We have done quite a bit of visiting in the nearby villages, last week with door-to-door evangelism and then Monday meeting some widows and some families who had received a water filtration pump from Timothy Harvest Ministries, thanks to a partner in the states.
We continue to be welcomed with smiles and firm handshakes at each house. We’ve also gotten to go inside some of the houses, which was incredible. They are so solidly constructed and seem bigger on the inside than the outside!
But despite the joy that comes from these encounters, my favorite moments by far are still from the very first day we went into a village.
After several days of being driven around in cars, it seems that we have been eased in to African transportation. So nowadays, we more often hop into the back of a truck to get places (although with as many times as the truck sputtered to a stop Sunday as we were trying to get to church, we may be back in vans for a time). On Thursday, we were dropped off in a village and split into two groups, each taking one side of the street. With our fantastic translator Tapiwa, we made our way to the first house.
We introduced ourselves to the women (and a horde of children) who had so graciously laid out a mat for us to sit on while they sat on the ground. Morgan explained the Gospel to them, as they had never heard of Jesus before. When she had finished, she asked, “Do you believe that Jesus died for you?” And each one of them said yes. “Would you like to pray to Jesus with us?” Yes.
So we prayed together, Morgan speaking in English, Tapiwa translating to Chichewa, and all the women and children repeating after him.
At two other houses that day, the exact same thing happened. I think there were maybe one or two people who had ever heard the name of Jesus before, but they knew very little besides that. My teammates and I took turns praying and sharing the Good News and it was astounding the response we saw.
Since that day, I have had this song stuck in my head consistently.
(Sorry there’s no video – I can’t get it to embed with this connection. Also I’ve been singing a more upbeat choral version in my head, but I can’t find that on YouTube. Just imagine it a little faster.)
I can’t know how many of these people will truly have their lives changed by our sharing the story of Jesus, how many I will meet again in heaven. But I have been duly impressed by the power of the Holy Spirit in moving so many of them to profess belief for a message they’d just heard.
This truly is walking by faith and not sight.
And soon, there will be a way you can help increase these villagers’ faith. At one house in particular, the people we talked to begged us to leave a Bible for them to read. Apparently, some Christians they had talked to before had promised to bring them one but never did. They explained how desperate they were to learn more about God, as they never got this kind of instruction from their mosque.
My team is working on setting up a campaign so that all of you at home can join with us in raising money to buy Bibles that our ministry host can distribute to the villages. We’ve found an Internet cafe in town that seems to be working better than our wifi, so hopefully I will have more news on that front shortly! In the meantime, please be praying that God would provide both the Internet access and funds needed for this project.
