Shammah and Nissi are two Christian brothers that our team and Darcy’s team became friends with in Cote d’Ivoire. I wanted to write a blog highlighting their lives because their parents are missionaries and they have lived a very interesting life due to this.
Shammah started out by telling me about his parents building churches in Cote d’Ivoire. He told me that, “Here [in Cote d’Ivoire] people love life,” and “It’s difficult to change people’s perspective from getting something to giving.” Shammah told me that there was a lot of grassroots evangelism that had to take place there in order for the ministry to grow.
Shammah and Nissi’s parents’ first church was a rented hall in Koumassi, Cote d’Ivoire. After about one to two years people started coming to the church and many were saved. Then the landlord came and told their parents that they would have to leave this place. Shammah told me that his parents were asked to leave by the landlord five times in five different places. He told me that it’s an indicator that people don’t generally like God in Cote d’Ivoire. So their family prayed for the country, and he told me “in the midst of this calous attitude, there were some who really loved God.”
Shammah shared with me a story about a man his family encountered early on in their ministry.
He said that one time a man came to their doorstep whom their family had never met before. He had nowhere to live, so they took him in. Shammah told me that they knew nothing about him, other than he told them that he came from the Congo and had nothing. Shammah was only 7 years old at the time (which would
mean Nissi was 6 years old, their middle brother was 12, their sister was 15, and their oldest brother was 18.) He told me that even though they had a 2-room house, they let him stay. Their mom was scared because they have a sister and the whole family would have to sleep in the same room, including this strange man. However, the man ended up joining his father’s discipleship group and accepted Christ.
Now, 12 years later, the man that they had taken in is a pastor of a big church in Cocody. Shammah told me, “We can’t know the end of something from the beginning.”
Shammah and Nissi also shared with me some of their family background. Shammah and Nissi were born in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, but they consider themselves Nigerian because that’s where they’ve lived most of their lives.
They lived in Cote d’Ivoire until 2001. Then a civil war broke out in Cote d’Ivoire in 2002, so their family moved to Togo (another country in West Africa). They stayed in Togo for about a year, then they moved to Nigeria and lived there until 2010. In 2010 they decided to return to Cote d’Ivoire, but they had only stayed another year when a second civil war broke out in Cote d’Ivoire in 2011. After that, they returned to Nigeria and lived there from 2011-2015.
In 2015, their family came back to live in Cote d’Ivoire and lived at Mission Ephrata for 11 months. Shammah, Nissi, and their parents moved out of Mission Ephrata in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire and moved to Cocody, Cote d’Ivoire, shortly before our teams came to stay at Mission Ephrata this past month. And because their parents are friends with Pastor Zacharie, the boys still come visit Mission Ephrata to attend church most Sundays, which is how we met these friends of ours. Their parents currently have several ministries in Cocody, Koumassi.
Right now, Shammah and Nissi are both hoping to attend Concordia College this January 2017, which is a Christian university in Minesota, back in America! Nissi is studying to be a Pharmacist and Shammah is studying Electrical Engineering. Shammah told me that “Electricity is a major factor in Nigeria. It’s almost not there. I intend to change that.” He told me how sometimes they have electricity in Nigeria and sometimes they don’t because it goes out a lot. He told me about his dream to make solar electricity more available in Nigeria by finding cheaper ways to make solar panels and install the materials.
Shammah and Nissi told me that they are seeing the need more and more for people to become missionaries to spread the Gospel. They told me that after 4 years of college, they are both considering doing the World Race! So if the Lord leads them to, these wonderful brothers in Christ that I am blogging about might actually become future World Racers!
We got to spend a lot of time with them while we stayed at Mission Ephrata because they would come to visit us on our days off together, where they showed us around Abidjan and Cocody and we got to know them better.
Hannah, a member of Darcy’s team, was teasing Shammah and Nissi about how they’re always counting us World Racers when we go out into town and said, “You know, if you just missed one or two of us, it won’t be that big of a deal.” But Shammah looked back at her, concerned, and said, “I am the good shepard. A good shepard knows his sheep and would go after the one who got lost or separated.”
She laughed and explained how she was joking, but during our time in Cote d’Ivoire, they have been our good shepards, just like Jesus created all Christian men to be. One of my biggest blessings this month was meeting these two Christian men who became our good friends.
This is my last blog and story to share from Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa! Currently, we have already arrived safely to our second country, Ghana, and we are in the midst of Month 2 of the World Race! My next blogs will be about what we’re doing on the field in Ghana and what God is doing in my heart here. I still have some videos to post from Cote d’Ivoire, but the Wifi situation is still slow here, so I might not be able to upload those until we get to Nepal in early October. But stay on the lookout in case I’m able to post them earlier than expected!
As always, thank you, thank you so much to everyone who has supported me financially or prayerfully to help make this mission trip possible! I could not have done it without all of your help! A big shout-out to all of the generous donations I have received since my last blog! Thank you so much! I am now able to cover my student loan payments for the month of September, and I have received a donation for some spending money on the field for essentials like shampoo, paid public bathrooms, meals out with the team, and other incidentals that may come up that are not covered by my fundraising budget that Adventures covers for us. Thank you all for making this possible! I have also received several generous donation towards my World Race account since posting my last blog! Thank you to those individuals and families as well!
If you feel led to support me financially, whether that be $1, $5, $50, or another amount God has laid on your heart, please click the “donate” button above to make a tax-deductible donation to help support my World Race mission trip!
If you would love to help support me, but aren’t in a position to give financially, you can help me by praying that I would be fully funded by Nov. 30th and funded up to $14,000 by Sept. 30th. You can also pray for our team and Darcy’s team as we serve at City of Refuge Ministries this month in Ghana, or help share this blog with others who may be interested in reading it, praying for us, or supporting me. Your prayers are so important and your support is helping me to stay on the mission field where God has me. Thank you all for this amazing opportunity! More stories from the field to come!
