After the incredible week of NLTS, we turned our attention to
a new area of ministry. According
to the Joshua Project’s research, there is a pocket of Songhai people to the
South of Niamey and towards/along the border of Benin. This area basically consists of two
90+km (55 mile) roads with several market towns on each.
So the team from Living Hope, Randy, Cephas, Ibrahim (from Ayorou), and
myself loaded up into a bush taxi early Saturday morning and set out on a
seed-sowing adventure. From
talking to other organizations, I was pretty sure the Gospel had never been to
this area so we set out knowing this would largely be peoples' first encounter
with the message of Christ.
Earlier in the week I had shared with the team our Songhai team’s
ministry theme this year: sow with hope, reap with humility (taken from John
4).
We turned off the paved road and headed down our first dusty
road. While only 65 miles from the
capital city of Niamey, in the first village we stopped at we found out our
initial thoughts were true. No one
had ever brought the name of Jesus here. We were truly the first people to
carry the name of Jesus to this area.
Now, just stop and try to imagine that. Imagine driving from Bowling Green to
Louisville and stopping at every exit along the way only to find that no one in
this entire area had ever heard the Good News!
We knew we were in for quite a day as we pulled out of the
first village. The name of the
village meant “Salvation” and there was an openness we’ve rarely found in
Songhai villages. In just an hour in the village we identified several men of
peace (a process that sometimes takes months) and loaded back into the bush
taxi.
From here, a blog simply can’t describe the rest of our
trip. I need a cup of coffee and a
couple hours to sit down and try to describe for you how God moved in those
next 36 hours. I will simply try
to give some of the highlights here but for those of you at Living Hope, I
challenge you to give Travis, Bill, or Kasey a call and take them out to lunch
to hear what happened.
Names of villages:
As I’ve already stated, the first village name meant
“salvation.” The Gospel-centered
named of villages didn’t stop there.
We would later find villages named “Debt Paid,” “Surrender,” “People of
the Fruit,” and “Clearing the Way.”
It was if God had been preparing these people for His Good News since
centuries ago when their villages were named.
Fruit:
At the second village two men confessed Christ! There are missionaries who go entire
terms (& even careers) who don’t see the fruit we saw half a day into our
trip! Fruit here usually takes
time and while we truly were trying to sow in hope, I thought (if I’m totally
honest) that this would simply be a foundation laying trip of sowing the
initial seeds.
Every village we went into we immediately found men of peace
or had people actually confess Christ!
Every village we entered we also heard the same thing: “we’ve never
heard this message,” or “we’ve never heard of Jesus.” One man, after we asked if we could pray for him said “I
don’t know what you mean by ‘prayer,’ I’ve never seen a Christian much less
seen one pray.” After explaining
to him what prayer was for a Christian, he eagerly wanted us to pray for him and
his village.
By the time we reached our final destination, 15 men (mostly
in their 20’s or 30’s) had confessed Christ with 10 actually following through
with baptism!
Amazing things:
Here’s where it gets hard to capture the whole trip so I’ll
just share 2 stories.
In the first village where someone believed, one of the
believers was a reader (pretty rare out in the bush) so we gave him a
Bible. So here is this brand new
believer, he’s heard and responded.
He now has God’s Word.
That’s really all the time we had with him before we had to move
on. Yet, without any prompting
from us, he immediately walks straight to a group of the village elders and
begins reading the Bible to them!
In the last village on the first day we saw our ministry
philosophy (His sheep hear His voice) in action. As Cephas shared with a group of men several were obviously
uninterested, a few wanted to debate, but there was one who was captivated by
the words he was hearing. He
grabbed us to talk more about this Good News. He not only believed but wanted to be baptized.
At the river he takes out a pack of cigarettes and says “I
don’t need these anymore.” Then he
takes out his Muslim prayer beads and says “I don’t need these anymore.” Then he takes out two amulets and says
“I don’t need these anymore.” In a
matter of minutes he was laying down every idol he owned, breaking free from his
previous generation's false gods, and acknowledging Christ was all he needed.
As we prepared to leave we asked what he wanted us to pray
for him. Here were his two requests:
1) that I’ll show grace to those who curse and persecute me and 2) more in my
village will believe.
Well God answered his prayer and in a matter of minutes there were now 9 more
who believed and were ready to be baptized! We also learned how great the sacrifice of his amulets
was. This was a man known in the
village to be possessed by a demon.
A fierce demon who would take him and throw him to the ground. His only protection from this demon
were these 2 amulets. These
weren’t some good luck charm, they represented salvation for him. And yet, he understood he didn’t need
them any longer, he had a better salvation!
These stories only scratch the surface of a truly
unforgettable weekend. The fruit
we were able to see was not because of our clever strategy or great ability but
because we simply went and shared the name of Jesus with those who’d never
heard and God’s sheep heard His voice.
We were all challenged and,
quite frankly embarrassed, by the deep faith these new believers showed. Do we so quickly part with our
idols? Do we pray for grace to
those who hate us? Do we go share
to those who have the power to hurt us?
We may have our systematic theologies all neatly lined up in our heads
but these young believers understand something far too many of us sadly miss out on.
