we could be in contact with our colleagues, turned off all our solar lights so we wouldn’t draw unnecessary attention to our home, locked all the outside doors and retreated to our bedroom on the back side of the house, the furthest room from the street. We prayed that a stray bullet wouldn’t hit us, our car, or our solar panels.
As we waited for the gunfire to stop, we watched a recently borrowed movie. About half way through, an extremely loud bang came from the office building that sits just beside our bedroom. “What was that?” I asked. David paused the movie, turned, with wide eyes and said, “I don’t know, and I’m not going to look.”
At about 11 p.m. the shooting stopped and David was able to go to the office to call his mom for a birthday chat. He opened the office door and saw that a stray bullet had come through the tin roof and landed beside his office chair.
It was later reported that soldiers were firing into the air to both to honor the late president, and to celebrate the fact that the new president is a military man.
We were thankful there was no serious damage to anyone or anything, and we were able to reschedule David’s party for the next day.
