Well, we are back home after another round of village trips. This time we were able to visit two villages and share the stories of Cain and Abel and Noah in both. There were many hard things about the trip; the inescapable heat, nowhere comfortable to sit or relax, goats, sheep, cattle, and chickens wandering around you while you try to sleep outside at night, rice, rice, rice…these among other small, but still significant discomforts of village life.
However, this trip in particular was extra encouraging and made it easy to look past the discomforts. God was at work in a visible and tangible way.
This was the first time for me since being back to tell the stories in Yalunka. I always have mixed feelings about telling the stories because my brain hates to memorize them. It is a lot of hard work and uncomfortable to plow down the pathway of the story into my brain until I have it well enough to tell it in my sleep. BUT, once I have it memorized, there is nothing but pure joy. It is an honor and privilege to proclaim God’s glory to a nation that is hearing these stories for the first time.
The people really enjoyed the story of Cain and Abel. They were on the edge of their seats, laughing and clapping, completely engaged. After the story was told, our friend and teammate, who is a pastor to a church in Mali, began asking questions about the story. He also used Cain’s story to lead into a discussion about Christ. Just as God had put a mark on Cain so that people would not kill him, so is Christ our “mark” so that death will not touch us. The discussion took place in Bambara and in Yalunka. I tried my best to keep up, but I am not always able to hear everything. From what I did understand, it seems that the people are really starting to understand not only God’s power and majesty, but also who exactly this man Jesus is. I just sat there smiling with my heart aglow, taking it all in.
I was not only encouraged by the people’s understanding of Jesus, but also by a testimony that was given to us on the last day we were there. It may not seem like a big deal, but it was enough for me to want to go and hide in the hut so that I could sob at the feet of Jesus out of relief, joy, and thanks.
Several years ago, before I knew hardly any Yalunka, we would take our dry season trips and sometimes it felt like people saw us as magical genies. This is an exaggeration of course, but stick with me. They would straggle in one after another with prayer requests, many of them asking for blessing and had wishes for this or that. I believe prayer is powerful, but it didn’t seem like the people really got it. It seemed they wanted their wishes to come true more than they wanted to know God. I remember feeling discouraged and wondering what good we were really doing.
BUT
God has a way with things. He is good and doesn’t let us labor in vain when we are working for him.
As we were sitting there in the heat of the afternoon, a man arrived on his motorcycle. He said he had heard we were in that village and had come to tell us about his son whom we had prayed for about 4 or 5 years ago. His son at the time was just a baby, he was sick and asked us to ask God to heal him. He said several days after we had prayed, the boy was healed and hasn’t had a sick day since! He wanted to make sure we knew that and also asked for prayer for his wife who had left him. We prayed with him and encouraged him with the story of the prodigal son. Afterwards, we asked if he believed in Jesus. He said he didn’t know who Jesus was. So, once again we had a chance to share what Jesus did for him on the cross. He heard the words well, but still hasn’t decided whether to believe. I have no doubts though that God is at work in his life and leading him to himself.
So why was this so encouraging? We often work hard, but are not often reassured that what we are doing is effective. This man coming to share his testimony with us reminded me of a verse…
“Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest. Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things. Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another–or maybe both.” Ecclesiastes 11: 4-6
I was encouraged by this man to keep up on moving forward in the Lord’s work, immersing myself in God’s Word and prayer, for I never know what seed will take root in the lives of others even if I feel like I am laboring in vain at the time. I hope you can be encouraged by that too.
-Ashley Freytag, West Africa
