LCMS World Mission Blog

“‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds,’ (James 1:2). How difficult it is in our flesh to put these words into practice! Yet we have had opportunities to do just that in the last month. We thank God even for these trials as they are opportunities for us to develop perseverance. The main obstacle Satan keeps throwing in our path is people who deceive others with the hope of monetary gain. They have caused much heartache in our church and continue to do so. The latest conflict has been over the building of a well and a wall on our property. I won’t go into all the details but suffice it to say that there has been a lot of time and energy spent on this issue instead of the progress of the Gospel.

“Another challenge this month was a rare experience for me in Africa. I offered to help with logistics for an evangelism program at the Guinea/Mali border. We planned on showing the Jesus film at two villages, three nights at each one. We spent three nights in the first village and it went extremely well. The village chief came and said although he wasn’t going to become a follower of Jesus, if we spent a month or so there, than it was likely that many others would. There is one man there who does believe but has paid a heavy price for his faith. We stayed at his house and he was overflowing with joy to have a chance to fellowship with other believers. We went to a second village eight kilometers away and planned also to spend three nights there. The first night went by without a hitch, but as we were getting ready to get started on the second night, the village chief asked us to ‘stop the work you’re doing.’ Since we weren’t there to create arguments or force our faith on anyone, we obliged. It was, however, very discouraging to everyone involved. One of the pastors from the Malian church really wanted to try for another village, but the others dissuaded him, since in this area a lot of preparation needs to take place before evangelism (especially large group evangelism) can take place. The frustrating thing of course was we had arranged in advance in this village, and we had been well received, even for the first night, but in the end we were rejected.

“In both cases, however, we continue to persevere. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we are able to count these trials as joy, but God has more than one way of encouraging His children. We’ve been very encouraged by the progress of God’s Mission in village ‘M.G.’ An elder in this village has had many positive contacts with Christians (he was healed from leprosy by Catholics in Mali) and has been very receptive to the Gospel. We visited him two times this past month, and had many fruitful conversations. While there is still much work to be done, the groundwork is being laid for not only this man’s family but for many in the village to ‘cross over from death to life’ (John. 5:24).”